Tennessean, 10/21/98, "City to Map Best, Worst Teachers by Test Scores"

Note: this effort ultimately (2000) did lead to a study between Dr. Sanders and Metro's research department that, while not conclusive, suggested Metro did not have a significant problems with distribution of effective teachers. One observation by some of the leadership in the system was that teachers may want to teach closer to home, but they also want quality leadership from their principal, and good teachers will stay in schools with students who face multiple challenges when they have that leadership rather than risk a move. The minutes for the special meeting where Dr. Sanders and Drs. Crouch and Changas from the MNPS research staff reported on this study (1/9/2001) can be found here.

NASHVILLE SCHOOLS

City to map its teachers by best, worst test scores

By Paul Donsky / Tennessean Staff

A potentially groundbreaking and controversial study is under way in Metro schools that aims to pinpoint the district's most effective and least effective teachers.

The effort, a first for Metro and one of the first of its kind in the nation, could have far-reaching results -- including sweeping staffing changes -- if the best or worst teachers are found to be clustered in certain schools or areas.

"I am concerned about whether or not our distribution of most and least effective teachers is slanted one way or another," said school board member David Shearon, who is spearheading the study.

"If we find some sort of significant pattern ... I think that the administration and the board and the teachers are going to have to work together to address that."

Using a readily available analysis of state standardized test scores, the study will identify the Metro teachers who are among the top 20% and bottom 20% in the state in effectiveness.

State law prohibits the public release of the teachers' names. That information is made available only to teachers, principals and the school board.

Metro school officials hope to have the report completed by early next year.

School officials plan to plot on a map where the high- and low-rated teachers -- as identified by the study -- are working. Shearon has suggested using green dots to represent the "most effective" teachers and red dots for the "least effective" teachers. What he is afraid they'll find is a green circle in suburban areas surrounding a red inner core.

If the study shows such an imbalance, teachers might first be asked to volunteer for reassignment, Shearon said.

It's not likely that wholesale faculty reshuffling would take place, though it is a possibility, he said. Forced reassignment could be counterproductive, he said, damaging to teacher morale and effectiveness.

The study is ambitious -- but more for its potential political fallout than for any technical challenges. Indeed, the availability of teacher ratings means any district in Tennessee could fairly easily replicate what Metro is doing.

The study has been in the works for several months and, Shearon stressed, is unrelated to the Metro teachers' current labor dispute.

But it is sure to face stiff criticism from teachers, union officials and others for relying too much on test scores to establish teacher quality. Any effort to move teachers around based on the scores also is likely to be unpopular.

"I just think it would be unfair to gauge or measure a teacher's capability based on how a student does on a standardized test," said Robin Swandal, a fifth-grade teacher at John Early Middle School.

She said that a study based on test scores could find more "highly effective" teachers in suburban areas, "but you have to take into consideration many things. Like me, teaching in an inner-city area, a lot of the students don't have the parental support of children in suburban areas."

Where the best teachers are working has long been a concern of some Metro school observers, particularly advocates of inner-city and minority students. The fear is that experienced, effective teachers may be leaving inner-city schools for the suburbs, where, on the whole, working conditions are better and the students easier to teach.

"It's a huge concern," said Sonnye Dixon, cq education chairman of the Nashville NAACP. "We have been trying for the last several years -- since this (information) has been available by teacher -- to raise that issue, because we feel there are some big pockets where we are not doing some educating."

Metro's study is based on the same test scores used to produce the school-by-school report cards released each fall.

The report cards are created using a sophisticated formula developed by University of Tennessee-Knoxville professor William Sanders, which measures the amount of material students learn in a year's time. The "best" schools are not necessarily the ones with the highest scores, but the ones with the most gains from one year to the next.

A recent report by the national nonprofit group Education Trust, based in part on Sanders' analyses, found that the achievement gap that separates low-income and minority students from other students could be eliminated if the low-income and minority students were assigned to the best teachers.

The Education Trust report also referred to a Sanders study that found students who scored at roughly the same level on math tests in the third grade were separated by as many as 50 percentage points on sixth-grade tests, depending on the quality of teachers they had.

Caroline Evertson, an education professor at Vanderbilt University, objects to the use of standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. Conditions vary sharply from classroom to classroom, such as class size, absentee rates, and whether children come to school ready to learn, she said.

"The potential for harm is enormous, because there are a number of things that go into a given test score that may have nothing whatsoever to do with what a student learns," she said.

However, UT's Sanders says concerns such as these are groundless. The analysis takes into account various socio-economic factors to produce a "very fair comparison," he said.

"There are some very effective inner-city schools, and there are some terribly ineffective inner-city schools," Sanders said. "You can't forecast the effectiveness of a school by knowing its mailing address."

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