Few things can start up an argument faster than the role of student standardized tests. They are blamed for narrowing the curriculum and giving the public a false perception of the state of public education. Some think they should be used to evaluate teachers and establish pay scales. Others decry their use even as a measure to evaluate student performance – unless the scores rise.
There are a lot of very smart people out there trying to bring these sides together to craft some sort of system or compromise that would allow student scores to be factored into evaluations of teachers and schools, without losing sight of the many variables that enter into student outcomes. In some locations, they have even succeeded.
I think they are wasting their time.
The debate over performance pay is a good example. Statements from the National Education Association consistently mention opposition to the practice “based on student test scores.” Proponents then figure if they could come up with a system not solely based on student test scores, it might pass muster. They are unaware that NEA is philosophically opposed to performance pay, however it is determined.
Even if we leave the issue of pay aside, these are differences of belief, not of methods. It is official NEA policy that student test scores don’t reveal anything about the quality of teaching or schools. Poor test results indicate a change of tactics may be in order, not that the school and teachers are deficient. NEA believes “that indicators of student learning are most appropriately used in formative assessments focused on helping teachers to improve their practice. Measures of teacher effectiveness based on standardized test data should not be used for summative evaluation of teachers or other education professionals.”
Do “value-added” assessments manage to sidestep this problem? Not according to NEA’s Committee on Professional Standards and Practice:
It should be noted that so-called “value-added” models that claim to measure teachers by student test data do not promote collaboration and can measure teacher effects only when teaching remains a private and isolated process. These measures of isolated practice are neither valid nor reliable.
Under these circumstances, we will continue to see what we have already seen. In most places, student scores will never formally become a part of teacher evaluations. In some places, individuals on opposite sides will craft something they can both live with. But we can rule out a grand consensus.
There’s a 3rd option. Look at what Superintendent Mike Miles has done in Harrison District 2 in Colorado Springs. Very impressive.
Then again, only about a third or a fourth of his teachers are unionized, so that type of opposition wasn’t so strong.
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First of all mandatory standardized tests are ludicrous. All they have accomplished is forcing schools to have the teachers teach to the test in order to gain state and federal funds. To base faculty pay or performance pay on students test results is a ridiculous idea. Every school in every district has a different demographic of student. How can any of this make sense??
I agree entirely that the NEA and professional educators generally are philosophically opposed to the use of standardized testing outcomes as an indicator of teaching/schooling effectiveness. Virtually every traditionally trained teacher gets the message.
Mainstream teacher education emphasizes process, not product. It is a philosophy that is readily accepted by the education community because it, nicely enough, largely rules out accountability for results.
Elected officials need to be aware of this issue and to confront it head-on. The education community favors a concept of schooling that is flatly at odds with public policy. Educators consider standardized test outcomes to be only one of many indicators of quality schooling. Parents, policymakers, and the public do not disagree that outcomes other than test scores should be considered, but they insist that standardized test results are the top priority and an indispensable minimum.
Schooling that fails to produce measurable increases in student learning may have many virtues, but it is not what the vast majority of the folks who furnish the money and the children want. Educators who disagree should resign their public education posts and market their preferred style of schooling to all who will pay for it.
For those educators who are willing to concede that the consumers of education should get what they are demanding, there is a way to mix standardized test scores with secondary indicators of school quality without watering down the priority of measured student achievement. We at the Education Consumers Foundation have urged Tennessee to adopt this methodology–called a Prioritized Teacher Rating System –as part of its ongoing implementation of Race to the Top reforms.
Stay tuned.
J. E. Stone, Ed.D.
President
Education Consumers Foundation
1655 North Fort Myer Drive, Suite 700
Arlington, VA 22209
professor@education-consumers.org
http://www.education-consumers.org
703-248-2611 phone
703-525-8841 fax
If the test authentically replicates the real-life, practical application of the subject matter studied, why not teach to the test?
Those who wish to evaluate teachers based solely…or even largely…on student test scores need to be willing to answer questions on how any of the systems developed so far account for different inputs in terms of student abilities, attitudes and aptitudes.
William Saunders’ value-added system attempted to do this, but has been, at best, only partially successful. I know many teachers…including strong union members…who are all for including test scores in an accountability regime so long as the other factors, including relevant student demographics, are also factored into the evaluation system.
Failing our children?, Part 2…
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Failing our children?, Part 1…
I found your entry interesting so I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…