Don't Use ISTEP to Measure Teacher Performance

State Senator Teresa Lubbers, R-Indianapolis, wants students’ ISTEP test scores to partially determine whether teachers get to keep their jobs. She is author of a bill that would tie teacher evaluations to test scores.

The bill probably stands little chance of passage. That’s because it’s a dumb idea. Even its author said it could stand some retooling before it is introduced for further consideration.

Lubbers said that if administrators and schools are held accountable for ISTEP scores, then teachers should be, too. But it’s not quite that simple.

Teachers don’t have any control over what mix of students they are given. Some teachers have gifted and talented students, while others have a high percentage of special education students.

Some teachers are assigned college preparatory students who tend to do very well on standardized tests. Other teachers have classes filled primarily with students on the basic education track.

In addition, teachers have no control over the socioeconomic condition of the neighborhoods in which they teach. It is no secret that schools in poorer communities or neighborhoods have a higher percentage of students who fail the ISTEP.

Why should teachers be punished for a condition they have no control over?

Lubbers acknowledges that her legislation needs to be tweaked so that it doesn’t penalize a teacher by looking at a snapshot in time. She said there needs to be a two or three year trend before any kind of disciplinary action is warranted.

Predictably, the Indiana State Teachers’ Association isn’t happy with the bill. The Association says it could result in good teachers being fired. Besides, state law already makes it possible to fire teachers who insist on being incompetent.

Lubbers also said she may, in the future, consider a merit pay bill based on good ISTEP scores. But, again, ISTEP is designed to measure how much students have learned, not the performance of their teachers. Learning is a complex activity that includes much more than how competent the teacher is.

There are far better means of determining teacher competence than by looking at the test scores of students. Using ISTEP scores to determine the competence of a teacher is like using a yardstick to measure the weight of an apple. It is not the correct tool for the job.

The performance of Indianapolis Public Schools, as measured by students’ ISTEP scores, is abysmal. But students in suburban schools in good neighborhoods, such as White River Township, do much better.

Does that mean teachers in White River Township are superior to those that work for IPS?

Of course it doesn’t.

Relocate the teachers in a suburban school to an underachieving IPS school and move the IPS teachers to the suburbs, and odds are the test scores of both schools will be similar a year after the switch.

Lubbers would reward the teachers in the good schools and punish those in low-performing schools, not because of anything the teachers do, but simply because of the socioeconomic condition of the community where the schools are located.

That’s not to say that teachers cannot make a difference in test scores of their students. They can. But there are far more uncontrollable variables in the equation than a teacher’s effort.

Lubbers bill is ill-founded and without merit. It is probably dead in the water, and rightfully so.

Leave teacher evaluations to the experts in charge, not the politicians in the General Assembly.

Increasing Cigarette Tax Would Help Curb Smoking

No matter what you do, kids and teenagers are still going to smoke cigarettes. But there are things we could do that would result in a drastic decrease in the number of underage smokers.

Gov. Mitch Daniels, in his State of the State Address last week, proposed one method for reducing the number of teen smokers. He wants to increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes by a quarter a pack.

That not only would make it far more difficult, financially, for young people to afford to smoke, it would also make it more likely that more adult smokers would quit. That’s a great side benefit.

Of course, pushing any kind of tax increase through the General Assembly in an election year will be a tough sell. Although many Republicans have already given the governor’s proposal tentative support, most Democrats are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Indiana remains one of the smokiest states in the nation as measured by the percentage of adults who regularly light up. It’s in the top five.

But the trend is to stamp out smoking in public buildings. Last year, Indianapolis passed an ordinance to ban smoking in most public buildings, including restaurants. Exceptions are made for bowling alleys, bars, and restaurants that do not permit children under age 18 to enter.

Several other counties and municipalities in Central Indiana followed suite. But smaller towns, like Edinburgh, have been more reluctant to adopt smoking restrictions.

It’s no secret that most adults who smoke wished they didn’t. Tobacco is a very addictive drug, a fact that most kids claim they know, but take little heed of.

