Teachers speak out on teacher evaluation
The Sacramento Bee published this op ed teachers David B. Cohen and Alex Kajitani. They suggest that looking at test scores is a “poor tool for teacher evaluation.”
The link between test scores and teacher performance may seem obvious to the casual observer, but this is a case where appearances and intuition are misleading. As two of California’s teachers – the 2009 California Teacher of the Year and a National Board-certified teacher – we urge Duncan and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to go back to school regarding the use of test scores for teacher evaluations.
Currently, state education policy prohibits this practice; experts in education, testing and even economics have argued that state tests are not designed for teacher evaluation and will not yield reliable results. You are taking in us in a direction that will harm our schools and our students.
The policy changes promoted through Race to the Top will undo California’s thoughtful, research-based and consensus-driven state education policy in an attempt to qualify for federal grants. But after we have exchanged good policy for bad in pursuit of short-term funding, what will we do when the money runs out? We will be stuck with a hastily changed state policy that exacerbates the exact problems that made No Child Left Behind a failed initiative.
What about this student data firewall is “research-based and consensus-driven?” The only consensus was the legislature agreeing with CTA. This firewall was CTA’s price for agreeing to allow the creation of a system to track data on teachers.
The overemphasis on testing does not enhance educational quality, but instead will promote schooling that leaves too many of our children underprepared for higher education, unskilled at critical thinking and less engaged in their communities. Parents and business leaders consistently say they want us to develop in students the types of skills least valued in a test-driven educational atmosphere.
First, there is no overemphasis on testing. California’s testing is minimal. We have a standards-aligned test for each subject and a high school exit exam. Since many districts don’t do any other standards-aligned testing, this testing at least provides them with some data upon which to base their educational decisions. Second, if this change would leave children “unprepared for higher education”, that would seem to infer that they’re currently prepared. All one has to do is look at the dismal results of the Early Assessment Program from CSU or to look at how much colleges and universities are spending on remedial education of incoming freshman to know that this preparation that David and Alex are worried about losing isn’t happening now.
Most state tests yield results that are valuable to teachers if we want to know only how students perform on the tests. When we want to know more about our students and their full range of skills and knowledge, the tests mean very little. Respect for our students and respect for our teaching both demand evaluation based on a broad range of information and multiple measures of performance. Test-driven policies notoriously push in the opposite direction.
There is nothing in the removal of this firewall that prevents creating an evaluation system based on “multiple measures of performance.” The firewall simply prevents test data from being used at all. Shouldn’t test data be part of a teacher evaluation system? The criterion-referenced tests given to California students provide valuable information on how many of California’s standards students are mastering. I’ll concede that the tests don’t test every standard. They test some of the most important standards. It is valuable information to have.
Our current education code makes clear that test scores and teacher data are to be used to evaluate systems and programs, not individual teachers. As members of the Accomplished California Teachers network, we support efforts to create more effective evaluations, with greater focus on actual teaching practices, including robust and varied evidence such as student and teacher portfolios. But evaluating individual teachers based on test scores, in a reactionary effort to compete for Race to the Top grant money, is not the answer. It would be a travesty of education reform for the teachers and students of our state.
Did they really suggest portfolios? Portfolios sound great. Unfortunately, they’re just collections of student or teacher work. How do you turn those portfolios into some sort of score? They have to be evaluated. Who are the evaluators? Do these evaluators have a bias? Where portfolios have been used in education for evaluation, they’ve been a nightmare. If the evaluators are from teachers either in the same school or the same district, they’re biased. How can we expect them to be fair?
A primary reason we need standardized tests in the first place is because they are unbiased. Without these tests, policymakers and the public lack a way to know how well their schools are doing their job. Without these tests, parents and students lack a way to know if their students are prepared to move on to the next grade.
I respect David and Alex and the work they do every day in their classrooms. Teaching is hard work! It takes a special kind of person to be able to do it every day. I really appreciate that. Good teachers like David and Alex deserve extra money for their good work. We need a way to determine who are the good teachers. We need a way to find out which teachers aren’t doing to good job. After a reasonable period of time to improve, if they still can’t cut it, they should be released to go find another career to which they are better suited. Unfortunately, until we can come up with a better way, standardized tests need to be a component of that evaluation system. If a teacher’s job is to education children, how can a measure of how much children are learning not be included in an evaluation system? It just doesn’t make sense.
The Chicken and Egg Dilemma in Education Reform Where are test scores being used in teacher evaluation?
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