Teacher Evaluations

Plenty is happening on the teacher evaluation front these days.  The bottom line is that a number of 'reform' advoates, district administrators, state education officials and some government leaders are clamoring to tie teacher evaluations, at least in part, to student state test scores.

Anyone who knows anything about children realizes that how students perform in school - not merely on standardized tests - is impacted by many factors outside of the control of the school and teachers.

While it is a given that teachers are the most important influence inside the four walls of the school building, what has been lacking in the discussion regarding student success, growth and how they perform on state and local standardized tests is the impact of non-school factors in these areas.

One brave New York State Principal, Carol Burris, has recently written a letter addressing the above issue.  What Ms. Burris reports is that 'factors other than the teacher account for roughly 85% - 90% of the variation in students' test scores.'  That's an incredible number!  These are factors outside of the purview of the school personnel.

Ms. Burris went on to note 'the shortcomings of evaluating teachers by test scores were apparent in the recent report of the American Institute for Research which developed the New York growth model score.'  The bottom line in the BETA Report indicates that 'students with disabilities and students of poverty in a class or school increases, the average teacher or principal growth score decreases (roughly translated...they have a poor evaluation).'

Seventy three percent of NYS principals said that the 'ineffective' teacher label given because of low student test scores 'was either not a very accurate or an inaccurate relfection of that teacher based on their observations and the performance of that teacher's students.'

This is further proof that developing teacher evaluation tools based on student standardized test scores is not only problematic but needs to be curtailed.

Thanks,
Dick