My son Noah is a high-school teacher and
a track and cross-country coach. He runs a blog for his athletes, at https://sites.google.com/site/hctrackxc/Home/coach-lawrence-s-blog. His latest post contained his thoughts on instructor evaluation,
which he then related to trakc; this then led him to develop a program which is
apparently catching on nationally. I thought I would share his comments, lengthy as they
are, here.
“Last Friday was an ‘institute day’ at
Hinsdale Central. Students had the day off, allowing teachers the opportunity
to grade final exams, prepare for the new semester, collaborate with each other
in the development of curriculum, and attend meetings. Towards the end of the
day, I was at one such meeting, called by my department chair for all members
of the social studies department. We have these meetings monthly, as they are
an opportunity for our DC to inform us of new initiatives, recent changes in
school law, and upcoming events. At this particular meeting, my department
chair was sharing with us the new criteria that will be used to evaluate
teacher performance starting in the 2014-2015 school year. I learned that for
the first time ever, ‘student improvement’ is going to be used as category by
which to evaluate teacher effectiveness. Though the specifics have not been
ironed out yet, the intent of the law is to find quantifiable data by which to
compare teachers to each other.
This got me thinking about the challenge of finding a useful way to measure
academic improvement in a discipline like social studies. What specific skills
should be measured? Reading comprehension? But a typical student has 6-7 classes
a day. How do we know which class is contributing most to that improvement? And
what about someone like me who is the only teacher of an elective course? No
one else at our school teaches African American History or East Asian Studies.
I can certainly give my students a test on their knowledge of these disciplines
at the beginning of the semester and then again at the end, and I am confident
that if I did so every single student would show marked improvement – but how
could this data be usefully compared to other social studies teachers who are
teaching about significantly different subject matters?
The most significant problem I see with this system of evaluation is that it
appears to be an attempt to quantify that which cannot easily be quantified.
Here are my goals as an educator: I hope that after a semester in my class, a
student will be less likely to believe everything they read; that they will
learn to consider authorial intent; that they will be able to formulate a
position on a political, social, or philosophical question and that they will
be able to support that position with reliable evidence; that they will gain
appreciation and sensitivity to cultural practices different than their own;
that they will have a greater appreciation for how past historical events have
shaped present day circumstances; that they will write a bit more eloquently;
that they will be less defensive and more reflective; that they will leave with
a stronger desire to be a lifelong voter once they become eligible at age 18;
that they are able to express ideas both formally and artistically; that they
become more open-minded and less judgmental; that they develop a genuine
curiosity about the subjects we study and the wider world around them.
How do you measure all of that? In short, I think it cannot easily be done. To
determine if a teacher is effective, I think the only true way to know is to
come observe them – become a student in their class. But, of course, it is not
practical for any administrator or bureaucrat to spend significant time in
every individual teachers’ classroom, so instead we are left with an imperfect
system, which, in our heated political environment, has become increasingly
high stakes.
Which brings me to track and field. One of the things I love most about track
is that it is so easy to measure improvement. Unlike Cross Country, all tracks
are standardized to the exact same distance. Of course, weather conditions and
the quality of your competition may vary, but, by in large, there are few
sports which offer the chance to systematically chart growth as effectively as
track.
At Hinsdale Central, we have been doing this for our distance kids for about
the past 5 years. We keep track of every team member’s personal best times at
the beginning of indoors and see how much they progress over the course of the
season and over their four years. To cite some examples, Billy ran
10:11 in the 3200 as a freshman, 9:32 as a sophomore, 9:17 as a junior, and
9:09 as a senior. Zach never broke 5:00 for 1600 his freshman year, ran
4:43 as a sophomore, 4:29 as a junior, and 4:16 as a senior. Last year I put
together a chart showing improvement of mile times for the 12 graduating
seniors, and all could boast of having bettered their mile times every single
season (with one single exception due to injury). As Coach Westhphal and I
always say, the moment we stop helping kids improve is the moment we retire.
We’ve also been able to chart our own improvement through documenting the
number of athletes on our team who have run faster than 5:00 for 1600. When we
first started keeping track of this metric in 2008, we had a paltry 12 guys
who’d broken the mark. Our progress from that point has been halting, but
ultimately forward:
2009-24
2010-25
2011-24
2012-27
2013-32
For this year, though, we’ve decided to take things to a new level. While
sitting in that department meeting, thinking about the difficulty of comparing
teachers to each other, my mind admittedly wandered to track, and I thought
about how much easier it is to compare times in that sport: thus, the sub 5
challenge was born.