Teens, unfortunately, tend to do only what makes them look good or feel good. They are more concerned with pleasing their peers than with long-term health consequences.

Increasing the price of a pack of cigarettes won’t stop all kids from smoking. But, as the governor pointed out, studies show that the most effective way of reducing teen smoking is to make it unaffordable. Increasing the tax on cigarettes will do just that.

If the cigarette tax goes into effect, it will result in a revenue stream of $115 million a year. What will that money be used for?

The governor doesn’t know yet. He said it could be used for a number of different things. The real goal of the tax increase is to improve public health, according to Daniels.

But with that money coming in, assuming the tax is eventually passed, I can think of no better use of it than to put it toward education programs, especially those that help deter substance abuse and smoking.

Many smokers are looking for a good excuse to try once more to quit. And no good parent wants his or her kid to start smoking. Increasing the cigarette tax, and banning smoking in all public buildings, including restaurants, are giant steps in the right direction to helping Indiana drop off the list of top 10 smoking states.

Record Labels Probed for Price Fixing Plan

For the past five years or so the major record labels have had their way with consumers of music, online and off. They sell CDs containing a dozen or so songs, perhaps one or two of which are marketable as singles, to a music-hungry public for $12 to $16 or more and give the artist a couple of pennies from each sale.

Then, they sue thousands upon thousands of everyday law-abiding citizens, including grandmas and unsuspecting teen-agers, for copyright infringement when they download songs from the Internet in order to get around the high CD prices.

The music industry whines and cries that its bottom line is shrinking in light of all the piracy going on. A shrinking bottom line might more easily be explained by the slothful nature of the industry in embracing 21st century technology and the online market.

Thanks to Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs, that is beginning to change. Jobs introduced his iTunes music site along with Apple’s iPod music player that has become a must-own for most teens these days.

Apple made arrangements with all four major record labels to sell individual song titles for 99 cents each over the Internet. Other companies followed suit, such as a reformed Napster. Wal-Mart also sells songs online for 11 cents cheaper per song than the standard.

But now, the recording industry is whining that it is not able to control the prices charged for downloads. Record labels say they want to be able to charge more for the popular new releases and less for the slow-moving older tunes.

The major labels are alleged by some to be colluding on pricing of online music. So New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is saying not so fast. He has stepped in a launched an investigation of the music industry.

All four major labels have confirmed that they have received requests for information from Spitzer. Online music retailers Apple and America Online have received similar requests.

So the shoe is apparently now on the other foot. The recording industry has been putting the squeeze on consumers by suing and overcharging; now, the music industry is getting squeezed by New York.

The move is apparently working; music industry plans to change the pricing structure for online music is currently on hold. Some insiders claim the recording industry has been victimized by Jobs and his one-size-fits-all pricing system that has been adopted widely.

The poor record companies are now victims? How sad for them. But they are getting absolutely no sympathy from the online community. They’ve made a lot of enemies of their own customers over the past few years, and they know it.

The blogging community has been particularly outspoken against the tactics of the major record labels. A blogger on Slashdot wrote, “So, who are the pirates now? It does seem maybe these (alleged) crooks may be losing their grip on the industry: getting caught with their hand in the pricing cookie jar, and potential other investigations into payola (the other way they control the flow and exposure to music/artists).”

I have no doubt the industry will come out on top. Ultimately, the big corporations always do.

Everyone listens to music, and traditionally, the only way you could get it was to buy it from the record labels, at whatever price they decide to charge.

They still want to do that. Old habits die hard.

But it could be that the tide has begun to turn, if only just a little. There are now many recording artists who are skipping the major labels altogether and putting their music directly onto the Internet for downloading.

And now, at least one state’s attorney general is pulling the plug on a potential price-fixing plan by the record companies in its anti-trust probe.

If consumers are lucky, these will be remembered as the first steps in a battle to rein in the greedy multinational record labels and make them accountable for their indifference to the listening public.