Who's teaching L.A.'s kids?

[phongn]

Who's teaching L.A.'s kids?

A Times analysis, using data largely ignored by LAUSD, looks at which educators help students learn, and which hold them back.

By Jason Felch, Jason Song and Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times

12:34 PM PDT, August 14, 2010


The fifth-graders at Broadous Elementary School come from the same world — the poorest corner of the San Fernando Valley, a Pacoima neighborhood framed by two freeways where some have lost friends to the stray bullets of rival gangs.

Many are the sons and daughters of Latino immigrants who never finished high school, hard-working parents who keep a respectful distance and trust educators to do what's best.

The students study the same lessons. They are often on the same chapter of the same book.

Yet year after year, one fifth-grade class learns far more than the other down the hall. The difference has almost nothing to do with the size of the class, the students or their parents.

It's their teachers.

With Miguel Aguilar, students consistently have made striking gains on state standardized tests, many of them vaulting from the bottom third of students in Los Angeles schools to well above average, according to a Times analysis. John Smith's pupils next door have started out slightly ahead of Aguilar's but by the end of the year have been far behind.

In Los Angeles and across the country, education officials have long known of the often huge disparities among teachers. They've seen the indelible effects, for good and ill, on children. But rather than analyze and address these disparities, they have opted mostly to ignore them.

Most districts act as though one teacher is about as good as another. As a result, the most effective teachers often go unrecognized, the keys to their success rarely studied. Ineffective teachers often face no consequences and get no extra help.

Which teacher a child gets is usually an accident of fate, in which the progress of some students is hindered while others just steps away thrive.

Though the government spends billions of dollars every year on education, relatively little of the money has gone to figuring out which teachers are effective and why.


Seeking to shed light on the problem, The Times obtained seven years of math and English test scores from the Los Angeles Unified School District and used the information to estimate the effectiveness of L.A. teachers — something the district could do but has not.

The Times used a statistical approach known as value-added analysis, which rates teachers based on their students' progress on standardized tests from year to year. Each student's performance is compared with his or her own in past years, which largely controls for outside influences often blamed for academic failure: poverty, prior learning and other factors.

Though controversial among teachers and others, the method has been increasingly embraced by education leaders and policymakers across the country, including the Obama administration.

In coming months, The Times will publish a series of articles and a database analyzing individual teachers' effectiveness in the nation's second-largest school district — the first time, experts say, such information has been made public anywhere in the country.

This article examines the performance of more than 6,000 third- through fifth-grade teachers for whom reliable data were available.


Among the findings:

• Highly effective teachers routinely propel students from below grade level to advanced in a single year. There is a substantial gap at year's end between students whose teachers were in the top 10% in effectiveness and the bottom 10%. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.

• Some students landed in the classrooms of the poorest-performing instructors year after year — a potentially devastating setback that the district could have avoided. Over the period analyzed, more than 8,000 students got such a math or English teacher at least twice in a row.

• Contrary to popular belief, the best teachers were not concentrated in schools in the most affluent neighborhoods, nor were the weakest instructors bunched in poor areas. Rather, these teachers were scattered throughout the district. The quality of instruction typically varied far more within a school than between schools.

• Although many parents fixate on picking the right school for their child, it matters far more which teacher the child gets. Teachers had three times as much influence on students' academic development as the school they attend. Yet parents have no access to objective information about individual instructors, and they often have little say in which teacher their child gets.

• Many of the factors commonly assumed to be important to teachers' effectiveness were not. Although teachers are paid more for experience, education and training, none of this had much bearing on whether they improved their students' performance.

Other studies of the district have found that students' race, wealth, English proficiency or previous achievement level played little role in whether their teacher was effective.

"In the past, too often we've just gone with gut instinct and haven't been careful about whether those things are important," said Richard Buddin, a senior economist and education researcher at Rand Corp., who conducted the statistical analysis as an independent consultant for The Times.

