The Teacher Wars (48 page)

1
Wendy Kopp:
Wendy Kopp, One Day All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way (New
York: Public Affairs, 2001); and Donna Foote,
Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).

2
“the new idealism,” a “yuppie volunteering spirit”:
Kopp, “An Argument and Plan for the Creation of the Teacher Corps,” 10–11.

3
“politicized nature”:
Ibid., 46.

4
“the brightest minds”:
Ibid., 45.

5
“the best possible job”:
Ibid., 2.

6
“break” from “fast-paced lives”:
Ibid., 45.

7
“send the signal”:
Ibid., 49.

8
sent her a cautious letter in response:
Reproduced in Ibid., 159–60.

9
“an emergency response”:
Ibid., 50.

10
“Something to Think About”:
Flyer reproduced in Kopp,
One Day All Children
, 36–37.

11
TFA's inaugural class:
Author interview with Alex Caputo-Pearl, February 27, 2011; and Kopp,
One Day All Children
, 50–52.

12
Of the first class of TFA recruits:
Michael Shapiro,
Who Will Teach for America?
(Washington, D.C.: Farragut Publishing Company, 1993), 189.

13
“What Teach for America had accomplished”:
Ibid., 75.

14
“Giving the least experienced teachers the toughest classes”:
Jonathan Schorr, “Class Action: What Clinton's National Service Program Could Learn From ‘Teach for America,' ”
Phi Delta Kappan
75, no. 4 (December 1993): 315–18.

15
Kopp dismissed this suggestion:
Shapiro,
Who Will Teach for America?
, 79.

16
“a frankly missionary program”:
Linda Darling-Hammond, “Who Will Speak for the Children: How ‘Teach for America' Hurts Urban Schools and Students,”
Phi Delta Kappan
76, no. 1 (September 1994): 21–34.

17
certain types of education classes:
See Linda Darling-Hammond's review of the effects of various teacher qualities and training experiences on student achievement: “Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence” (University of Washington, Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy report, 1999), 8.

18
10 percent of entering teacher-ed students:
Berliner and Biddle,
The Manufactured Crisis
, 105–6.

19
“We need an entirely new”:
Samuel Casey Carter,
No Excuses: Lessons from High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools
(Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 2000), 17.

20
“Generally, the TFA teachers”:
Patricia Sellers, “Schooling Corporate Giants on Recruiting,”
Fortune
, November 27, 2006.

21
“They work in service of a corporate reform agenda”:
Catherine Michna, “Why I Stopped Writing Recommendation Letters for Teach for America,”
Slate
, October 9, 2013.

22
Teaching as Leadership:
Quotes are from Steven Farr and Teach for America,
Teaching as Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher's Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010); and
the Teaching as Leadership Web site,
http://​www.​teaching​as​leadership.​org/
.

23
The research consensus on TFA:
There have been two randomized control trials comparing TFA recruits to teachers from other pathways, both of which were conducted by Mathematica; they found TFA teachers were more effective at producing test score gains in math. A possible shortcoming of these studies is that TFA teachers were compared not only to traditionally trained teachers, but also to teachers with alternative certifications from other programs, some of which are of very poor quality. A 2005 Linda Darling-Hammond analysis of student-teacher data compared Houston TFA teachers explicitly to teachers who studied education in college or graduate school. It found that students of uncertified TFA corps members were two weeks to three months behind their peers in classrooms with certified teachers. Teach for America teachers who earned certification in their second or third years on the job appeared no different from other teachers, however, and were perhaps slightly stronger in math. See Paul T. Decker, Daniel P. Mayer, and Steven Glazerman,
The Effects of Teach for America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation
(Mathematica report, June 9, 2004); Melissa A. Clark et al., “The Effectiveness of Secondary Math Teachers from Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows Programs” (Mathematica study, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, September 2013); Linda Darling-Hammond et al., “Does Teacher Preparation Matter? Evidence About Teacher Certification, Teach for America, and Teacher Effectiveness,”
Education Policy Analysis Archives
13, no. 42 (2005); and Dylan Matthews, “Teach for America's Teachers Are Besting Their Peers on Math, Study Shows,”
Washington Post
, April 5, 2013.

