Definition of Statistics

Environment

1. Budget Factor (BF) - Comparative level of school budget to state average.  This factor is based on an average school budget within the state equaling 1.00 and the percentage difference moving above and below that mark.  For example, a school budget that is 50% higher than the state average will score a 1.50, a school budget that is 27% below the state average will score a 0.73.
2. Professional Development BF (PDBF) - Comparative level of professional development budget within the school to the state average.  The scale for PDBF is identical to BF but reflects only the portion of the budget that is earmarked for the professional development of faculty members.
   
3. Socioeconomic Factor (SEF) - Comparative level of average family income in the district the state average.  This factor is scored on the same scale as BF and PDBF, but the data is drawn from the census data, not the school budget.
   
4. Community Education Factor (CEF) - Comparative level of average highest degree earned in the district the state average.  This factor is a composite of three scales.  The city/district is compared to the state average for highest educational attainment as a percentage of population.  The three measures will be high school diploma, bachelor's degree, and professional degree.  These three will be placed on the 1.00 rating scale and then totaled as such: (2*HS+Bachelors+Professional)/4.  The High School diploma statistic is double to reflect the added importance of having reached that level as a minimum.
5. Staff Ratio (SR) - Ratio of teaching to non-teaching staff members in the school. This measure is intended to show the level of administrative support that may be available within a school.  The assumption is that a high level of non-teaching staff will result in less pressure on the teachers outside the classroom.  As with the rest in the Environment category, it will be measured on a 1.00 scale in comparison to the state average.
   
6. Student - Faculty Ration (SFR) - Ratio of students to teaching staff members in the school.  Measured on the same 1.00 scale as above with the basis as the state average.

 Each of the environmental factors is based on a scale starting at 0.00, with the state average being 1.00.  This means that the majority of numbers will end up somewhere near 1.00 and the sum of each factor would average 6.00.   As the environment is serving as a factor to the total equation, a number below 1.00 (the final sum is divided by 6 to show the overall average environmental factor) will increase the final teacher's score and a number above 1.00 would decrease it.  The goal of this section is to boost the statistics of a teacher working without significant school and/or community resources to assist and slightly deflate the scores of a teacher who has all of the benefits or a full budget and dedicated community.

Experience

1. Years Teaching (YT) – Number of years the teacher has spent actually teaching in the classroom.
2. Years in Related Field (YR) – Number of years the teacher has spent involved in their field outside of direct teaching (research, professional experience, etc.).
3. Courses Taught (CT) – Number of actual courses taught, not just length of time teaching them.
4. Years in Courses Taught (YCT) – YT/CT – Designed to show the amount of career time dedicated to each subject.  The supposition with this statistic is that the greater amount of time spent in each course will reflect a higher level of preparation and experience, specific to that course.

Experience is one of the most important factors for a good teacher.  No course can teach a teacher as much as one year in front of the students.  However, the experience factors are designed to be weighted against the Classroom Engagement and Academic Success areas.  This is intended to try to reflect that experience, while important, is of little importance without results.

Classroom Engagement

1. Course Drops (CD) – Percentage of students in class that drop the course after the first day.  This percentage will be simply converted to a whole number.  For example, if 6% of the students drop the class, the CD will be 6.  While some drops are appropriate, an inordinately high number is a cause for concern and should be addressed.
2. Disciplinary Referrals (DR) – Percentage of class that receives disciplinary referrals (detention, principal’s office, etc.) due to disruptive behavior in the classroom.  It is important that this number be a percentage and not a cumulative of referrals, as one bad apple should not be allowed to spoil the bunch.  However, a teacher who is giving out disciplinary referrals widely is not gaining nor keeping the respect and attention of the students.  As with CD, DR will be a conversion of a percentage to a whole number.

It is unfortunate that these are the only two measures of classroom engagement available and they are both negative.  Yet, without an effective method of calculating exactly how engaged students are with the lessons, these will have to do.  This area leaves the most to be pondered for future improvement and innovation.