Many teachers and union leaders are skeptical of the value-added approach, saying standardized tests are flawed and do not capture the more intangible benefits of good instruction. Some also fear teachers will be fired based on the arcane calculations of statisticians who have never worked in a classroom.

The respected National Academy of Sciences weighed in last October, saying the approach was promising but should not be used in "high stakes" decisions — firing teachers, for instance — without more study.

No one suggests using value-added analysis as the sole measure of a teacher. Many experts recommend that it count for half or less of a teacher's overall evaluation.

And in Los Angeles, the method can be used for only a portion of the district's roughly 14,000 elementary school instructors: California students don't take the test until second grade and teachers must have had enough students for the results to be reliable.

Nevertheless, value-added analysis offers the closest thing available to an objective assessment of teachers. And it might help in resolving the greater mystery of what makes for effective teaching, and whether such skills can be taught.

On visits to the classrooms of more than 50 elementary school teachers in Los Angeles, Times reporters found that the most effective instructors differed widely in style and personality. Perhaps not surprisingly, they shared a tendency to be strict, maintain high standards and encourage critical thinking.

But the surest sign of a teacher's effectiveness was the engagement of his or her students — something that often was obvious from the expressions on their faces.

Study in contrasts

On a spring day at Broadous, all eyes in Room 26 were on the white board.

Miguel Aguilar had brought his fifth-graders to the edge of their seats — with a math problem.

Aguilar, a stocky 33-year-old who grew up in the area, is no showman. Soft-spoken and often stern, he doles out praise sparingly. It only seems to make his students try harder.

"Once in a while we joke around, but they know what my expectations are," he said. "When we open a book, we're focused."

It seems to work: On average, his students started the year in the 34th percentile in math compared with all other district fifth-graders. They finished in the 61st. Those gains, along with strong results in English, made him one of the most effective elementary school teachers in the district.

On this day, Aguilar had invited a student to the board to divide two fractions — a topic on the upcoming state exam. As his classmates compared notes in whispers, the boy wrote out his answer. Aguilar turned to the class.

"Do you agree?" he asked, without hinting at the correct response.

"Yes!" they called back in unison.

"Good," he said softly, allowing a faint smile. "You know this."

John Smith's students in Room 25 were studying fractions too.

Speaking in a slow cadence, he led his class in reciting a problem aloud twice. He then called on a student slouched in the back. The boy got the answer wrong.

"Not so much," Smith said dryly, moving on to another pupil without explanation.

It was only 11a.m., and already it had been a tough day: Three of Smith's students were sitting in the principal's office because of disruptive behavior. All were later transferred permanently to other classrooms.

In an interview days later, Smith acknowledged that he had struggled at times to control his class.

"Not every teacher works with every kid," said Smith, 63, who started teaching in 1996. "Sometimes there are personality conflicts."

On average, Smith's students slide under his instruction, losing 14 percentile points in math during the school year relative to their peers districtwide, The Times found. Overall, he ranked among the least effective of the district's elementary school teachers.

Told of The Times' findings, Smith expressed mild surprise.

"Obviously what I need to do is to look at what I'm doing and take some steps to make sure something changes," he said.

Jobs with security

Public school students are graded and tested all the time. Schools are scored too — California rates them in an annual index.

Not so with teachers.

Nationally, the vast majority who seek tenure get it after a few years on the job, practically ensuring a position for life. After that, pay and job protections depend mostly on seniority, not performance.

Teachers have long been evaluated based on brief, pre-announced visits by principals who offer a confidential and subjective assessment of their skills. How much students are learning is rarely taken into account, and more than 90% of educators receive a passing grade, according to a survey of 12 districts in four states by the New Teacher Project, a New York-based nonprofit.

Almost all sides in the debate over public education agree that the evaluation system is broken. The dispute centers on how to fix it.

Value-added analysis offers a rigorous approach. In essence, a student's past performance on tests is used to project his or her future results. The difference between the prediction and the student's actual performance after a year is the "value" that the teacher added or subtracted.

