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In the wake of last year’s TNReady troubles, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation saying “no adverse action” could be taken against teachers, students, or schools based on the results. While legislators passed the bill late in the session, the Tennessee Department of Education was left to implement policy.

As this school year is up and running, teachers and administrators are asking what to do with data from 2017-18. Helpfully, the TDOE released this handy guidance document. The document lets teachers know they can choose to nullify their entire Level of Effectiveness (LOE) score from 2017-18 if TNReady scores were included in any part of a teacher’s overall TEAM evaluation score.

But nullifying your score could lead to unintended “adverse actions,” couldn’t it? Well, maybe. But, the always thoughtful TDOE is ahead of the game. They also have a guide to nullification.

This guide makes clear that even if a teacher chooses to nullify his or her entire LOE for 2017-18, no adverse action will impact that teacher.

Here are a couple key points:

Educators who choose to nullify their 2017-18 LOE may still be able to earn Professional Development Points (PDPs). Educators who choose to nullify their 2017-18 LOE may use their 2016-17 score to earn applicable PDPs;

So, PDPs are covered if you nullify. Great.

For educators who nullify their 2017-18 LOE, the number of observations required in 2018- 19 will be calculated based on 2016-17 data in conjunction with the educator’s current license type.

Looks like classroom observations have also been covered.

If a teacher chooses to nullify his or her 2017-18, LOE he or she may still become eligible for tenure this year. Pursuant to T.C.A. § 49-5-503(4), “a teacher who has met all other requirements for tenure eligibility but has not acquired an official evaluation score during the last one (1) or two (2) years of the probationary period due to an approved extended leave; transfer to another school or position within the school district; or invalidated data due to a successful local level evaluation grievance pursuant to § 49-1-302(d)(2)(A) may utilize the most recent two (2) years of available evaluation scores achieved during the probationary period.”

Worried about tenure? TDOE has you covered!

So far, so good, right?

Well, then there was an email sent by the Education Value-Added Assessment System (the vendor that calculates TVAAS).

Here’s what teachers saw in their inboxes this week:

Due to the upcoming release of TVAAS reports for the 2017-18 school year, some of the data from the 2016-17 reporting will no longer be available.

*    The current student projections will be removed and replaced with new projections based on the most recent year of assessment data.
*    Current Custom Student reports will be removed.
*    District administrators will lose access to Teacher Value-Added reports and composites for teachers who do not receive a Teacher Value-Added report in their district in 2017-18.
*    School administrators will lose access to Teacher Value-Added reports and composites for teachers in their school who do not receive a Value-Added report in 2017-18.

If you would like to save value-added and student projection data from the 2016-17 reporting, you must print or export that data by September 26. TVAAS users are reminded to follow all local data policies when exporting or printing confidential data.

But wait, the 2016-17 data is crucial for teachers who choose to nullify their 2017-18 LOE. Why is a significant portion of this data being deleted?

Also, note that student projections are being updated based on the 2017-18 scores.

What?

The 2017-18 test was plagued by hackers, dump trucks, and mixed up tests. Still, the TDOE plans to use that data to update student projections. These projections will then be used to assign value-added scores going forward.

That’s one hell of an adverse impact. Or, it could be. It really depends on how the 2017-18 scores impact the projected performance of given students.

The legislation in plain language indicated teachers and schools would face “no adverse action” based on the 2017-18 TNReady administration. Now, teachers are being told that future student growth projections will be based on data from this test. It’s possible that could have a positive impact on a teacher’s future growth score. It certainly could also have a rather negative impact.

The potentially adverse action of allowing the 2017-18 TNReady scores to impact future growth scores for teachers and schools has not been addressed.

By the way, we now have the following set of apples, oranges, and bananas from which we are determining student growth:

2015 — TCAP

2016 — NO TNReady

2017 — pencil and paper TNReady

2018 — Hacker and Dump Truck TNReady

It’s difficult to see how any reliable growth score can be achieved using these results.

 

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4 thoughts on “Deleted

  1. This is the most disgraceful, embarrassing mess I have ever seen. It is obvious the TNDOE is totally incompetent and incapable of administering education in TN. Here’s an idea. Scrap the standards, scrap the assessments, scrap carrying the water for DC and lets get back to basics. US Classical, pre-1965 education was the best in the world. We need to turn back the hands of time. When you educate people they are capable of working anywhere in the world and capable of doing anything. What we are seeing today and have for many decades is a dumbing down of American education in order to control outcomes. Problem is we spend way too much time teaching kids how to have sex than we do teaching them how to do REAL math and read complex works of fine literature.

  2. This is a very biased, misleading, and in some ways, uninformed article. This is a good example of “fake news”.
    For the majority of the state, there were very few hiccups in the testing process. Most of the disruptions came from the anti-testing folks and from teachers who continue to have low growth year after year.
    The previous data becomes unavailable on the TVAAS site EVERY year because the new data is calculated with the previous data to create new projections. The state still has access.
    Don’t be misled by opinions. Stick to the facts.

    • Thanks for your feedback, Sam.

      Let’s be clear: The article cites an email sent by the state’s vendor as well as the state’s guidance document.
      The article notes that through the guidance document, the state has addressed several concerns raised by teachers.

      You claim that disruptions were few and came from “the anti-testing folks and from teachers who continue to have low growth…”

      Districts across Tennessee faced disruptions throughout the testing cycle. The teachers didn’t cause the alleged hacking. The anti-testing folks didn’t cause the dump truck. The vendor eventually admitted to the problems and later evidence revealed there was no hacking and that the dump truck issue was overblown.

      I’m not sure how else to “stick to the facts” other than to cite the state’s own documents.

      You’ll note my article says that incorporating this year’s scores into TVAAS could be helpful or harmful — so, I’m not suggesting it’s necessarily bad. I am using the state’s documents to raise questions relative to possible “adverse impacts” resulting from how the scores from a disrupted test may be used.

      I also cite the history of test administration over the past four years. The history, as I cite it, is a fact.

      Thanks!!

      Andy

    • I’m sorry, but you DO NOT know what you’re talking about. If I continued with my educated response to your comments, I’d end up displaying some very unladylike opinions that just might blow your mind. For lack of a more intelligent response to your inane comment, SHUT UP.

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