Advanced Search
Conservative Compromise Produces Russian Roulette for Teachers
Conservatives just put teachers' professional reputations on the line by linking them to broken tests.
After watching conservatives get too many concessions on revenue in the recent budget, the only consolation for progressives was that most of the ridiculous conservative changes to social policy have been held at bay for now.
Some conservative items got through, however, including a change to teacher evaluations. According to the new education law, “[teacher evaluations] must use an agreed upon teacher value-added assessment model for the grade levels and subject areas for which value-added data are available and establish state or local measures of student growth for the grade levels and subject areas for which value-added data are not available as a basis for 35 percent of teacher evaluation results.”
In other words, “Welcome to Minnesota, arbitrary punishment for teachers.”
Among the various teacher-suspicious policies in the conservative repertoire, so-called “value-added assessments” have a particularly benign-sounding name. As is often the case with conservatives, however, the pretty term covers an ugly reality (see, “No Child Left Behind”).
What's bad about value-added assessments? They're unreliable and they hurt teachers with that unreliability. While the tests do show changes in student performance, they don't break down how much of that change can be attributed to the teacher being evaluated.
By not acknowledging the role of families, health, history, and other teachers – to name a few things that can also influence test scores – using these assessments ends up hurting teachers at random. Most damning of all, a “good” teacher one year can become a “bad” teacher the next without doing anything different. Studies have found that the 20% of teachers whose students make the biggest gains can find themselves in the bottom 40% the next year, and vice versa.
What do you call a test that can't reliably show a teacher's quality? Broken. What do you call a policy that relies on broken measurements to raise suspicions about and punish teachers? Conservative.
Posted in Education | Related Topics: Student Assessment Teachers Q-Comp Teacher Assessment
2 Comments
July 20, 2011 at 8:15 pm
We need a citizens committe to set legislators salary’s, including performance based pay. Evaluations should include response to constituents, meaningful participation in committees, reponsible use of per diem, and completing their work in a timely manner. Results should be published, mailed to constituents letting them know that their representatives are, or, are not meeting adequate yearly progress.
Irv says:
July 22, 2011 at 8:24 am
I contacted my legislators about this in the earlier version of their ed bill proposal. They both denied that this bill had anything to do with how teachers will get paid, evaluated or maintain their jobs. When asked if they would take on the same type of evaluation they used the fallback that they are held accountable every election. To which I say Ok, now let me lie, distort data and pander to special interest to show the results of my students and my ability as a teacher.