"Corporate guy" and school board member compares standardized test scores to real-world corporate metrics, concludes high-stakes test school ratings are a "complete farce and damaging to 'my team'"

Damon Buffum of Fairport, N.Y., a local school board member and engineer with Cisco Systems, has what is simply the best and most knowledgeable brief discussion I've seen in 10 years of reading this stuff why metrics borrowed from industrial engineering simply do not work in an educational setting. This especially stands out:

... I've been on the school board for 2 years now (5 total but in different districts). I can firmly say, there's is almost nothing similar between the education and corporate world. Children are not binary, families are not a controlled environment and educational "output" is not easily or fully quantified in the short term (and may not manifest itself until years later).

But the whole thing is worth reading. (So is the article in today's New York Daily News that Buffum linked to, and which I'll link to below.) Buffum's piece was posted to his Facebook page and widely shared. But it didn't quite go viral, so I'm archiving it here:

Full disclosure: I'm a Corporate Guy. For the past 26 years I've worked for large, multinational, corporations. I've worked for my current corporation for the past 19 years and I drink, sleep, and live a corporate (professional) life. I use data extensively. It shows me the current status of my business, the trends over time, the strengths and the gaps. I can then apply resources to improve areas that show the need for improvement.

As a leader of a professional team, I use multiple measures for my evaluations (as I'm also evaluated). These measures include business metrics and stakeholder feedback, but primarily come from direct observation. I spend time with my team, we discuss goals and objectives, I watch them execute, and then I give them feedback on what I saw and provide a couple of comments on things that could be considered. I always say, "you can't be a hitting coach in baseball and never watch your players swing the bat".

So I've been on the school board for 2 years now (5 total but in different districts). I can firmly say, there's is almost nothing similar between the education and corporate world. Children are not binary, families are not a controlled environment and educational "output" is not easily or fully quantified in the short term (and may not manifest itself until years later).

However... Leadership, development and evaluation principals are consistent across any professional. Effective leadership involves creating a shared vision, common and clear goals, trust, regular communication and feedback, coaching for improvement, professional enablement and direct observation of every individual. There's mutual buy-in and accountability to this relationship. As a "Manager", my most important asset is the team that I support. Their professional capabilities, confidence and enablement is what makes me successful and what makes the organization work. Without my team, we would be nothing. My role, as a manager, is to enable them, communicate with them, give them regular feedback and support and, occasionally, provide constructive feedback to do a course correction.

Sorry for being wordy.. but the current Teacher evaluation being implemented (and being reformed) in NY is a bunch of *&#$. It does not adhere to anything I've ever known and is the exact text book of "what not to do" if you want to be an effective leader or stay in business. It is bad for the individual, bad for the organization and, ultimately, bad for our children.

This article [linked below] explains the details. As a Board member, this rating system is, indeed, a complete farce and damaging to "my team". I'm against it.

Buffum links to a New York Daily News op-ed piece blasting Governor Cuomo's new teacher rating system. Written by Arthur Goldstein, an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, it argues, convincingly, that the "tests are rigged to produce whatever results the pols want — and right now they want public schools and teachers to look bad," and concludes: "It’s a disgrace that members of the Assembly and Senate, who have no idea who my kids are or what they need, are charged with not only telling me what to teach, but also judging me on factors having nothing to do with whether or not I’m doing my job well."