Florida's Best Teachers Blog

Teacher quality, as measured by the ability to move students from wherever they start to a higher level, hopefully proficiency and above, continues to be of upmost importance. This is even more true in Florida, now that we have a majority of students in the state, not attending the public school that they are zoned… Read more »

Good afternoon all, wanted to let everyone know that the 2017-18 data is posted and has been live on the website for the past month. Sorry for delay in announcing, just ended up having a very busy October

Well, good news, we finally received from the Florida DOE the 2017 list of High Impact Teachers. There are some teachers who are high impact and whose names were redacted by the DOE before we were given the list, so you might not find yourself on the list even if you received a letter. We… Read more »

Hello, we are receiving a number of requests related to the high impact teacher notification letters sent to teachers around the state. Based on the questions we are receiving, we thought it might be helpful to put up a blog post to answer some frequently asked questions. First, the selection criteria for Florida’s best teachers,… Read more »

The website has now been updated with the new Florida teacher data from the 2016-17 school year. I think that this is the earliest we have ever updated. Enjoy, and support excellent teachers!

Source: The Little-Known Statistician Who Taught Us to Measure Teachers – The New York Times Very Interesting article on the man who created the Value Added Model for evaluating teachers. To fairly evaluate teachers, Mr. Sanders argued, the state needed to calculate an expected growth trajectory for each student in each subject, based on past… Read more »

As promised, the ranking of 8th Grade Algebra teachers in the top 30% statewide is at http://myflteacher.com/2015-16-8th-grade-algebra-teacher-rankings/ The ranking of 9th Grade Algebra Teachers in the top 30% statewide is at http://myflteacher.com/9th-grade-algebra-teacher-vam-ranking/

Good morning, I wanted to let all the faithful users of the site know that the database has now been updated to reflect the 2015 – 2016 school year data and teachers in the top 30% statewide in Math or ELA. New this year  are separate  calculations for eighth grade algebra and ninth grade algebra… Read more »

A very interesting study supporting the not surprising anywhere but in education, concept that the ability to pay better teachers more can improve student results.  Quote from the WSJ article is below, and the full study can be found at Unions, Salaries, and The Market for Teachers: Evidence from Wisconsin. Ms. Biasi found that better… Read more »

Interesting article about a fight in Virginia to make teacher data available to the public. Brian Davison had to go to court to pry loose state data about student performance in the public schools. Now teachers are going to court to keep him from sharing it.Davison, a Loudoun County, Virginia resident, sought data on student… Read more »

Today, this article talks about putting the best teachers in the schools dubbed failure factories in Pinellas. If they go about this the right way, this is exactly what the district has to do. The headline of the article is sadly wrong though, Pinellas agreed to do this about 4 years ago in a school… Read more »

Good morning all, we are excited to announce that myflteacher.com is now updated to include the teacher data from the 2014-15 year. We are sorry it has taken so long, the delay is basically because of how long it took the DOE to release teacher results this year, months longer than normal. One thing we… Read more »

Now the the website is updated with the 2014- 2015 data,(YES!) some questions have arisen about validity in light of the move to a new exam, the FSA.  Short answer is that the change has not hurt the validity of the data, long answer can be found below. Transition to FSA Does Not Adversely Impact… Read more »

Interesting research showing that merit pay and evaluations can improve student results, 4 months of learning is a really big deal The researchers find that 46% of low-performing teachers in D.C. leave each year, which is more than three times the attrition rate of high-performers. It turns out that the mere threat of removal encourages… Read more »

We were asked to post this to get the information out to teachers, this sounds like a fun opportunity.   Dairy Council of Florida Announces Third Annual Gridiron Cooking Challenge   The Dairy Council of Florida is hosting its third annual Gridiron Cooking Challenge, a fun-filled food competition for elementary and middle school students throughout… Read more »

In most places, reaching that magic number still means getting there the old-fashioned way — with a master’s degree and 10 or 20 years on the job. And in places like New York State, salaries are given a hefty boost simply because the cost of living is higher, too.So what’s new? A growing number of… Read more »

