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Houston Independent School District pays bonuses to teachers and administrators for student improvement. However, no one in HISD seems to know how the pay bonuses are calculated.
"They put in a bonus program that by the end of this year (as far as we're concerned) they will have wasted $100 million on," said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers.
HISD compiles the test information from two tests, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and Stanford Achievement Test 10. The results are then given to contracted employee, Statistical Analysis Software, which uses an unknown formula to determine how much HISD employees deserve in bonuses.
The formula, known as Education Value Added Assessment System, was developed by Dr. William Sanders. His software is used "to estimate the effects of teachers, schools and school systems," according the company website. The formula measures student improvement annually.
Teachers are then given individual EVAAS scores that are supposed to evaluate how well they teach. Only teachers in the top half of the curve are eligible to receive bonus pay.
EVAAS scores are given to all teachers, including those who teach non-testable subjects. Bonuses are paid out in the academic year after the tests are administered.
Furthermore, the results from the two tests " from TAKS and SAT 10 " are not correlated, Fallon said. The TAKS test is a pass or fail test, which determines whether a student is in the correct grade level. The SAT 10 is given in the years when the TAKS test is not given, and it evaluates students compared to students nationwide.
"The award I'm going to get this year, if I get one, is based on work I did last year. And I have no idea what I did right or what I did wrong. Or what the numbers are. There is no way that it can help me plan to improve this year. If it doesn"t drive instruction, it really doesn't have much of a purpose," said Andy Dewey, executive vice president of the Houston Federation of Teachers and advanced placement history teacher at Carnegie Vanguard High School.
Carnegie is a magnet high school for gifted and talented students. Repeatedly, 100 percent of its students have passed the TAKS test. Since students cannot improve upon their excellent scores, teachers at Carnegie actually receive lower EVAAS scores, according to Dewey.
Joanna Pasternak, staff representative at the federation, received grievances from 24 teachers regarding formula-based pay decisions.
"Some of the school board members are saying that these EVAAS scores are the [most accurate] evaluation of a teacher, and employment decisions should be made based on this," she said.
No systematic scientific studies have been done to find out whether the tests alone or Sanders' composite score predict student success in college, for instance.
Teachers charge that scores misrepresent their job performance.
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