Let’s just make an analogy for a moment. Let’s say we
imagine two doctors who finish medical school, pass the board exams, and get
full time jobs in the emergency rooms of hospitals. One works in a large city ER,
while the other is in a suburban ER. The medical school will be judged on the
health records of the patients of these two doctors, as well as their
satisfaction with their education. The city ER doctor has twice the patients of
the other doctor, horrible working conditions, constant stress from treating
gunshot and stab wound victims related to gang activity, and feels betrayed by
her medical education that did not prepare her for this reality. She eventually
quits. The other doctor enjoys an efficiently run hospital with well-trained
colleagues, and the personal rewards of helping his patients get immediate care
and treatment, and saving lives. He gives high marks on a survey measuring his
satisfaction with his medical education. The medical school is penalized in the
case of the ER doctor, and rewarded in the case of the other doctor. As cases
like this accumulate, the program shifts from encouraging and preparing doctors
to work in settings like the first one to creating more opportunities for
doctors to go to jobs like the second one. How might such a trend negatively
impact the health of patients?
Now let’s imagine a case of two teachers. They are from the
same institution, and are enrolled in masters programs that lead to dual
certification in students with disabilities. The first teacher is getting
certified in early childhood, the second teacher in secondary mathematics. They
both graduate with honors, pass the state exams with high scores, and find full
time jobs. The first is employed in a large city district in a first grade
inclusion classroom in a high poverty school. Her students are not old enough
for state tests, so the first problem is what will be the valid measures of
this teacher’s impact on her students’ learning? How can we control for
absenteeism, student turnover, neglect or abuse in the home, the effects of
homelessness, hunger, and other common conditions of poverty? What of the
effect of working conditions on this teacher, such as a large class size,
stress, lack of resources or support, staff and administrative turnover? How
will we know if she uses harsh punishments to “manage” poor behavior? Suppose
she has poor evaluations from her principal because her students often misbehave
and are not reading and writing well enough. When asked to rate her teacher
preparation program in a survey, she gives low marks because she feels she was
not prepared for the realities of her current position. After two years, she
quits.
The other teacher gets a job in a suburban district teaching
special education classes to ninth graders who are way behind and hate math.
Their scores from previous state tests are very low. This teacher uses computer
programs to provide remediation, and rewards students frequently with prizes,
candy, free time and pizza parties to improve their attitudes. Although they
love the teacher and their test scores do go up a little, they really haven’t
improved their knowledge or skills enough to handle high school level algebra.
The teacher does have positive evaluations from the principal because of the
perception that students are well behaved, participate, and make progress on
the computer programs. This teacher gets tenure and gives high marks to the
institution that prepared him.
The teacher preparation program is penalized for not meeting
the requirements of standard four in the case of the first teacher, and
rewarded for meeting them in the case of the second. As cases like this
accumulate, the institution shifts focus from encouraging and preparing
teachers like the first one to preparing more teachers like the second one. Over
time, the focus in teacher preparation is on effectiveness, defined as performance on standardized tests by the
teacher’s students, as the singular measure of teacher quality, and concerns
for how teachers attend to moral dimensions of learning, or to issues of
diversity, diminish. How might such a trend negatively impact learning for all
students?
We are engrossed in a policy world in teacher education that doesn’t think through the unintended consequences of making changes to standards and reporting requirements of institutions. Extant research on the statistical invalidity of using value-added measures of student learning and growth to evaluate teachers, schools, and programs is ignored. There is little or no discussion of the moral implications of these policy decisions, and there is no way to know whether the ends to means are achieved in defensible ways or through cheating and gaming the system. As Diane Ravitch has said, “Test-based accountability encourages a slew of negative behaviors.” It also creates burdensome and costly administrative requirements to collect and analyze data that do little to promote meaningful reforms to programs and improve how and what teacher educators teach their students. These standards create requirements that will suck time and money away from teacher preparation institutions, and in teaching, time and money are precious resources that should be carefully protected and closely monitored.
