A Teacher With Excellent Ratings Tears Down The Teacher Data Reports
NYC Public Voice
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Teachers campaign against system that gave them high scores
Maribeth Whitehouse
The most credible critics of the city’s Teacher Data Reports are those with the highest scores.
That’s the outlook of a small band of 99th-percentilers who are signing
on to a statement that argues that measuring teacher effectiveness
according to students’ test scores “will, in the long run, result in
less classroom creativity and more shallow, test-focused instruction.”
The statement was penned by Maribeth Whitehouse, an eight-year middle
school teacher in the South Bronx. She reached out by email to other
teachers who, like her, had pulled a top rating on the city’s
value-added algorithm when Teacher Data Reports were released last
month. So far, about a dozen teachers who scored 99s have added their
names, and Whitehouse said she expects others to join them. They join a
deafening chorus of critics of the TDRs who include 80 percent of New
Yorkers, according to poll results released today.
In the Community section today, Whitehouse explains her decision to strike out against the metric that said she was “far above average.” She writes:
I came to teaching more than eight years ago by way of the law — having graduated from Fordham Law School in 1992. So I knew full well how intricate, malleable and unreliable evidence could be. When the New York City Teacher Data Reports came out and were touted as measuring my “value” as a teacher, I was deeply annoyed. Invalid, inaccurate and irrelevant, these data were no more useful in proving or disproving teacher value than the temperature on a single day could prove or disprove global warming. It’s not that I don’t think I’m a good teacher, I do. I simply measure it in ways that cannot be captured on a test. My reaction came as a surprise to some of my family, friends and co-workers because I was ranked in the 99th percentile.
Read Whitehouse’s complete Community section piece, “Measuring My Value.” The full statement being circulated among teachers with value-added scores in the 99th percentile is below.
We, the undersigned, were ranked in the 99th percentile on the recently released Teacher Data Reports in New York City.We believe these data are out-dated, invalid and inaccurate with unacceptable margins of error.We believe reliable evidence of authentic teaching and learning cannot be derived from standardized test results.We believe the publishing of these data will, in the long run, result in less classroom creativity and more shallow, test-focused instruction incapable of developing citizens who can think critically.We believe the publishing of these data has proven demoralizing and humiliating and that media stories which portray some teachers as “the best” and others as “the worst” are incendiary, invidious and irresponsible.We believe neither student nor teacher excellence can be achieved or maintained in an atmosphere of fear and degradation.We believe teaching is a complex profession, at least as much art as science, requiring intricate multi-faceted assessments for development.
I came to teaching more than eight years ago by way of the law — having
graduated from Fordham Law School in 1992. So I knew full well how
intricate, malleable and unreliable evidence could be. When the New York
City Teacher Data Reports came out and were touted as measuring my
“value” as a teacher, I was deeply annoyed. Invalid, inaccurate and
irrelevant, these data were no more useful in proving or disproving
teacher value than the temperature on a single day could prove or
disprove global warming. It’s not that I don’t think I’m a good teacher,
I do. I simply measure it in ways that cannot be captured on a test. My
reaction came as a surprise to some of my family, friends and
co-workers because I was ranked in the 99th percentile.
As the first notes of congratulations began to arrive in my inbox, I
understood that people meant well, yet I felt annoyed that anybody would
and could delve into my professional life. Notably, I also felt
grateful that my numbers would not force me to ashamedly try to explain
them away. I was keenly aware that the rope that would have me swinging
back and forth in jubilation could just as easily have been wrapped
around my neck in humiliation. I felt sickened by the numbers next to
the names of my colleagues who I know to be hardworking. I wrote back to
those who sent their well wishes, disavowing the data and explaining
that the so called “evidence” meant nothing because it could not measure
that which makes a teacher valuable.
Now in my ninth year in the classroom, I understand the art of teaching,
that is, those things not measurable by multiple-choice questions or by
assessors armed with clipboards and checklists who believe the breadth
and depth of learning in my room is revealed by the freshness of my
bulletin board or the sheer quantity of newsprint hanging from my walls.