For example, if a third-grade student ranked in the 60th percentile among all district third-graders, he would be expected to rank similarly in fourth grade. If he fell to the 40th percentile, it would suggest that his teacher had not been very effective, at least for him. If he sprang into the 80th percentile, his teacher would appear to have been highly effective.

Any single student's performance in a given year could be due to other factors — a child's attention could suffer during a divorce, for example. But when the performance of dozens of a teacher's students is averaged — often over several years — the value-added score becomes more reliable, statisticians say.

The approach, pioneered by economists in the 1970s, has only recently gained traction in education.

A small number of states and districts already use value-added scores to determine which teachers should be rewarded and which need help. This summer, one district took a harder line: Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired 26 teachers based in significant part on their poor value-added scores.

Prompted by federal education grants, California and several other states are now proposing to make value-added a significant component of teacher evaluations. If the money comes through, Los Angeles schools will have to rely on the data for at least 30% of a teacher's evaluation by 2013.

The Times found that the district could have acted far earlier. In the last decade, district researchers have sporadically used value-added analysis to evaluate charter schools and study after-school programs. Administrators balked at using the data to study individual teachers, however, despite encouragement from the district's own experts.

In a 2006 report, for instance, L.A. Unified researchers concluded that the approach was "feasible and valid" and held "great promise" for improving instruction. But district officials did not take action, fearful of picking a fight with the teachers union in the midst of contract negotiations, according to former district officials.

In an interview last week, A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, was adamant that value-added should not be used to evaluate teachers, citing concerns about its reliance on test scores and its tendency to encourage "teaching to the test." But Duffy said the data could provide useful feedback.

"I'm not opposed to standardized tests as one means to helping teachers look at what's happening in their classrooms," he said.

Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who was appointed in late 2008 and plans to retire in the spring, acknowledged that the district could have done more with value-added analysis but was focused on other ways of improving instruction, as well as with staying solvent.

"We have better data than anyone else in the nation — we just don't use it well," he said. "I think it's the next step. It has to be done."

A task force created by the Los Angeles school board to promote teacher effectiveness raised the issue in April, urging the use of value-added scores as one measure of performance.

The task force chairman, Ted Mitchell, said the changes were long overdue.

"I think it's simply a failure of will," said Mitchell, who also heads the State Board of Education.

'Don't be a robot!'

Even at Third Street Elementary in Hancock Park, one of the most well-regarded schools in the district, Karen Caruso stands out for her dedication and professional accomplishments.

A teacher since 1984, she was one of the first in the district to be certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In her spare time, she attends professional development workshops and teaches future teachers at UCLA.

She leads her school's teacher reading circle. In her purse last spring, she carried a book called "Strategies for Effective Teaching."

Third Street Principal Suzie Oh described Caruso as one of her most effective teachers.

But seven years of student test scores suggest otherwise.

In the Times analysis, Caruso, who teaches third grade, ranked among the bottom 10% of elementary school teachers in boosting students' test scores. On average, her students started the year at a high level — above the 80th percentile — but by the end had sunk 11 percentile points in math and 5 points in English.

Caruso said she was surprised and disappointed by her results, adding that her students did well on periodic assessments and that parents seemed well-satisfied.

"Ms. Caruso was an amazing teacher," said Rita Gasparetti, whose daughter was in Caruso's class a few years ago. "She really worked with Clara, socially and academically."

Still, Caruso said the numbers were important and, like several other teachers interviewed, wondered why she hadn't been shown such data before by anyone in the district.

"For better or worse," she said, "testing and teacher effectiveness are going to be linked.… If my student test scores show I'm an ineffective teacher, I'd like to know what contributes to it. What do I need to do to bring my average up?"

During recent classes observed by a reporter, Caruso set clear expectations for her students but seemed reluctant to challenge them. In reviewing new vocabulary, for instance, Caruso asked her third-graders to find the sentence where the word "route" appeared in a story.

"Copy it just like it's written," she instructed the class, most of whom started the year advanced for their grade.