24
A cache of studies:
Andrew C. Butler and Henry L. Roediger, “Testing Improves Long-Term Retention in a Simulated Classroom Setting,”
European Journal of Cognitive Psychology
19, no. 4/5 (2007); Henry L. Roediger and Andrew C. Butler, “The Critical Role of Retrieval Practice in Long-Term Retention,”
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
15, no. 1 (2010): 20–27.

25
“developing a strong desire to control”:
John Hattie,
Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement
(New York: Routledge, 2009).

26
The KIPP schools:
For a fascinating narrative of KIPP's history and role in the contemporary education reform movement, see Jay Mathews,
Work Hard. Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America
(Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2009).

27
“education can trump poverty”:
Kopp,
A Chance to Make History
, 109.

28
“We … control our students' success”:
Farr and Teach for America,
Teaching as Leadership
, 198.

29
“the difference between entry into a selective college”:
Testimony of Kati Haycock, President, the Education Trust, Before the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and the Workforce, Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, May 20, 2003.

30
When the older generation:
Douglas N. Harris and Stacy A. Rutledge, “Models and Predictors of Teacher Effectiveness: A Comparison of Research About Teaching and Other Occupations,”
Teachers College Record
112, no. 3 (2010): 914–60.

31
Value-added measurement:
See William L. Sanders and June C. Rivers, “Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers on Future Student Academic Achievement” (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Value-Added Research and Assessment Center, November, 1996); S. Paul Wright, Sandra P. Horn, and William L. Sanders, “Teacher and Classroom Context Effects on Student Achievement: Implications for Teacher Evaluation,”
Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education
11 (1997): 57–67; and Jim Schutze, “Baby, It's Them,”
Dallas Observer
, January 29, 1998.

32
A more sensitive early value-added formula:
Heather R. Jordan et al.,
Teacher Effects on Longitudinal Student Achievement
(Dallas Public Schools report on research in progress, July 1997).

33
Growth measures that track:
For an excellent discussion of the differences between snapshot and growth/value-added measures of student achievement, see Douglas N. Harris,
Value-Added Measurements in Education
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2011).

34
New York City value-added model:
Value-Added Research Center at University of Wisconsin–Madison and New York City Department of Education,
New York City Data Initiative: Technical Report on the NYC Value-Added Model
(2010).

35
Using these methods:
An excellent and readable summary of value-added research is Harris,
Value-Added Measurements in Education
. Also see Douglas N. Harris and Tim R. Sass, “Teacher Training, Teacher Quality, and Student Achievement,”
Journal of Public Economics
95 (2011). For teacher quality variation within and between schools, see Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, and Jonah E. Rockoff, “Measuring the Impact of Teachers I—II: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates” (working papers 19424 and 19423, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2013). For evidence that black teachers are more effective with students of color, see Eric A. Hanushek et al., “The Market for Teacher Quality” (working paper 11154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2005). For the effects of teacher training and professional development, see Darling-Hammond, “Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence.”

36
the error rate:
Peter Z. Schochet and Hanley S. Chiang,
Error Rates in Measuring Teacher and School Performance Based on Student Test Score Gains
(Institute of Education Sciences/Mathematica report, 2010).

37
two-thirds of teachers who:
Harris,
Value-Added Measurements in Education
, 122.

38
five “good teachers in a row”:
Eric A. Hanushek and Steven B. Rivkin,
“How to Improve the Supply of High-Quality Teachers” (Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 2004).

39
In a 2006 paper:
Robert Gordon, Thomas J. Kane, and Douglas O. Staiger, “Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance on the Job” (Hamilton Project paper, Brookings Institution, April 2006).

40
This reality was demonstrated:
Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff, “Measuring the Impact of Teachers I—II.”

