Number one: VAM drives away some of the best potential teachers from the
basic skills subjects of Math and ELA. Only one-third of teachers are
rated by VAM because the majority of teachers teach non-state tested subjects. VAM ratings focus primarily on Math and English language arts teachers. The rest of the
teachers are rated by their effectiveness in reaching student learning targets.
But since VAM scores are so erratic, many excellent teachers do not want to
subject themselves to the possible humiliation of an "ineffective"
rating if they are qualified to teach some other subject. Present law states that any teacher getting an
ineffective rating immediately loses tenure and must undergo intensive
remediation. Also, statistics based on the first year of VAM and several years
of simulations demonstrate that VAM rated teachers are only one-third as likely
as non-VAM rated teachers to get a “highly effective” rating on the
quantitative part of their evaluation. (I will explain why under reason number
two). Since the new state mandated merit
pay system rewards mostly teachers rated as highly effective, VAM
teachers are much less likely to get merit pay. For these
reasons, many good Math and English teachers are opting out of teaching those
subjects.
Number two: The VAM quota system does not allow for a general
improvement of teacher evaluations as student scores go up from year to year. The way VAM is supposed
to work is this: Complex formulas calculate each teacher's expected composite
class scores on the state tests each year based on student's past records and
socio-economic factors. The VAM than rates teachers on how well their students
perform compared to their expected test scores. The problem is that no matter
how well students statewide do from year to year, the LDOE limits the
percentage of teachers that can receive each classification of ratings. The
LDOE ranks all 16,000 VAM teachers from highest to lowest VAM scores and rates
them based on mandatory percentages for each level of the ranking system. For
example, teachers ranking in the top 20% of the rankings get "highly
effective" and teachers ranking in the bottom 10% get
"ineffective". How the
teacher ranks compared to other teachers determines the teacher’s final VAM
rating. So if students statewide progress greatly from one year to the next,
you still have the same 10% of teachers who get a failing score and only 20% of
teachers getting an excellent score. The system guarantees that the same
percentage of teachers will fail each year no matter how students progress or
regress on state tests.
Number three: The VAM system guarantees that in the basic skills
subjects, experienced teachers will be systematically replaced by less
experienced and probably lesser trained teachers. Since the VAM system
rates 10% of teachers "ineffective" every year no matter how well
students do, the system will cause much more turnover of teachers in the basic
skills subjects. New teachers with less experience and training usually replace
these teachers. So the actual quality of instruction in the basic skills will
most probably go down instead of up.
Present law requires that 50% of a teacher's evaluation is based on her/his VAM score. It
has been suggested that the percentage of a teacher’s evaluation based on VAM
should be reduced as a way of mitigating its effect on the teacher's overall rating. But reducing the
percentage based on VAM just means that VAM will do less damage to the teaching
profession and to the instruction of children. Since VAM does nothing
positive to improve teaching, it should not be used for any percentage
of the evaluation system.
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