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Alert readers (as Dave Barry likes to say) will have noted that I haven't blogged in a while. The reasons are multiple: heavy travel schedule, writing for the newest book, and full days of work on two large projects. But the key reason is anger. I have been so angry about the head-long rush into untested and poorly-thought-out value-added accountability models of schools and teachers in various states all around the country that I haven't found a calm mental space in which to get words on paper. Let me now try. Forgive me if I sputter. Here's the problem in a nutshell. Value-added Models (VAM) of accountability are now the rage. And it is understandable why this is so. They involve predictions about "appropriate" student gains of performance. If results - almost always measured via state standardized test scores - fall within or above the "expected" gains, then you are a "good" school or teacher. If the gains fall below the expected gains that you are a "bad" school or teacher. Such a system has been in place in Tennessee for over a decade. You may be aware that from that test interesting claims have been made about effective vs. ineffective teachers adding a whole extra year of gain. So, in the last few years, as accountability pressures have been ratcheted up in all states, more and more of such systems have been put in place, most recently in New York State where a truly byzantine formula is being used starting next year to hold principals and teachers accountable. It will surely fail (and be litigated). Let me try to explain why.

In a brilliant presentation Stuyvesant HS teacher Gary Rubinstein uses statistics to punch holes in the high stakes testing standardized testing program. He also finds evidence in the stats that charter schools cream better students. Then he addresses the reason why Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee opposed the release of data scores --- they knew people like Gary would be able to show how irrelevant they really were. "It's like in trying to measure temperature, you count the number of people wearing hats." Then he addresses the issue of why a union agreed to any of this, even 20% given that under the current system almost everyone potentially can be rated ineffective. He offered the union his help to salvage the other 20% but has not heard back yet. There's supposed to be this evil union only about the adults but they really aren't doing a good job at that.

I don't spend much time debunking our most powerful educational fad: value-added assessments to rate teachers. My colleague Valerie Strauss eviscerates value-added several times a week on her Answer Sheet blog with the verve of a Samurai warrior, so who needs me? Unfortunately, value-added is still growing in every corner of our nation, including D.C. schools, despite all that torn flesh and missing pieces. It's like those monsters lumbering through this year's action films.We've got to stop them! Let me fling my small, aged body in their way with the best argument against value-added I have seen in some time.

This NBER report concludes that teachers whose students tend to show high gains on their test scores (called "high value-added teachers") also contribute to later student success in young adulthood, as indicated by outcomes such as college attendance and future earnings. To support this claim, it is not sufficient for researchers to show an observed association between teacher value-added and later outcomes in young adulthood. It is also necessary to rule out plausible alternative explanations-for example, that parents who did the most to promote their offspring's long-term success also endeavored to secure high value-added teachers for their children. This review explains that, for the most part, the evidence needed to rule out these alternatives is missing from the report. Thus, policy-makers should tread cautiously in their reaction: the case has not been proved.

Education reform does not suffer from lack of energy or activity. Everywhere you look-Congress, state legislatures, local school boards, wherever-scores of eager-beavers are filing bills, proposing solutions, calling for change, and otherwise trying to "push the ball forward." Yet for all the effort, for all the pain, we see little gain. What gives? The conventional answer, in most reform circles, comes down to: "the opposition of special interests." Teachers unions, school administrators, colleges of education, textbook publishers, and other defenders (and beneficiaries) of the status quo fight change at every step and guard their selfish prerogatives jealously. That may all be true, but our challenges are much more fundamental. It's not that the wrong people are in charge. It's that there are so many cooks in the education kitchen that nobody is really in charge. And that is a consequence of an antiquated governance structure that practically forces all those cooks to enter and remain in the kitchen.

Education reformers place great emphasis on the importance of parental choice. But they recently revealed their hypocrisy in a way that is infuriating to all those who support the strategy. Despite protests from thousands of parents, the Panel for Education Policy voted to close 18 schools in the New York City system and shrink five more ("Thousands Gather in Brooklyn to Fight School Closures," In These Times, Feb. 10). The justification was that the schools were not providing a quality education. Presumably, the evidence used for making this determination were standardized test scores. Another 33 schools are on the list, with a decision expected by March or April.