"Some teachers have kids use new words in their own sentences," Caruso explained. "I think that's too difficult."

She dismissed the weekly vocabulary quizzes that other teachers give as "old school."

Down the hall from Caruso, fourth-grade teacher Nancy Polacheck was grilling her students on vocabulary, urging them to think hard about what the words meant.

"Don't be a robot!" she said.

Polacheck is another teacher whom Oh identified as one of her top performers. And the Times analysis suggests that the principal is right: Polacheck's students gained 5 percentile points in math after a year in her class, and 4 points in English. That put her in the top 5% of elementary school teachers.

An animated woman with a blond ponytail flowing from the top of her head into her bespectacled eyes, Polacheck has been teaching for 38 years. The desks in her classroom are often set up like seats around a stage, with Polacheck, a self-described "drama queen," in the center.

Her teaching style is a rat-a-tat-tat of questions, the most common of which is "why?"

Polacheck said her colleagues at Third Street think her expectations are too high. She was reluctant to be singled out in any way, repeatedly asking a reporter why she was being interviewed.

"In the past, if I were recognized, I would become an outcast," said Polacheck, who eats her lunch alone in her classroom. "They'd say, 'She's trying to show off.' "

A long process

As the district was appointing the task force and seeking federal dollars, some enterprising principals in L.A. schools began making back-of-the-envelope assessments of teachers using raw test scores.

One clear lesson so far: Finding the least effective teachers is only the first step in a long process.

In 2008, officials at Sunrise Elementary in Boyle Heights, one of 15 campuses under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's control, identified several teachers whose student scores were sliding.

The mayor's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools gave them math and literacy coaches, more feedback and the opportunity to watch their more effective peers, said Angela Bass, the group's former superintendent of instruction.

Of three Sunrise teachers who ranked in the bottom 10% districtwide, just one has dramatically improved, according to the Times analysis.

Bass acknowledged that it could take years for foundering instructors to improve, if they do at all. In the meantime, about 20 students a year will continue to sit through their classes.

"It's tragic," Bass said. "It means we've failed them."

Miko Dixon, the principal at Topeka Drive Elementary in Northridge, took a tougher approach. Upon starting the job in 2009, she said, she identified four highly ineffective teachers. One had decided, with the approval of the previous principal, to keep his second-graders as they moved to third grade, ensuring two years of poor teaching in a row.

"It's criminal," Dixon said. "If you get a bad teacher in second and third grade, you're doomed."

Dixon has begun trying to remove the four teachers, a painfully slow process in California. It's far more likely that they will feel the pressure and transfer to another school, she said.

"That's not right," Dixon said, "but it's reality."

Parental trust

For now, parents remain mostly in the dark.

Even the most involved mothers and fathers have little means of judging instructors other than through classroom visits and parking lot chatter. Others don't even have time for that.

Without reliable information, it comes down to trust. Which instructor a child gets is usually decided behind closed doors by principals and teachers, whose criteria vary widely.

"Mi niño, all his teachers are good," said Maura Merino, whose son Valentin Cruz was in the fifth-grade class of John Smith, the low-performing Broadous teacher, last school year. "He never had a problem. Everything is OK."

Merino said it's hard for her to tell the difference between teachers because she doesn't speak English. If she knew her son was assigned to a struggling teacher, "I wouldn't know what to do," she said, speaking in Spanish. "But I would try to get him to the best."

In a conversation after school one day, several Broadous teachers, including Aguilar and Smith, said parents should have the chance to see how teachers measure up.

They "might be more empowered to demand a good teacher," said teacher Eidy Hemmati. And it might keep teachers "on their toes a little bit more," Smith said.

But many others say it would be impossible to accommodate every parent's desire for the best teacher, and publicizing disparities would only turn one educator against the other.

Broadous Principal Stannis Steinbeck refused even to discuss the differences among her instructors, hinting at the tensions that might arise on staff.

"Our teachers think they're all effective," she said.

Good on the LA Times for publishing this data - though it looks like the union is organizing a boycott in response.

