February 21, 2012
How do I feel about our state’s recent “agreement” on teacher evaluations? Read this. It explains it more clearly than I ever could.
Pushback welcome, as always. I’ll be interested to see what people have to say, particularly any reader who is operating under similar agreements.
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Arrgh. Awhile ago you left a comment at my site asking if CT was working towards implementing teacher evaluations based on test scores. I’m pretty sure I never responded to that comment, mostly because I wasn’t up on the news and got distracted by life, etc.
Recently (like this week) our governor introduced a plan to chase RTTT money which included evaluating teachers using at least partly test scores. As far as I know details aren’t out yet.
This whole climate drives me batty. a) The assumption that these standardized tests are an effective measure of student learning and now b) that they’re also an effective measure of teacher effectiveness. I’ve read up a bit on Value-Added formulas related to standardized testing and teacher performance, and it just doesn’t seem to be even a statistically effective way to evaluate teachers.
I guess I don’t see how placing more emphasis on testing is creating better learning environments. The DOE keeps using the phrase, “Teachers will be evaluated using multiple measures.” What they fail to mention is evaluations are /currently/ done using multiple measures, but they’re how adding a method (standardized testing) which doesn’t seem to actually measure what they purport it does.
Argh. Okay. Rant over (for now). I feel your frustration. I’m not quite sure where this renewed focus on testing is taking us, but I’m doubtful it’ll improve student learning.