I could teach in a hut with a dirt floor and be an excellent teacher
because what makes me excellent is, in large part, an unquantifiable
aesthetic that cannot be captured by a mathematical procedure. Inspiring
students, giving them something to think about long after the school
day is over, pushing and poking them to be their best selves, nurturing
wisdom, stimulating passionate efforts, assisting discovery,
facilitating connections, determining when to lead, guide or let go —
these things cannot be found using an algorithm.
Armed with this belief about teaching and the positive responses of
those I loved and valued, I reached out to other teachers in the 99th percentile to see if they felt the same. Many of them did and a group of us have signed a statement renouncing the data’s usefulness and publication.
Still for all the motivating anger I felt, I also felt demoralized and
quite simply sad. The data had no power to prove my worth, yet, since it
was being used for political purposes and to misinform the public, the
data did have the power to make me feel worthless. And that is when a
very unlikely visitor reminded me of the true value that I add to my
students’ lives.
A wonderful hallmark of my brief teaching career has been a constant
flow of former students who come back to visit me. I can always count on
the previous year’s crop to return but last week a student whom I
hadn’t seen since my first year came by. Lena was the type of student a
teacher could never forget and not for any positive reasons. She
presented a world of problems at a time when I had the fewest skills to
deal with them. She was angry, oppositional, violent and absent a lot.
She was the first student to call me a “bitch.” Once she was so mad
about something, she put her fist through a glass partition at school.
Another time, she and a fellow student got into a fight, which led to a
suspension after she hit a police officer who had tried to break it up.
And since teaching can generate wildly conflicting emotions, it should
come as no surprise that I had loved this girl, prayed for this girl and
had also been downright grateful when this girl was not in attendance.
I wondered if my face betrayed all these emotions when I saw her
standing in my doorway. She was a bit taller and fuller in the face but
otherwise unchanged. We exchanged a long, strong hug in front of my
current students. I felt like crying as I thought to myself, “She’s
still alive” (something I had wondered about many times over the years).
She said she had business nearby but couldn’t miss her chance to see
her “favorite teacher.” It was the use of that phrase that filled my
eyes with tears. A veteran teacher once said to me, “All you can do is
plant seeds. You may never know whether or not they grow.” Her words
manifested themselves before me as I looked at this “seed” I had been
uncertain would grow. Lena is going to school to become a dental
hygienist. She has a 3-year-old daughter and reported that overall
things are going well for her. I know there is more to her story that
she chose not to share. I know her life is not perfect but still she was
alive and working toward a stable future and quite frankly that is more
than I had expected. On top of that, to have her call me her “favorite
teacher,” well — that was unbelievable given how incompetent I was my
first year, how troublesome she had been, and how often we butted heads.
We spoke a bit longer and before she left, I tried to hug her long
enough to last awhile, as if the strength of my embrace could shield her
from trouble. I want so many good things for her.
After Lena had gone, I turned to my current group and said, “Teachers
don’t get paid a lot, but when students come back to visit it’s like
getting an extra paycheck. I want you to remember that when you are
walking by this school one day. Come up to see me; it does my heart
good. And to have Lena say that I was her ‘favorite teacher’ — well,
that is why I work so hard, because 30 years from now when you have your
own children and see me on the subway, I want you to say, ‘You see that
woman. She was the best teacher I ever had.’” And as I stood there
before my students, having made this confession, generous voice after
generous voice said, “I’ll come back to see you, Mrs. Whitehouse.” For a
little while, we were all a bit verklempt, me most of all for having
been shown my true value.
Figure out a way to put that in an algorithm and perhaps I will accept
it as providing some relevant evidence about the value I add to a
classroom. Until then, keep your 99th-percentile rating. I prefer a letter of recommendation from one of my students.
Maribeth Whitehouse is a special education teacher at IS 190 in the Bronx. She is in her ninth year of teaching eighth grade.
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