[KrauserKrauser]

Surprise, surprise the public sector unipm is resisting something that can be used to get rid of their least effective employees. The kids? Fuck the kids these people need jobs! Think of the childre..... Oh wait, firing them or forcing them to change their teaching style will only help the children.

Jobs! Jobs!

Too bad there is no chance of the state taking the union to the woodshed.

[Aaron]

Surprise, surprise the public sector unipm is resisting something that can be used to get rid of their least effective employees. The kids? Fuck the kids these people need jobs! Think of the childre..... Oh wait, firing them or forcing them to change their teaching style will only help the children.

Jobs! Jobs!

Too bad there is no chance of the state taking the union to the woodshed.

Yeah man, thats what the union is supposed to do, protect its employees. From the shittiest teacher to the amazing guy. Now it would be nice if they negotiated some sort of remedial training to make them more effective but criticizing the union for going to bat for its members is pretty ridiculous.

[Ace Pace]

Surprise, surprise the public sector unipm is resisting something that can be used to get rid of their least effective employees. The kids? Fuck the kids these people need jobs! Think of the childre..... Oh wait, firing them or forcing them to change their teaching style will only help the children.

Jobs! Jobs!

Too bad there is no chance of the state taking the union to the woodshed.

Lets assume you fire the bottom ten percent of teachers. Now the effective teachers get to have even larger classrooms, their teaching will probably be less effective and their job harder. We've improved the lot of some kids and reduced it for the rest. Is this the best trade possible?

[Marcus Aurelius]

Lets assume you fire the bottom ten percent of teachers. Now the effective teachers get to have even larger classrooms, their teaching will probably be less effective and their job harder. We've improved the lot of some kids and reduced it for the rest. Is this the best trade possible?

It would be very stupid public policy to fire anyone based on this study alone. A rational course of action would be to commence further studies with the objective to found out what exactly makes the good teachers so good, and if the skills can be taught to other teachers. Since chances are they can be taught at least to a degree, you would then arrange courses for all the teachers about the techniques and approaches discovered. That would probably improve the teaching skills of the average teachers as well, which would yield the greatest improvements in the overall quality of teaching.

[une]

I would think that instead of firing people the better option for teachers who do poorly on this kind of evaluation is more training.

Right now I'm working in the Japanese education system and here teachers, regardless of seniority, must attend training seminars and workshops throughout the year. Not being a real teacher, I haven't been to many of them but I've been to a few and from what I've seen these seminars appear to be a great opportunity for teachers to get together and share methods and ideas. Does something similar occur in the US for teachers?

[RedImperator]

I would think that instead of firing people the better option for teachers who do poorly on this kind of evaluation is more training.

Right now I'm working in the Japanese education system and here teachers, regardless of seniority, must attend training seminars and workshops throughout the year. Not being a real teacher, I haven't been to many of them but I've been to a few and from what I've seen these seminars appear to be a great opportunity for teachers to get together and share methods and ideas. Does something similar occur in the US for teachers?

Yes. In many states, continuing education is a requirement for keeping your certification.

[Lagmonster]

Lets assume you fire the bottom ten percent of teachers. Now the effective teachers get to have even larger classrooms, their teaching will probably be less effective and their job harder.

Let's assume you fire the bottom ten percent of your teachers. Now, you'll have to hire that many good teachers.

Standards can be applied to hiring as well as continued employment performance.

[Questor]

Lets assume you fire the bottom ten percent of teachers. Now the effective teachers get to have even larger classrooms, their teaching will probably be less effective and their job harder.

Let's assume you fire the bottom ten percent of your teachers. Now, you'll have to hire that many good teachers.

Standards can be applied to hiring as well as continued employment performance.

This assumes that someone has come up with a predictive way to screen teachers. Trust me, they try.

Do you honestly think that school administrators wake up in the morning and cackle, "What can I do to screw up students today?"