41
When a separate Department of Education/Mathematica trial:
Steven Glazerman,
Transfer Incentives for High-Performing Teachers: Final Results From a Multisite Randomized Experiment
(U.S. Department of Education/Mathematica Policy Research report, November 2013).

42
In 2007 Gates met:
For Bill Gates's introduction to value-added research and his early work on teacher evaluation, see Steven Brill,
Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 178–80 and 229–35.

43
An August 2012
Vanity Fair
article:
Kurt Eichenwald, “Microsoft's Lost Decade,”
Vanity Fair
, August 2012.

44
Elsewhere in the corporate world:
Greg Anrig, “Chicago Teachers' Strike: What Do We Want? Better Management Gurus Might Help,”
Pacific Standard
, September 17, 2012.

45
Even Japanese schools:
To learn more about lesson study, which is gaining popularity in the United States, see
http://www.lessonresearch.net/
.

46
“I am actually really intrigued”:
David Herszenhorn, “Test Scores to Be Used to Analyze Schools' Roles,”
The New York Times
, June 7, 2005.

47
She agreed to an experiment:
Marcus G. Springer and Marcus A. Winters,
New York's School-Wide Bonus Pay Program: Early Evidence from a Randomized Trial
(report, National Center of Performance Incentives, Vanderbilt University, April 2009).

48
One of the hottest tickets:
Dana Goldstein, “The Democratic Education Divide,”
American Prospect
, August 25, 2008.

49
As an Illinois state senator:
Howard Schulman, “Charter Schools Working,”
Providence Journal
, August 27, 2004.

50
he spoke at the launch party of Democrats for Education Reform:
These scenes are re-created in Brill,
Class Warfare
, 131–32.

51
he was booed at an NEA event:
Ruth Marcus, “From Barack Obama, Two Dangerous Words,”
Washington Post
, July 11, 2007.

52
“wonderful new superintendent”:
Jeff Chu, “Obama and McCain Fight Over a Woman,”
Fast Company
, October 20, 2008.

53
When it came time:
Dana Goldstein, “The Selling of School Reform,”
The Nation
, June 15, 2009.

54
“the current research base is insufficient”:
“The Promise and Peril of Using Value-Added Modeling to Measure Teacher Effectiveness” (RAND Education research brief, Santa Monica, CA, 2004).

55
“Let me be clear”:
“Obama Speaks to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,” March 10, 2009. Transcript available at
http://​www.​washing​tonpost.​com/​wp-​srv/​politics/​documents/​Obama_​Hispanic_​Chamber_​Commerce.​html
.

56
“There's got to be a sense of accountability”:
Michael A. Fletcher and Nick Anderson, “Obama Angers Union Officials with Remarks in Support of R.I. Teacher Firings,”
Washington Post
, March 2, 2010.

57
“Only 7 percent of American workers”:
Dana Goldstein, “Grading ‘Waiting for Superman,' ”
The Nation
, October 11, 2010.

58
A 2013 AFT study:
Howard Nelson,
Testing More, Teaching Less
(American Federation of Teachers report, 2013).

59
“There might be good reason”:
Harris,
Value-Added Measurements in Education
, 181.

60
But in September 2013:
Geoff Decker and Philissa Cramer, “Instead of Telling Teachers Apart, New Evals Lump Some Together,” Chalkbeat New York, September 16, 2013.

61
In Florida, Tennessee, and other states:
For information on how “shared attribution” works, see Laura Bornfreund, “An Ocean of Unknowns: Risks and Opportunities in Using Student Achievement to Evaluate PreK–3rd Grade Teachers” (New America Foundation study, May 2013). For problems in Alachua County and Kim Cook's story, see Dan Boyd, “Value-Added Model Has No Value,”
Gainesville Sun
, December 9, 2012; and Valerie Strauss, “A ‘Value-Added' Travesty for an Award-Winning Teacher,”
Washington Post
, December 3, 2012.