Another Flaw to Grade-Based Teacher Evaluations: Disruptive Student Ratios

by Clay Burell

categories: Education Politics, Standardized Tests, Teacher Unions

Published May 13, 2009 @ 01:51AM PT

[A]lthough they are dexterous enough upon a piece of paper, in the management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider, yet in the common actions and behavior of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and perplexed....
--Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels - A Voyage to Laputa

Robert Pondiscio at the Core Knowledge blog picks up on a study covered in Education Next that finds that a single disruptive student can bring down an entire class' achievement. While that's probably obvious to any teacher, it's still good to have a study providing "data" for those to whom what is not measured cannot count as true.

Robert's article is worth a read, but there's an angle I want to add here: namely, that the study seems to seriously undermine the validity of any attempt to evaluate (and pay, retain, and promote) teachers based on their class performance on standardized tests.

Obviously, if Teacher A has one or more disruptive students in a class, and Teacher B doesn't, this study suggests that the effects of the disruptors in Teacher A's class will degrade their grades come test time - and lead to Teacher A being labeled a "bad teacher." Teacher B, meanwhile, by the luck of the draw, will suffer no such handicapping come test time.

If we want to get Swiftian and add yet more measurement-mania to the value-added teacher assessment procedures being developed up there in Laputa, I suppose we could suggest that individual students' disciplinary records - principal's office visits per class, number of suspensions per year, etc - be factored into each teacher's test-based rating. To be fair to students, too, since their performance will be tracked from year to year, each of their records should include the number of disruptive students they had in each class each year.

I'm only half kidding.

I wrote recently about the French film, The Class, which follows a class containing a disruptive student for months, and then shows the same class after that student had been expelled. The night and day difference in time-on-task and learning atmosphere is enough to make any democrat uncomfortable: we believe in equal education for all, yet a single troubled troublemaker can create unequal learning opportunities for his or her classmates, while the neighboring classrooms have no such handicap.

I had such a situation last year. A couple of students who, when they chose to come to class, sometimes came on time, sometimes with their course materials and homework, sometimes not. I finally decided to bar them from the class and send them to the principal's office for the duration, until they decided they could get their act together. I'm not saying it's the perfect solution, but it at least let me and the rest of the class learn in peace.

I read last year, also - maybe on Charlie Roy's blog, maybe Barry Bachenheimer's - about a school that increased its counselor staffing to deal with disciplinary problems. I don't know if that's a solution, either - especially with today's budget cuts.

But I do know, getting back to the problem this study points to concerning teacher assessment based on student achievement, that Ed Sec Arne Duncan has embarked on a "listening tour" to hear our thoughts about his plans. I hope he listens to this one.

Image of Laputa from Swift's Gulliver's Travels