Although isolated to Chicago, the highly publicized strike between the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) represented a broader struggle occurring in school districts across America. A major point of contention in Chicago was the role of value-added models (VAMs) in evaluating teachers. The school district wanted these models to account for up to 45 percent of a teacher’s evaluation score, but the two sides compromised at 30 percent. This metric would have been used to dismiss teachers deemed ineffective and determine pay scales for those who remained (Mayor Emanuel’s merit pay plan was left out of the final settlement).
The VAM evaluation tool provides a relatively quick way to numerically rank teachers by comparing students’ standardized test scores from year to year. The Chicago teachers, however, maintain that evaluating teachers using this method is problematic. They are hardly alone in this fight. Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at the Stanford School of Education, is a prominent spokesperson against VAMs. She argues that the models cannot account for outside factors like a student’s health and attendance; that the models are highly unstable, as a teacher’s rating from one year to the next can change drastically; that VAMs unfairly assess teachers who have English-language learners and/or students with disabilities; and that a reliance on test-scores prioritizes teaching to the test over promoting critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Others have pointed out that VAMs do not provide teachers with specific methods to improve their craft, whereas in-person evaluations – if conducted by qualified professionals – have that ability. Indeed, many educational experts and even testing agencies agree that having VAMs account for a large percentage of a teacher’s total evaluation score is against the best interests of both teachers and their students. And merit pay, which was proposed in Chicago, was found by a recent Vanderbilt study to be largely ineffective at promoting student achievement. But despite the fact that these policies have come under pronounced criticism from educational experts, many politicians and commentators continue to support them. The New York Times Editorial Board, in a scalding attack on the strike, labeled Chicago’s highly imperfect evaluation and merit pay proposals as “sensible policy.”
Perhaps this continued insistence on flawed approaches stems from ignorance. More likely, however, is that it is representative of a broader national trend: expecting too much of our teachers. We all want the best teachers in our schools, but when politicians and technocrats prioritize teacher evaluations and merit pay, they send the message that teachers are the primary problem with the American education system. If only we could place a good teacher in every classroom, one often hears, poor student achievement would all but disappear. Yet this argument overlooks the fact that students spend only a fraction of their waking hours in school. Education, defined broadly, occurs at school and at home, during weekdays and on weekends, in October and July. For poor students in areas of concentrated poverty – more than 80 percent of CPS students qualify for free lunches – the home and neighborhood environment has a profound damaging effect on academic achievement. By viewing teachers as solely responsible for a student’s performance, critics of the strike thus ignore the realities that these Chicago teachers face every day.
The widespread trend of teacher-blaming also fails to account for the fact that American students are actually getting better at reading and math, according to a study performed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Black and Hispanic students are narrowing the achievement gap with white students. Other studies show that American students are improving relative to their peers in other countries (contrary to popular belief, our students were never ranked that high to begin with). And when we examine the performance of middle and upper-class students in adequately funded schools, America ranks near the top. If we blame teachers for poor student achievement, surely we should give them credit for these educational gains. Instead, we blame them for poor outcomes and ignore the improvements. If we truly want to make the teaching profession more attractive, this approach cannot be the way forward.
Mitt Romney, who joined Mayor Emanuel in opposing the strike, claimed that the teachers’ interests “conflict[ed] with those of our children.” To be sure, the unions are not perfect, but they had every right to defend their practice against policies that ignored the research on the roles of merit pay, VAMs, and teacher morale in student achievement. The strike made working conditions better for Chicago’s teachers, which should translate into better classroom environments for the children. Teachers, especially in school districts like Chicago, often face an uphill battle. We should not support measures that make their task that much more difficult. We should stop blaming teachers for factors outside their control, stop insisting that they be evaluated and paid under flawed systems, and start giving them the respect they deserve.
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