[Coalition]

What the union could do is take the list, and talk privately to the highest and lowest performing teachers. For the best teachers, the union would send people to observe their classes and talk to them, getting guidelines on what the teachers do that is better. That list is distributed among all the teachers (so one excellent idea can benefit everyone). The lower performing teachers would be told to either shape up in the summer via classes, or the union will 'reconsider' their contract. Some of the poorer performing teachers might even have a union person sitting in their class, to see just how bad they are. It could be the poorer performing teacher has other responsiblities (family medical bills requiring a second job), and simpyl doesn't have the time left to make and grade interesting assignments.

But that would require extra work from the union personnel.

[General Zod]

What the union could do is take the list, and talk privately to the highest and lowest performing teachers. For the best teachers, the union would send people to observe their classes and talk to them, getting guidelines on what the teachers do that is better. That list is distributed among all the teachers (so one excellent idea can benefit everyone). The lower performing teachers would be told to either shape up in the summer via classes, or the union will 'reconsider' their contract. Some of the poorer performing teachers might even have a union person sitting in their class, to see just how bad they are. It could be the poorer performing teacher has other responsiblities (family medical bills requiring a second job), and simpyl doesn't have the time left to make and grade interesting assignments.

But that would require extra work from the union personnel.

It could also be the poorer performing teacher simply has too many students to teach effectively.

[KrauserKrauser]

It could also be the poorer performing teacher simply has too many students to teach effectively.

That is an easily controlled variable in the analysis, all of the teachers are going to be swamped relatively equally. The best performers just as much as the poor performers.

Letting them cry "Too many kids" as an excuse when other teachers are handling the same kid load and being successful is bullshit.

Remember the analysis is applicable within the same school, not just between schools as was the case in previous comparisons. If Jose is doing a great job with the same number of kids across the hall from Fred, why would we let Fred claim that the number of kids is keeping him from being successful.

[General Zod]

It could also be the poorer performing teacher simply has too many students to teach effectively.

That is an easily controlled variable in the analysis, all of the teachers are going to be swamped relatively equally. The best performers just as much as the poor performers.

Letting them cry "Too many kids" as an excuse when other teachers are handling the same kid load and being successful is bullshit.

Remember the analysis is applicable within the same school, not just between schools as was the case in previous comparisons. If Jose is doing a great job with the same number of kids across the hall from Fred, why would we let Fred claim that the number of kids is keeping him from being successful.

It's not a manner of "excuse" if it turns out to be a legitimate factor. As it is I didn't see them mention it was controlled for anywhere in the article.

[Civil War Man]

I don't see class size as being a variable that can be easily controlled, anyway, since not all teachers have the same strengths. An amazing sergeant can be a shitty general and all that. If a teacher is horrible with a 30-student classroom, but great with 15 students, does that make them a better or worse teacher than one who is just okay with either number?

[KrauserKrauser]

But wouldn't that be a given when doing an intraschool comparison. There shouldn't be huge discrepancies in the number of students per teacher within the same scool. A couple students maybe but approaching statiscally significant numbers I highly doubt.

[Civil War Man]

It can vary more than you think, depending on both the subject and the level being taught. In the high school I attended, for example, some of the AP classes could have almost half the number of students as the normal level for the same subject. Sciences classes with emphasis on lab work tended to be smaller than ones without. Electives varied wildly in size based on both popularity and any equipment involved (shop classes, for example, tended to be small because of all the power tools).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Lets assume you fire the bottom ten percent of teachers. Now the effective teachers get to have even larger classrooms, their teaching will probably be less effective and their job harder.

Let's assume you fire the bottom ten percent of your teachers. Now, you'll have to hire that many good teachers.

Standards can be applied to hiring as well as continued employment performance.

This assumes that someone has come up with a predictive way to screen teachers. Trust me, they try.

Do you honestly think that school administrators wake up in the morning and cackle, "What can I do to screw up students today?"

If 10% of your teachers suck and you fire them and hire new teachers according to the same rules, then, very simply, we would expect around 10% of the new teachers to suck. Congratulations, you've just reduced the rate of sucky teachers from 10% to 1%. Your post was simply made without thinking at all.