Academic Success

1. Standardized Test Results (STR) – The average scores of the teacher’s classes on related standardized testing.  The trickiness with STR is choosing which test to base the results on.  My opinion is to go with the closest approximation available.  Most states are required to test at each grade level in each subject due to the requirements of NCLB.  Regardless of the issues that I, and many others, have with the efficacy of standardized testing, they are the best single method of measuring the amount of relevant knowledge that each student has acquired.  Until someone can design a standard method of measuring critical thinking and problem-solving within various disciplines, the standardized test will reign supreme.  STR will be displayed in the form of the environmental factors (the average test score is 1.00 with variation from the norm reflected above and below that scale).  The teacher's score will reflect his or her's class average.  This does raise the issue of different scores in different classes, and it would be worth building a slightly simplified formula to measure teachers in relation to their efficacy within specific topics.
2. Matriculation Rate (MR) – The success rate at moving students on to the next grade level at the completion of the year.  Aside from testing, the primary bar to measure a teacher's success is how many of their students pass the course.  Therefore a percentage passing rate will be multiplied by 10, making a 100% pass rate a 10.0 and a 78% pass rate a 7.8.
3. Preparation Rate (PR) – Percentage of students who fail the subsequent course.  Unfortunately, MR can be significantly impacted by teachers whose goal is simply to pass along students who have not actually learned the material.  To this end, it is important to measure the success of the students in the next course year.  This will show, in conjunction with the data points, the full preparation that the student received from year to year.  It is risky to measure a teacher on the subsequent teacher's influence, but a school is a community and responsibility for the students' futures must be shared by all.  Like MR, this rate will be measured on a 10.0 scale reflecting the percent matriculating on from the subsequent course.
4. College Enrollment Rate (CER) – Percentage of students who go on to enroll in post-secondary education.  Long term preparation is the ultimate goal of any teacher and any school.  This measure, also on a ten point scale, will show the first half of this academic preparation.
5. College Graduation Rate (CGR) – Percentage of students who obtain a post-secondary degree.  CGR is the second half of the measure of long-term preparation that CER starts.  It will be measured on the same 10.0 scale.

Continuing Education

1. Bachelor’s Degree (BD) – Recognition for holding a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.  Value of 1.
2. Master’s Degree (MD) – Recognition for holding a Master’s degree in a related field.  Value of 1.
3. Doctoral Degree (DD) – Recognition for holding a Doctoral degree in a related field.  Value of 1.
4. Professional Degree (PD) – Recognition for holding a Professional degree in a related field.  Value of 1.
5. Continuing Courses Taken (CCT) – Number of related courses taken, outside of degree requirements.  Value of 1 per full credit course take.

 The value of an educated teacher is high.  More time spent formally studying the subject matter typically results in higher understanding and more examples to convey knowledge to the students.  However, there is a threshold to useful knowledge.  A Bachelors degree gives the strong base of knowledge needed to be a K-12 teacher, while a Masters can help boost an area of expertise.  However, a doctorate or professional degree (JD, MD, etc.) will likely only provide details that are above the skill level of even the most ambitious of high school classes.  So, these higher degrees are weighted less in the actual formula.  What is most important is that a teacher continue to learn, so each continuing education course completed is awarded a full point.

W.A.S.T. Continued

Well, it certainly has been a while since I last wrote here and it is good to be back at it. I'd like to thank those of you who gave me input on my last entry, it has really helped with my thought process.

I did run into some confusion and think that this would be a good opportunity to explain exactly what I am trying to do.

First, this is an intellectual endeavor. I am not trying to create a tool to be used to identify bad teachers. Rather, I'm hoping to explore and understand the difficulties inherent in trying to differentiate between good and bad teachers with the available tools to do so.

Second, I am attempting to frame this work as a "real world" exercise. In other words, I am only using tools and statistics that are readily available and relatively standardized across the nation. This means that there are some areas that may be very helpful in evaluating teachers (class participation rates, student satisfaction surveys, etc.) that are either unmeasurable or non-standardized to the point that they are not a useful metric. I fully intend to take some time later in the exercise to review what seems to be missing and discuss what could be done to improve upon current metrics.

