Some seven years ago, when I was taking education courses as a New York City Teaching Fellow, we had to hand in “double-entry journals”—that is, two-column pages with a quotation or situation on one side and our response on the right. On one occasion, I needed far more room for my response than for the quotations, so I adjusted the format: instead of using columns, I simply provided the quotations and my comments below each one.

The instructor chided me in front of the class. She said that this was a masters program and that I should learn to produce masters-level work. (She wasn’t aware that I already had a Ph.D. from Yale.) If the instructions specified a double-entry journal, well, then I was supposed to provide a double-entry journal. She had no quibbles with my commentary itself, which she found insightful. She just took issue with my flouting of the instructions. I have no grudges against the instructor, who meant well and knew her stuff. But it was an eye-opener.

Up to this point, I had not encountered such rigidity regarding instructions. In high school, college, and graduate school, we were expected to use certain formats for term papers, publishable work, and dissertations. But on everyday assignments, it was substance and clarity that mattered most. The teacher or professor even appreciated it when I departed from the usual format for a good reason. I did so judiciously and rarely.

The double-entry-journal incident was part of my induction into New York City public schools. There, the rubric (which usually emphasized appearance and format) ruled supreme; if you did everything just so, you could get a good score, while if you diverged from the instructions but had a compelling idea, you could be penalized. I saw rubrics applied to student work, teachers’ lessons, bulletin boards, classroom layout, group activities, and standardized tests. I will comment on the last of these—rubrics on standardized tests—and their bearing on the recent publication of New York City teachers’ value-added ratings (their rankings based on student test score growth).

A New York Daily News editorial asserts that teachers with consistently high value-added ratings are clearly doing something right. (This is the argument put forth by many value-added proponents.) But that’s not necessarily so; all we really know is that their students are making test score gains.

In New York State, on the written portion of the English Language Arts examinations, it matters little what the students actually say or how well they argue it. What matters is that they address the question in the prompt and follow the instructions to the letter. A student may make erroneous or illogical statements and still receive a high score; a student may make subtle observations and lose points for failing to do everything exactly as specified.

Here’s an essay prompt from the 2009 grade 8 ELA exam. (For an example at the high school level, see my blog “A Critical Look at the Critical Lens Essay.”)

Bill Watterson in “Drawing Calvin and Hobbes” and Roald Dahl in “Lucky Break” discuss their approaches to their work. Write an essay in which you describe the similarities and differences between the work habits of Watterson and Dahl. Explain how their work habits contribute to their success. Use details from both passages to support your answer.  In your essay, be sure to include

• a description of the similarities between the work habits of Watterson and Dahl
• a description of the differences between the work habits of Watterson and Dahl
• an explanation of how their work habits contribute to their success
• details from both passages to support your answer 

To get a good score, a student would only have to write one paragraph about similarities, one paragraph about differences, and one paragraph about how their work habits led to their success. By contrast, a student who began by considering definitions of “success” (as G.  K. Chesterton does) would not fare so well, even though that might be the more thoughtful essay. Likewise, a student who questioned the direct link between work habits and success (as Mark Twain does) would be at a disadvantage. Students are better off if they write a predictable essay, even a bland one, that meets the criteria. Their teachers are better off, too; every point counts when it comes to value-added scores. 

I have scored ELA exams. Human judgment has little place in those scoring rooms. To maintain consistency, everyone is supposed to follow the rubric, and, if there’s any doubt, the state’s own interpretation of the rubric. It comes down, in the end, to following instructions rather than judgment. On the one hand, this is fair and justified. If teachers were to use their own judgment when scoring, two essays of similar quality could receive wildly different scores. On the other, it means that there’s no way to acknowledge the student who struggles with the question becausethe question is tricky or problematic—that is, the student who pushes beyond the obvious response. 

Now let’s consider the consequences in the classroom. Teachers A and B teach at a relatively high-performing school. Teacher A tells students that to write well, you should have something to say and should take care with words. Her students read G. K. Chesterton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, and others. They discuss these essays, look at their structures, respond to favorite passages in them, and write essays inspired by them. Teacher B, within the same school, has a different approach. She brings in reading passages like those on the tests. She teaches students how to read essay prompts and produce the expected responses. She has them do this every day. Now, arguably, one can teach students to write thoughtfully and follow directions precisely. But the latter has the greater test score payoff.

So, teacher B’s students make more test score gains than Teacher A’s students. Teacher B gets rated “high”; teacher A, “below average.” (This is a plausible scenario in an unusually high- or low-performing school, where a slight difference in points can account for a large difference in ratings.) Then the ratings appear in the New York Times and elsewhere. Many readers will assume, even with caveats galore, that teacher B does better work than teacher A. Teacher A then finds herself under pressure to do what teacher B is doing. That means ensuring that her students follow directions.

How do you get teachers to teach in this manner? Train them in education school. Impress upon them the sacrosanctity of instructions. Teach them that if the assignment is a double-entry journal, then that is what they must produce, period.