[Questor]

If 10% of your teachers suck and you fire them and hire new teachers according to the same rules, then, very simply, we would expect around 10% of the new teachers to suck. Congratulations, you've just reduced the rate of sucky teachers from 10% to 1%. Your post was simply made without thinking at all.

Ignoring for the moment the implicit assumption that the distribution of good teachers to bad teachers will be even in the hiring pool even though the reason you have created the hiring pool was the mass firing of teachers, Lagmonster's response, that "Standards can be applied to hiring" also includes an implicit assumption that A) There is a prexisting metric by which to judge POTENTIAL teachers by and B) that there is not currently an attempt to hire the best teachers possible. Simply assuming, as you do, that the quality of teahers in the hiring pool will be evenly distributed is beneath you.

Unless you are proposing only one district adopt your "fire the worst" strategy, then I would like to see your reasoning behind the assumption that teacher quality resets once these teachers become unemployed and that the schools would not simply be shuffling the same bad teachers around, district to distict, or even school to school.


Also, aren't CA employers prevented from confirming anything but "Yeah, he worked here?"
Pardon any spelling or formatting mistakes, I'm posting from my phone. And I believe

[Hillary]

This assumes that someone has come up with a predictive way to screen teachers. Trust me, they try.

Do you honestly think that school administrators wake up in the morning and cackle, "What can I do to screw up students today?"

If 10% of your teachers suck and you fire them and hire new teachers according to the same rules, then, very simply, we would expect around 10% of the new teachers to suck. Congratulations, you've just reduced the rate of sucky teachers from 10% to 1%. Your post was simply made without thinking at all.

With the greatest respect, I'm not sure your post has much more thought attached to it. Are there THAT many unemployed teachers out there? Even if there are, you'd think that the ones who can't get jobs as things stand are likely to be just as bad, if not worse, than those you just sacked.

Surely it would be better to try and improve the failing teachers rather than simply kicking them out. That is what a responsible employer would do for its underachieving staff - in the UK the employer would be legally obliged to do so.

[Lagmonster]

Ignoring for the moment the implicit assumption that the distribution of good teachers to bad teachers will be even in the hiring pool even though the reason you have created the hiring pool was the mass firing of teachers, Lagmonster's response, that "Standards can be applied to hiring" also includes an implicit assumption that A) There is a prexisting metric by which to judge POTENTIAL teachers by and B) that there is not currently an attempt to hire the best teachers possible. Simply assuming, as you do, that the quality of teahers in the hiring pool will be evenly distributed is beneath you.

Two things.

1) If you fire underperforming teachers and replace them rather than suffer an underpopulation of teachers, you may end up with all new bad teachers or all new good teachers. Either way, at least you got rid of your known bad teachers, and that's progress.

2) Hiring standards can, in fact, be adjusted in light of known failures which cause departures or poor performance. You can change requirements for specific training, accreditations, or experience if you're willing to narrow the hiring pool. You can frame interviews in context of problems you need to gauge knowledge or reactions on. You can network with your peers to be familiar with who employs stricter or more lax standards for hiring and firing than you do. And more; hiring doesn't have to be a shot in the dark.

Unless you are proposing only one district adopt your "fire the worst" strategy, then I would like to see your reasoning behind the assumption that teacher quality resets once these teachers become unemployed and that the schools would not simply be shuffling the same bad teachers around, district to distict, or even school to school.

You would be startlingly naive to think that employers do not network with their peers to blacklist poor performers. It's one of the weapons the hiring manger will use given the option. Besides which, even if a poor performer finds work again, if he improves, great. If he fails and gets fired again, eventually he's going to run out of places to work.

Beyond that, how often do you think such purges would be necessary? I'd bet that, faced with a choice between unemployment in a crap market and rehiabilitation, most of that bottom 10%, if not all of them, would rapidly clean up their game.