Third, while my goal is to create a formula, such as the one found below, the exact values can only be determined through lengthy statistical input from a wide variety of sources. As the formula grows and adjusts, I welcome anyone interested to send me the relevant data for teachers in their experience to begin compiling a database that could be used to test the efficacy of the formula. Any current or former teachers who'd like to self-evaluate, please do, your reactions would be priceless.

Moving on, the response to my initial list of statistics was strong. TT (Time as Teacher) seems to be the most contentious as it is the most related to style and so I am omitting it from calculations for now. STR, on the other hand, was universally considered a top priority, but there are some issues with standardization. I have, at this point, decided to simply recommend that STR reflect the results of the most applicable standardized test for that teacher's grade level and subject. To adjust for wildly different scoring scales, STR will itself be a composite reflecting the variation above or below the test average. Definitions of the metrics can be found in the next post.

Finally, I was repeatedly pushed to consider that a teacher cannot be measured independent of their environment. In other words, a good teacher may be hindered by a tough school/community and vice versa. Therefore, I have developed a number of factors that attempt to reflect the environment in which a teacher works. I consider these factors to influence the composite score of each of the previous for areas (Experience, Classroom Engagement, Academic Success, and Continuing Education). The Environmental factors are:

Budget Factor (BF) - Comparative level of school budget to state average.
Professional Development BF (PDBF) - Comparative level of professional development budget within the school to the state average.
Socioeconomic Factor (SEF) - Comparative level of average family income in the district the state average.
Community Education Factor (CEF) - Comparative level of average highest degree earned in the district the state average.
Staff Ratio (SR) - Ratio of teaching to non-teaching staff members in the school.
Student - Faculty Ration (SFR) - Ratio of students to teaching staff members in the school.

Each factor will be based on a calculation that places the state average at 1.0. This will eventually result in a compound formula where the environmental factors will be found as factors to the whole equation, leaving the numerator as a useful tool to consider teacher scores independent of the environment. An example of how the formula may end up looking is this:

The next post will explore how each of these, and the previous list of factors could be mathematically defined.

Where It All Begins

This is not a vanity exercise. This is a record.

I am embarking upon what I expect to be the greatest adventure of my life, and there is logic to me in keeping track of its progress. In just under two months I will begin courses towards a Master of Arts in Teaching degree through Education University* The ultimate goal, of course, is to gain the degree, license, preliminary skills, and confidence to begin a career in teaching social studies to high school students.

Everything that I have read, and every educator who has spoken with me on the subject of becoming a teacher, stressed that it is a continual process. It has been impressed upon me that there is no degree that qualifies one as a teacher, only the slow painful process of learning from mistakes. I’m pretty good at at least half of that. Mistakes are a part of life that I’ve gained a pretty strong background in. But learning from them seems to be the whole key. And while I can write this now, I look back and realize that I have always relied on my memory to keep me from making the same mistake twice.

It should be no surprise that this device has failed. Memory is imperfect. I wouldn’t be much of a history buff if I didn’t know the vast importance of having it all written down on something a touch more secure than memory. Yet a quick search through my past will find no diaries, journals, and only one aborted blog attempt. All in all, I’ve done a pretty poor job of maintaining my own personal history.

So that’s where this blog comes in. This blog is intended to serve as my history. It is my safeguard against the pitfalls of memory. It is my investment in getting it right, or at least, not getting it wrong twice. I want to be the best teacher that I can possibly be, and I’m willing to bet that the best teachers have the best tools. This is the first tool in my kit.

Of course, I know that I have selected a public medium and there’s every chance that I will not be the only person reading this. All’s the better. For you, my reader, thank you for your interest. I hope that you share your own opinions, experiences, stories, and journey. Maybe, someday, this tool for me, will help another aspiring teacher. Or maybe it will just be amusing to watch my inevitable misadventures. There is certainly a bit of schadenfreude in this whole blog idea, so why not welcome it?

Now that I have welcomed you, babbled about my goal, and nearly lost the whole way, let me introduce myself. I grew up mainly north of Chicago, Illinois in a pretty typical upper-middle class suburban family. Like many in this position, I had a family that demanded involvement and commitment. I was expected to become and remain involved in myriad activities, including, but certainly not limited to: soccer, baseball, basketball, track, gymnastics, martial arts, violin, French horn, acting, writing, community service, church involvement, and singing.