The below quote is sobering, considering this is the average student. The average student in many of the top-performing countries graduates two to three years ahead of the average high school graduate in the United States. The distance between what our high school graduates know and can do and what their high school graduates know… Read more »

Interesting article about Florida’s student performance. When the Education Department releases its biennial scorecard of reading and math scores for all 50 states this week, Florida and Texas are likely to look pretty mediocre. In 2013, the last time that scores were released, Florida ranked 30th on the tests, which are given to fourth and… Read more »

“While Vergara highlighted the importance of teacher quality in the classroom by challenging harmful teacher employment laws, Doe v. Antioch was filed to enforce the current law on teacher evaluations, the Stull Act,” said Rivera. “This lawsuit does not try to replace or modify the law. The case enforces the Stull Act by challenging collectively… Read more »

Very sad to see the district has not followed through on one of the best ways to help these truly needy students, recruiting and retaining excellent teachers for these schools. Since the board hired Mike Grego as superintendent in 2012, at least one additional measure has fallen through the cracks. In a 2013 turnaround plan… Read more »

A new report says that schools spend billions on teacher training, but there’s no evidence that it works. Source: Study: Billions of dollars in annual teacher training is largely a waste – The Washington Post   This study is not a surprise, for a long time data has shown that, at least in this country,… Read more »

This past week, the Florida Board of Education adopted rules establishing, based just on the VAM data, defining what “Highly Effective, Effective, Needs Improvement/Developing, and Unsatisfactory” should mean.  If this model set out in the rule had been applied to the aggregate historical VAM data, the distribution of teachers would have been as below at… Read more »

Once again, more information that the quality of teachers matters, this study was based on Florida student and teacher data. Teachers hired during recession periods appeared to be somewhat more effective boosting students’ math scores than those teachers hired in more secure times, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of… Read more »

However, Gary Phillips, a vice president and institute fellow at the American Institutes for Research (and former acting commissioner of NCES), explained Wednesday in a media call about the release that the standards still varied greatly— by up to three or four grade levels. “The rigor of the grade 4 [proficiency] standards in the highest… Read more »

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The state’s teachers union says it is disappointed after another loss in its effort to overturn a 2011 law that set new guidelines on teacher evaluations.A federal appeals court in Atlanta on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s decision last year to throw out the case.Seven teachers from three counties, as well… Read more »

Florida lawmakers’ decision to end mandatory final exams for every class will mean that more teachers’ performance will be judged on subjects they don’t teach. Concerned about the amount of testing in schools — and pressured by activists and educators — this year lawmakers rescinded a state law that requires school districts to have a… Read more »

I have been meaning to write this post for a while. The Pasco school district recently contracted with TNTP, a national non-profit organization working to end educational inequality by ensuring that all students get excellent teachers, for a deep dive evaluation of its district. My hat is off to Kurt Browning for his willingness to… Read more »

Flaw punishes Fla. teachers when students earn perfect scores | www.mypalmbeachpost.com. Article appears to point out an anomaly that could impact teachers with students with perfect scores year over year, although as this teacher, Luke Flynt noted, the few students he had that had a perfect score did not impact his effective teacher ranking and,… Read more »

Virginia pushed into debate of teacher privacy vs. transparency for parents – The Washington Post. Article about the attempt to make teacher evaluation materials available in Virginia, referencing that these materials are available in Florida.

Richard Whitmire: Why top teachers work at great charters – NY Daily News. Interesting discussion of the importance of teacher quality, below are some quotes: Based on the revolving-door staffing history at that school, the real lesson from that school closure is this: The UFT school had all the advantages of operating like a charter…. Read more »

Teacher Contends N.Y. State Evaluations Fail Accuracy Test – WSJ. This is an interesting article, about a 4th grade teacher that is unhappy with her value added score. From the article it appears that she teaches relatively high performing students, and was surprised when her score showed that her students were far under performing in… Read more »

Florida’s teachers get 98 percent effectiveness rating despite schools’ struggles | Tampa Bay Times.   This article highlights problems with the non VAM portion of the district teacher evaluation systems.