[Questor]

2) Hiring standards can, in fact, be adjusted in light of known failures which cause departures or poor performance. You can change requirements for specific training, accreditations, or experience if you're willing to narrow the hiring pool. You can frame interviews in context of problems you need to gauge knowledge or reactions on. You can network with your peers to be familiar with who employs stricter or more lax standards for hiring and firing than you do. And more; hiring doesn't have to be a shot in the dark.

If you look at the documentation of the LA Times study, you'll find that:

Teacher experience and educational background have weak effects on teacher effectiveness (see Tables 5). Teacher experience has little effect on ELA scores beyond 10 the first couple years of teaching--teachers with less than 3 years of experience gave teacher effects 0.05 standard deviations lower than comparable other teachers with 10 or more years of experience. Students with new teachers score 0.03 standard deviations lower in math than with teachers with 10 or more years of experience. These effect sizes mean that students with the most experienced teachers would average 1 or 2 percentile points higher than a student with a new teacher. These effects are small relative to the benchmarks established by Hill et al. (2008).

Other teacher qualifications have little effect on student achievement. Teacher education beyond a bachelor's degree has no statistically significant effect on ELA or math achievement. Similarly, teachers with full teaching credentials are no more successful at improving student achievement than are teachers without credentials.

Teacher demographics have some effect on student achievement. Black/African American teachers have student gains about 0.05 and 0.07 standard deviations lower in ELA and math, respectively, than those of white non-Hispanic teachers. Asian/Pacific Islander teachers do better than their white non-Hispanic counterparts with effect sizes of 0.04 in ELA and 0.08 in math. Hispanic teachers have comparable outcomes with white non-Hispanic teachers. Female teachers have higher gains than comparable male teachers with an effect size of 0.04 in ELA and 0.03 in math.

So it does seem like the hiring practices, at least when going by Value Added and objective standards, ARE a shot in the dark.

[Hillary]

1) If you fire underperforming teachers and replace them rather than suffer an underpopulation of teachers, you may end up with all new bad teachers or all new good teachers. Either way, at least you got rid of your known bad teachers, and that's progress.

I honestly think this is a massive simplification. Teachers are not either "good" or "bad" - there will be a spectrum from best performing to worst. Additionally, you are assuming that the teachers are in a fixed state of good or bad and cannot improve with a bit of retraining.

[Lagmonster]

I honestly think this is a massive simplification. Teachers are not either "good" or "bad" - there will be a spectrum from best performing to worst.

Of course it's an oversimplification; terms like 'bad' and 'good' are fuzzy, but people can wrap their heads around it. Frankly, I'm not qualified to establish standards for educators. I doubt any of us are.

Additionally, you are assuming that the teachers are in a fixed state of good or bad and cannot improve with a bit of retraining.

You'll note at the end of said post where I said that faced with such a policy, most would improve voluntarily. Or, perhaps, they could petition their employers for training or mentoring. We're not about to set out an exacting policy so much as discuss the spirit of it.

Allow me to vastly oversimplify further: It's management's fault.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Honestly, sacking any teachers right now is probably a bad idea. There is the very real possibility that they simply will not be replaced and that existing teachers would be expected to pick up the slack, just like in every other industry in America right now. This probably would end up with more poorly performing teachers and have a worse overall effect on the children. Most states are running in the red right now I believe, with Tea Party wackaloons gaining ground (or at least being very vocal) I wouldn't be surprised if those in charge would end up viewing saving money by cutting employees and thus satiating the nutters (and potentially safeguarding their career) as a very tempting prospect.

[Alphawolf55]

Something that I've always wondered is, in this country when we hear of someone doing a bad job at their job are first reaction or at least one of the first is to fire them with the logic that they should be in a career they actually succeed. It seems for teachers though it's the exact opposite, we want to give them every luxury and affordability before even considering firing them. Why is this? Why is this afforded to teachers but not other groups? Actually I see the same logic with military jobs and police, is there something about public service jobs that just make us more forgiving?