At the end of the day, there were two activities that won my heart: reading and military training. I have always been a voracious reader and have thoroughly enjoyed always having an adventure on the next page. The military, though, offered me the chance to have real adventures. It gave me minute to minute opportunities to test myself and see what I could handle next. I threw myself into various para-military activities and eventually seized the opportunity to attend a military high school, and then on to the U.S. Naval Academy. Oddly, the further I continued with the military, the more I realized that I had no taste for it. I became a qualified expert with various small arms, but knew that I had no interest in ever using them. I became adept at military drill and structure, but could no longer separate the means from the ends. Fortuitously, I was confronted with medical complications, discharged honorably, and given the opportunity to try life in civilian clothing.

I attended Miami University in Ohio and learned a lot about myself. At Miami, I found passion for politics, history, culture, debate, and international relations. Simultaneously I discovered dispassion wild parties, mindless cliques, and the reign of fashion. I fell in love with the history and culture of Arabia and grabbed the opportunity to study in the Sultanate of Oman during my junior year. This experience, coupled with the frustrations of watching politics under the second Bush administration, steered me away from my conceived career in the Foreign Service. Instead, I began to look more closely at education.

To be fair, I have always harbored an interest in education, particularly teaching. But, it was always later. First, I wanted to change the world. I wanted to shape nations and engage with peoples. I wanted to alter minds and effect ideas. I guess it took a while before I realized that that is what teachers do every day.

Still, I knew that I did not want to be the type of teacher who could speak only from what they’d seen in books. Classrooms should be a window to the world, and a teacher who’s never been on the other side of the window often has a tough time describing what’s out there. This is not to say that teaching can only be done by those with non-teaching experience. I simply mean that there seems to be a direct relationship between those who have ventured beyond the school halls and the teachers who can capture the topics best for their students. With this thought in mind, I decided to see some of the world first.

Shortly after graduating from Miami, I moved to the small country of Qatar to work for Carnegie Mellon’s young campus in Education City. I will never regret the experience I gained there, living alone in a foreign land, learning to be a professional, leading and guiding students in Doha. However, I was in love, and a year away from my girlfriend was enough to convince me that I wanted to be with her and needed to see if our relationship was ready for the next step. So, I moved to Boston, where she had just begun a graduate program in Library Science and took a job at Northeastern University.

That was three years ago. During that time, I’ve certainly accomplished my goal of experiencing more of the world. In fact, as an international admissions officer for Northeastern, I’ve managed to visit 32 countries on five continents, read more than 5,000 college applications from over a hundred different countries, learn to thrive in a complicated office environment, and written dozens of policies and procedures for the university. Meanwhile, I successfully proposed marriage to my girlfriend and married her in a beautiful ceremony in Maine. We moved to Brookline, experienced enough of city life to know that we’re more of country mice, and moved out to beautiful Acton, Massachusetts. Not a bad use of three years, in my opinion. Yet, all along, I knew that admissions was not my goal. Each step along the road has only served to reinforce my desire to teach. And a year ago, it was obvious that it was time to stop waiting on my dream.

I knew that a teaching license would require about a year of schooling, so I looked into programs that combined the license and a master’s degree. Why not? I certainly have no formal background in teaching, why not give myself an academic foot to stand on? Of course, accelerated programs like the 13-month one I’ll be undertaking at Education University made the decision easier.

There was an amusing moment last fall when I found myself staring at a computer screen in Kinshasa, D.R. of Congo, editing my college essay about an hour before I taught a seminar on college essay writing. But, I guess it worked, because I was accepted to the MAT program and have yet to look back.

I am now one month from my final day as an admissions officer for Northeastern. One month to pack my office, finish the manual I’m writing, pass on what I’ve learned, and wrap up my career outside the classroom. I know that I’ll always be an adventurer, but beginning in June, my adventures will likely be strictly scheduled around the academic calendar. That’s ok. I’m ready to start. I’m excited. Here it goes…

*Names changed for privacy concerns.