The idea was simple. Invite coaches from around the state and nation to keep
track of how many guys on their team break 5:00 for the 1600 over the course of
the season. Then, collate these lists, and rank the teams in order of which
team has the highest number. That team would be declared the winner. I know
that most good coaches keep this data internally already, so all we’d really be
doing would be to agree to share our lists with each other.
After bouncing the idea of Coach Westhphal and Coach Kupres, I composed an
email explaining my idea and sent it off to about 15 coaches from high quality
programs, who I’ve had the honor of getting to know over the past several
years. I had no sense of how receptive coaches would be to the idea, but I got
an immediate boost when I checked my email again a few hours after clicking the
‘send’ button and learned that Coach Vandersteen of Neuqua Valley had not only
signed on, but had passed the information along to several other coaches whose
contact information I did not have. Soon I had confirmations from 2A state
champion Yorkville, 2012 2A state champion Jones College Prep, and 2012 3200
relay champion Minooka. Coach Dave Wisner of New Trier wrote to agree to the
challenge, and set a benchmark for all teams to strive for when he shared that
his team had 39 athletes breaking 5:00 last season. More good news came in the
form of an email from Coach Bell at Carmel, Indiana (5th at NXN), who not only
embraced the idea but came up with the excellent suggestion that teams also
keep track of how many runners broke 10:30 for 3200. Coach Bell also offered to
publicize the idea on websites devoted to Indiana high school cross country,
and soon after several quality programs from our neighbors to the east signed
up.
Inspired by how many coaches expressed interest in the idea, I decided to email
Mike Newman, editor of dyestatil.com, to see if he’d be willing to help
advertise the sub-5 challenge. This ultimately proved to be the action that
truly brought the ‘sub-5 challenge’ to life. Mr. Newman loved the idea, and
agreed to throw the full weight of dyestat and runnerspace behind it. He knows
far more about how to effectively use social media than I do, and he posted an
article explaining the concept on his website, then posted the link to the
article on his facebook page and twitter accounts. Within an hour, we had an
email from the coach of Christian Brothers Academy in New Jersey, who finished
as the runner-up team at Nike Nationals this year, requesting to join. A day
later, Severna Park, Maryland (13th at NXN) accepted the challenge. Over on the
east coast, meets have already started, and Severna Park is off to a fast start
with 5 guys sub 10:00 at this early stage of the season.
So, at this point, 4 of the 22 boys’ teams from NXN have agreed to the
challenge, as have 9 of the top 14 teams from the 3A state meet, including the
top 4. I spoke with Mike Newman on the phone last night, and he said he will be
attempting to recruit more of the best teams in the nation, using his contacts
at dyestat. We are both hoping that as the season goes on, more on more teams
will sign up.
In the realm of educational policy, there is a push by some self-proclaimed “reformers”
to compare teachers to each other, though the actual intent of these changes in
the law may be to foster an unhealthy competition where teachers are pitted
against each other. The intent of the sub-5 challenge is just the opposite. One
of the aims of the sub-5 challenge is to look at which teams are the deepest;
that is, which teams help not just the most talented members, but also the
younger and less innately gifted runners. Kids who break 5:00 for the first
time ever will get their names listed on dyestat. The 40th of 41st fastest
runner on a team may get the opportunity for recognition that he would not
otherwise get. It is a competition designed to bring out the best in all of us
– in the coaches who understand that their goal is to help all their charges
improve, in every single member of all of our teams.
Illinois teams confirmed to participate in the sub-5 challenge: Batavia,
Bremen, Downers Grove North, Downers Grove South, Elmwood Park, Hersey, Jones
College Prep, Lake Zurich, Lincoln-Way North, Loyola Academy, Lyons Township,
Minooka, Neuqua Valley, New Trier, O’Fallon, Palatine, Plainfield South,
Rockford Christian, Whitney Young, Yorkville
Teams from other states confirmed to participate: Assumption-Louisville
(KY), Carmel (IN), Christian Brothers Academy (NJ), Franklin
Central-Indianapolis (IN), Great Oaks (CA), Heritage-Saginaw (MI), Lawrence
North-Indianapolis (IN), Mason (OH), Severna Park (MD).”
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