Challenge Accepted: The Issues with Teacher Evaluation based on Student Test Scores

Today's discussion about online assessment was intriguing and disturbing at the same time - like a bad accident that you don't really want to see, but you find yourself incapable of looking away. Knowing that these issues concerning student assessments and teacher evaluations affect my future career is scary, and the feeling that I have little control over the situation is even scarier.

Let's begin with teacher evaluation based on student's test scores. I know that it is my job to teach, to help my students grow academically. I do believe that teachers should be held responsible for this task and that ineffective teachers should be given opportunities to improve through professional development and feedback before being dismissed. However, I cannot believe that up to 40% of my evaluation as a teacher will be based on student's test scores. Test scores don't measure teacher effectiveness. They don't even really measure student's learning. Standardized test scores prove little except that students are capable of utilizing rote memorization skills to jot down the answers to a bunch of multiple choice questions. Truly effective assessments or tests should be designed to test not just factual knowledge, but also conceptual and procedural knowledge (but more on that another time). Furthermore, a number of factors aside from Teacher effectiveness affect student's test scores including their motivation to do well, their confidence level, their health, and their familiarity with technology (if it's a test on a computer). Any number of situations at home or with family may impact how well a student does on a test and it is unfair to base 40% of teachers' evaluations on these tests.

Basing so much of a teacher's evaluation on test scores will lead to unfortunate and potentially unethical actions. For example, as one of my fellow colleagues mentioned, this new evaluation system may cause teachers to avoid working with students in low-performing, high-need areas (as if they needed another reason). With the knowledge that they could lose their jobs due to poor evaluation scores because their students aren't demonstrating enough growth, teachers may decide that working with AP or honors students is better. What's worse, these AP and Honors students may do well without a particularly effective teacher, causing a teacher who is not particularly effective to receive a great evaluation. Furthermore, teachers who feel that their students are not performing up to par may succumb to the temptation of cheating in order to insure a good evaluation score for themselves. In fact this very phenomenon has been in the news over the past few years as teacher evaluation based on test scores (unfortunately) becomes more and more popular. Here's one example:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/report-shows-cheating-teachers-article-1.1249570

And let's not get started on the tests themselves. In addition to not really measuring learning, these tests are often confusing. Today in class I spent some time answering some sample questions for a 7th grade ELA test. The format was awful. There were too many instructions at the beginning and I sincerely doubt that many students will read through all of them. Then there were a lot of buttons and a confusing screen with two panels. In short, the test was poorly designed. It would be even more confusing to students who are unfamiliar with computers or who are restricted in some way. Though this may seem far-fetched in todays day and age, there may still be students who do not know how to type or are otherwise uncomfortable working with technology.

As disheartening as much of this information is, I am eager to learn more and to begin working to change the system from the inside as a social studies and/or spanish teacher. Challenge Accepted!