Mary Jean Marsico, superintendent of Rockland Board of Cooperative Educational Services, which holds training for the eight Rockland public school districts on evaluation protocols, said many teachers and principals feel the timetable is "moving faster than we believe is in the best interest of the educational community as a whole, including children." "I believe there's more to learning than a child's response to test scores. . . . And it's another unfunded mandate," she said. "I do believe we need to look at what we are doing in the classroom. I do believe we need to take time to develop an instruction that allows us to look at the whole child within the classroom and teachers. My biggest concern is the reliance on standardized testing."

The success of school-choice initiatives is commonly measured in reading and math scores. But how does being admitted to a preferred school affect other parts of a student's life? In an article in Education Next, Harvard University's David J. Deming argues for looking beyond school-based outcomes, suggesting that that kind of growth can be achieved in ways that do not necessarily lead to long-term success. Instead, he analyzes the impact of winning a school choice lottery on the criminal activity of students in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district over a period of seven years.

In 1988, Deborah Bial was working in a New York City after-school program when she ran into a former student, Lamont. He was a smart kid, a successful student who had won a scholarship to an elite college. But it hadn't worked out, and now he was back home in the Bronx. "I never would have dropped out of college if I had my posse with me," he told her. The next year Bial started the Posse Foundation. From her work with students around the city, she chose five New York City high school students who were clearly leaders - dynamic, intelligent, creative, resilient - but who might not have had the SAT scores to get into good schools. Vanderbilt University was willing to admit them all, tuition-free.  The students met regularly in their senior year of high school, through the summer, and at college. Surrounded by their posse, they all thrived. Today the Posse Foundation selects about 600 students a year, from eight different cities. They are grouped into posses of 10 students from the same city and go together to an elite college; about 40 colleges now participate in the program.

Despite all the money and effort devoted to developing the Common Core State Standards-not to mention the simmering controversy over their adoption in several states-the study foresees little to no impact on student learning. That conclusion is based on analyzing states' past experience with standards and examining several years of scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

This week I engaged in another online debate with one of Arne Duncan's press secretaries, Justin Hamilton, who readers may recall asked me to "correct" my commentary a year ago after President Obama inadvertently criticized our over-reliance on standardized tests. This time Mr. Hamilton took issue with a question I posed in advance of Duncan's latest Twitter Town Hall. I asked, "How can you say that we should not teach to test while NCLB waivers tie teacher & principal evaluations to test scores?" To this, Hamilton (@edpresssec) replied: "False. Waiver states using multiple measure not testing only."

If rating teachers based on standardized test scores was such a brilliant revelation for improving the quality of the teacher workforce, if getting rid of tenure and firing more teachers was clearly the road to excellence, and if standardizing our curriculum and designing tests for each and every component of it were really the way forward, we'd expect to see these strategies all over the home pages of web sites of leading private independent schools, and we'd certainly expect to see these issues addressed throughout the pages of journals geared toward innovative school leaders, like Independent School Magazine.  In fact, they must have been talking about this kind of stuff for at least a decade. You know, how and why merit pay for teachers is the obvious answer for enhancing teacher productivity, and why we need more standardization… more tests… in order to improve curricular rigor?  So, I went back and did a little browsing through recent, and less recent issues of Independent School Magazine and collected the following few words of wisdom

Central Falls, Rhode Island may seem like an unlikely standard bearer for a reading or public school revolution - it is the poorest district in the state with more than 85% of its students on free or reduced lunch plans. And, the city itself recently went bankrupt. Yet, a remarkable collaboration between The Learning Community charter school and surrounding non-charter public elementary schools continues to demonstrate that students are hungry to learn and that, in the words of The Learning Community credo, poverty is not a barrier to success.  The collaboration is part of what is called the Growing Readers Initiative - an effort to share best practices between teachers from different systems to turnaround some of the lowest reading scores in the state.

