The kids are
right….Tests
suck
Evaluating teachers by test scores has not raised
scores significantly anywhere. Good teachers have been fired by this flawed
method. A New York
judge ruled this method “arbitrary and capricious” after one of the
state’s best teachers was judged ineffective.
Test-based evaluation has demoralized teachers
because they know it is unfair to judge them by student scores. Many believe it
has contributed to a growing
national teacher shortage and declining enrollments in teacher
education programs.
A major problem with test-based evaluation is that
students are not randomly assigned. Teachers in affluent suburbs may get higher
scores year after year, while teachers in urban districts enrolling many
high-need students will not see big test score gains.
Teachers of English-language learners, teachers of
students with cognitive disabilities, and teachers of children who live in
poverty are unlikely to see big test score gains, even though they are as good
or even better than their peers in the suburbs.
Even teachers of the gifted are unlikely to see big
test score gains, because their students already have such high scores. Test
scores are a measure of class composition, not teacher quality.
Seventy percent of teachers do not teach subjects that have annual tests. Schools could develop standardized tests for every subject, including the arts and physical education.
But most have chosen to rate these teachers by the
scores of students they don’t know and subjects they never taught.
Scholarly groups like the American Educational
Research Association and the American Statistical Association have warned
against using test scores to rate individual teachers.
There are too many uncontrolled variables, as well
as individual differences among students to make these ratings valid.
The biggest
source of variation in test scores is not the teacher, but students’
family income and home environment.
The American
Statistical Association said that teachers affect 1 percent to 14
percent of test score variation. The ASA is an impeccable nonpartisan,
authoritative source, not influenced by the teachers’ unions.
The Gates Foundation gave a grant of $100 million
to the schools of Hillsborough County, Florida (Tampa), to evaluate their
teachers by gains and losses in student test scores. It was an abject failure.
The district drained its reserve funds, spending
nearly $200 million to implement the foundation’s ideas. Gates refused to pay
the last $20 million on its $100 million pledge. The superintendent who led the
effort was fired and replaced by one who promised a different direction.
Should Massachusetts cling to a costly, failed, and
demoralizing way to evaluate teachers? Should it ignore evidence and
experience?
Common sense and logic say no.
Should teachers be judged “subjectively”? Of
course. That is called human judgment.
Is it perfect? No.
Can it be corrected? Yes.
Most professionals are judged subjectively by their
supervisors and bosses.
Standardized tests are flawed instruments. They are
normed on a bell curve, guaranteeing winners and losers. They often contain
errors — statistical errors, human errors, random errors, scoring errors,
poorly worded questions, two right answers, no right answers.
No one’s professional career should hinge on the
answers to standardized test questions.
Massachusetts is widely considered the best state
school system in the nation.
The hunt for bad teachers who were somehow
undetected by their supervisors is fruitless.
The
Legislature is right to return the decision about which teachers are
effective and which are not to the professionals who see their work every day.
Diane
Ravitch is president of the Network for Public Education, a nonprofit that
advocates on behalf of public education. She is the author of “Reign of Error:
The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Schools.”