Schools grading plan uses new tack
A Tennessee professor of statistics says his system examines students'
improvement over time.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 17, 1999
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William Sanders, one of the hottest names in education circles these days, has
a plane to catch. He's running late.
Still, here he is, standing in the lobby of Tampa's Hyatt Regency Westshore
trying for the umpteenth time to explain his very complicated testing program.
In the last two days, he's given full-blown presentations to sizable crowds.
Afterward, educators and lawmakers cluster around the professor of statistics,
peppering him with questions.
Can you really judge a teacher by her students' test scores?
Does it work with classes full of disadvantaged children?
Should teachers be fired based on these kinds of stats?
Sanders' answers are not brief. His is a complex testing system, and the
University of Tennessee professor of statistics wants people to understand it.
Even as he makes his way out of the conference room into the lobby, educators
follow with more questions.
"Give me a call or send me an e-mail," Sanders says finally, picking up his
bag and getting ready to leave. "I'll explain it all to you -- give you the
longer version." There's one more question: Can this work in Florida?
Sanders stops, puts his bag down. He launches into another lengthy answer. He
seems to forget about his plane.
Bill Sanders is a busy man these days. At a time when politicians are
searching for a fair method for holding schools and teachers accountable,
Sanders has what some believe is the answer: an arcane system for analyzing
test results that tells how well schools and individual teachers are doing
their jobs.
The system, a numbers cruncher's dream, looks at student academic progress
over time, not just at occasional raw test scores -- much like a movie rather
than a snapshot.
Sanders' system is the driving force behind accountability in the Tennessee
public schools. Now educators in Florida -- as well as Arizona, Colorado and
Ohio -- want to give it a try.
Next month, he'll make a presentation to Tampa educators, and then fly to
Tallahassee to speak to lawmakers.
"This has national implications," said Bruce Cooper, a professor at the
Fordham University College of Education. "The idea of assessing how far
students have come and what their teachers are doing -- that's powerful
stuff."
If it works, the system could transform school accountability, bringing
science to an area long riddled with arbitrariness and politics. If it doesn't
work, or if it is implemented clumsily, Sanders' approach could join "whole
language," new math and pod classrooms as promising school experiments that
fell short of expectations or that harmed schoolchildren and teachers.
'How we should be judged'
Sanders, 56, works out of a cluttered office on the Agricultural Campus at the
University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has no background in K-12 education.
For years he was content to teach and work on statistical models most people
couldn't hope to understand
How does a guy like that become a central figure in the nation's
accountability movement? Sanders says it was largely happenstance, a bit of
politics, and naivete on his part.
Back in the 1980s he read where someone proclaimed that student test scores
could never be used to evaluate teachers. Too many wacky variables, they said.
Too messy statistically.
Sanders disagreed.
"Statistically speaking, there's no reason you couldn't do it," Sanders said.
He began working on it as an academic exercise. Eventually his idea generated
interest in the Tennessee Department of Education. By coincidence, the state
assembly was trying to pass a sales tax increase to fund school improvements.
They wanted to assure voters that schools would be held accountable. Suddenly
Sanders' idea was a hot item.
"They asked me to make a presentation to the governor," Sanders said. "I
ended
up like the dog that chased the car and finally caught it. I sat down and said
"This damn thing's fixin' to pass. Now what do I do?' " He devised what is now
called the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System. Started in 1992, it relies
on an immense database of consecutive-year state tests.
Sanders system of looking at student progress over time shakes up the
predictable rankings by raw test scores, where suburban schools are at the
top, and inner-city schools full of poor kids are at the bottom. That puts
pressure on schools that have it all -- good test scores, smart, talented
students -- but that have become complacent.
"I call them the "slide and glide' schools," Sanders said. "They were
cruising
along without much effort. But they weren't making progress. I've caught more
political hell from those."
The system also can give hope to low-performing schools where teachers work
miracles.
That's the way Larrissa Henderson sees it. She's the new principal at Maynard
Elementary School, an inner-city school in Knoxville. Most of the 100 children
at the school are African American, and most are poor. Directly across the
street, a housing project is being torn down to make room for homes and
duplexes. Maynard has struggled with test scores, and Henderson was brought in
to turn things around. Maynard Elementary won't soon lead the state in test
scores, but Henderson expects tremendous progress. "We're looking at growth
for the students," Henderson said. "That's how we should be judged."
Henderson will be able to see which teachers are bringing the most students
along the fastest. Of course she'll also know which classrooms continue to
struggle. Unlike most accountability systems, including Florida's, which focus
on school performance, Sanders' system takes accountability down to the
classroom level. That's the biggest concern, that Sanders' system could be
used as a weapon against teachers.
"Teaching is part art, part science. You can't measure all of what goes on in
a classroom," said Al Mance, assistant executive director of the Tennessee
Education Association. "I'm not as convinced as Bill Sanders is that his
numbers do what he thinks they do." Sanders says he doesn't pretend to measure
everything. He intends for his system to be just one of many tools for
evaluating teachers.
The biggest value, he says, is "not the accountability piece, but the
diagnostic piece." He wants it used to help identify what works and what
doesn't. But it's the accountability piece that has politicians talking.
Good, bad, dead in the water
One of Sanders' most controversial findings seems like a no-brainer. Teachers
are the biggest factor in determining a child's academic progress, he said
But that conclusion -- that the effect of teachers overrides family income,
and parental involvement -- undermines the biggest excuse educators have: that
factors beyond their control stymie student learning.
"All kids can learn," Sanders said, "but regardless of your background, if
you
catch two or three bad teachers in a row, you're dead in the water."
By factoring out the variables over which educators have no control -- student
mobility, poverty, family crisis -- Sanders brings the focus back to the
classroom. It's easy to see why the system is attracting attention.
"We've heard all the excuses: "When the students came to me they were scoring
low,' " said Billie Orr, associate superintendent for the Arizona Department
of Education. "Regardless of where they start, we need to give students a
year's worth of education in a year. With this system I think we could measure
that."
Arizona is ready to start a pilot project in a few school districts to try out
Sanders' system. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida are
considering the same thing.
Florida, which is considered a progressive state when it comes to school
accountability, has been relying on a system that looks at raw scores at the
school level.
But Florida is moving toward a more sophisticated system that goes beyond raw
test scores, one that is starting to look more like Sanders' model. Soon the
state will reward or punish schools based on progress or lack of progress.
State education officials are working on a state testing system that includes
several grade levels in a row, something Gov. Jeb Bush advocated during the
campaign.
"I think you're going to see more interest in this," said Sen. Anna Cowin, R-
Leesburg, chair of the Florida Senate's education committee, who has heard
Sanders speak. "Accountability is so important. And to take it down to the
individual teacher level -- it's very exciting."
© Copyright 1999 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.