Today is exciting, in that this  website has been refreshed and updated with the 2013-2014 data.  Florida is the only state in the country that has this quality of teacher level data publicly available. Take advantage of this data if you are a parent or looking to recruit teachers for charter schools- your school with… Read more »

Very interesting analysis that demonstrates why a VAM rating is better than the district rating.   Florida: Do neighboring districts have a vastly different teaching workforce? Florida implemented a four-tiered system after passing a new school personnel evaluation law in 2011. Under this new system, teachers are evaluated on student academic growth and classroom practice… Read more »

Interesting quote from a Student First Representative realizing that the Value Added component of teacher evaluations is the most reliable means of differentiating good and bad teachers, as compared to the other factors that make up a New York Teacher Evaluation.   “Measures other than the state test didn’t allow for differentiation, and it just… Read more »

And, even the New York Times weighs in on the importance of teacher quality. Mike Johnston’s mother was a public-school teacher. So were her mother and father. And his godfather taught in both public and private schools. So when he expresses the concern that we’re not getting the best teachers into classrooms or weeding out… Read more »

Paul E. Peterson: The Public Turns Against Teacher Tenure – WSJ.   Article worth reading, again focusing on the importance of teacher quality. You can’t have good schools without good teachers, but improving the lowest-performing segment of teachers would go a long way. Good teachers are so important to student learning that if roughly the… Read more »

Charter schools, VAM data could create a new market for top teachers. Very cool, an article about this website on redefinEd, by Travis Pillow.

Why Do Americans Stink at Math? – NYTimes.com. Interesting article that highlights what should be a truism, teachers can only teach what they themselves have learned and understand: weak math teachers equal difficulty with students learning math.  Interesting contract with Japanese and American  math instruction.

Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t. – NYTimes.com. Another reason to be concerned about having excellent k12 teachers, the deficit in k12 student performance compared to international performance, is also present in college graduates. Only 18 percent of American adults with bachelor’s degrees score at the top two levels of numeracy,… Read more »

Shocking news of the day: top teachers more likely to stay in low performing schools if they get a significant bonus. To estimate how the program affected teachers, the scholars compared the retention rates of the teachers who qualified for the program to those taught by teachers who fell just below the qualification bar. They… Read more »

Teacher Who Drove Students Away – WSJ. In the Wall Street Journal today is a great letter to the editor, explaining how “in the know” parents get the best teachers for their children. Use the information on our site to make sure you are one of those informed parents. In our elementary school district (a… Read more »

Study Finds “Clustering” Teach For America Instructors Contributed to Math Gains in Miami Schools, but No Spillover Effect on Other Teachers.   Another study highlighting the effectiveness of teachers- this study looked at Teach for America (TFA) Teachers in Miami Schools over the last 5 years and determined that on average students taught by TFA… Read more »

Study: Duval County Public Schools losing effective teachers. Informative study that was in the paper today, nothing really new, but makes key points based on the data in Duval.  Excerpt from the article: ■ Schools serving the most high-need students are disproportionately hampered by ineffective recruitment, selection and staffing. ■ A high percentage of low-performing… Read more »

Teacher tenure: End of the age of dinosaurs | The Economist.   Good article about the importance of measuring and rewarding effective teachers.

Yesterday, a California Judge ruled in Vergara that keeping ineffective teachers in schools, particularly when these teachers are assigned to minority populations, violated the students civil rights to equality of educational opportunity.  This ruling was predicated on how damaging having ineffective teachers is to children. There are several striking quotes in the California-Decision that prove how… Read more »

A few inquiries have been received asking why we are only identifying the top teachers, not also the worst performing.  As Bill Gates has observed in an editorial, we tend to agree that  a public shaming of the worst teachers is not the best way to use teacher performance data. The information we are sharing… Read more »

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