Faced with the relentless campaign against teachers and public education, educators have sought a different narrative, one free of the stigmatization by test scores and punishment favored by the corporate reformers. They have found it in Finland. Even the corporate reformers admire Finland, apparently not recognizing that Finland disproves every part of their agenda. It is not unusual for Americans to hold up another nation as a model for school reform. In the mid-nineteenth century, American education leaders hailed the Prussian system for its professionalism and structure. In the 1960s, Americans flocked to England to marvel at its progressive schools. In the 1980s, envious Americans attributed the Japanese economic success to its school system. Now the most favored nation is Finland, and for four good reasons.

In a recent story, the New York Daily News uses the recently-released teacher data reports (TDRs) to "prove" that the city's charter school teachers are better than their counterparts in regular public schools. The headline announces boldly: New York City charter schools have a higher percentage of better teachers than public schools (it has since been changed to: "Charters outshine public schools"). Taking things even further, within the article itself, the reporters note, "The newly released records indicate charters have higher performing teachers than regular public schools." So, not only are they equating words like "better" with value-added scores, but they're obviously comfortable drawing conclusions about these traits based on the TDR data. The article is a pretty remarkable display of both poor journalism and poor research. The reporters not only attempted to do something they couldn't do, but they did it badly to boot. It's unfortunate to have to waste one's time addressing this kind of thing, but, no matter your opinion on charter schools, it's a good example of how not to use the data that the Daily News and other newspapers released to the public.

It cannot be accidental that the sharp drop in teacher morale coincides with the efforts of people such as Michelle Rhee and organizations such as Education Reform Now and Stand for Children to end teacher tenure and seniority. Millions have been spent to end what is called "LIFO" (last in, first out) and to make the case that teachers should not have job security. Many states led by very conservative governors have responded to this campaign by wiping out any job security for teachers. So, if teachers feel less secure in their jobs, they are reacting quite legitimately to the legislation that is now sweeping the country to remove any and all job protections. Their futures will depend on their students' test scores (thanks to Arne Duncan), even though there is no experience from any district or state in which this strategy has actually improved education. Its main effect, as we see in the survey, is to demoralize teachers and make them feel less professional and less respected. Yes, there will be more teaching to the test: Both NCLB and the Race to the Top demand it. And yes, there will be teachers who are wrongly fired. And yes, teachers will leave for other lines of work that are less stressful.

All over the nation, teachers are under attack. Politicians of both parties, in every state, have blamed teachers and their unions for the nation's low standing on international tests and our nation's inability to create the educated labor force our economy needs. Mass firings of teachers in so-called failing schools have taken place in municipalities throughout the nation and some states have made a public ritual of humiliating teachers. In Los Angeles and New York, teacher ratings based on student standardized test scores - said by many to be inaccurate - have been published by the press. As a result, great teachers have been labeled as incompetent and some are leaving the profession. A new study showed that teachers' job satisfaction has plummeted in recent years.

Most teachers in the US not only voted for President Obama, they spent considerable time and money campaigning for him. Like many other Americans, they thought the Obama presidency would bring new initiatives to help working families and help people rise out of poverty after 8 years of policieswhich favored large corporations and concentrated wealth among top earners. However, they were shocked when President Obama appointed Arne Duncan, a man who had never been a teacher, as Secretary of Education,and when policies began emanating from the new administration favoring charter schools over public schools, requiring student test scores as a basis of teacher evaluation, and encouraging "school turnaround"strategies which led to mass firing of teachers. Worse yet, the rhetoric emanating from Mr Duncan often portrayed "bad teachers" ratherthan deeply entrenched poverty, as the reason for race and class inequities in educational achievement, and for poor US performance globally on standardized tests, a concern heightened when Mr Duncan praised the mass firing of teachers in Central Falls Rhode Island and called Hurricane Katrina " the best thing that had happened to education in New Orleans" because it allowed local officials to replace public schools with charter schools

Now fast-forward to the latest plan to measure teacher and principal effectiveness. New York has joined with other states around the country to impose a system of measurement that on first blush appears to be long overdue. Known as the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR), the system of evaluation is a multifaceted approach to review all aspects of educator performance and includes the use of student test scores as a factor in rating performance. There is no doubt that education stands to improve in order to meet the demands of a highly competitive society, however there are many unforeseen consequences of this ill-conceived system.

The country's "most outspoken critic" of our national fixation on grades and test scores explains to teachers -- and parents -- why giving children grades does more harm than good.