"...otherwise a bunch of moronic political hacks with pre-concieved notions of good or bad (or even an agenda) will be making the judgments about the skill..."
yes, i agree with this. but, unfortunately, political hacks have hijacked and distorted "objectivity."
student test scores measure student achievement, they do not measure teacher efficacy. conflating student achievement and teacher efficacy is intentionally misleading, a form of disinformation.
according to jesse rothstein, chief economist of the dept of labor, there are "...large “effects” of 5th grade teachers on 4th grade test score gains..."
gsppi.berkeley.edu
rothstein shows that a 4th grade student's test scores are influenced by his or her 5th grade teacher. of course this is absurd, as the student hasn't been taught by the 5th grade teacher, yet. the likely reason for such an effect is selection bias--parents of higher scoring students are finding ways to place their children into a preferred teacher's class. high scoring students will score high, regardless of the teacher.
rothstein's findings do not support obama's ed plans, so i doubt political bias.
beyond this, there are many other perverse effects of high stakes testing--eg narrowing of curriculum to basic reading, writing, math skills at the expense of social studies, science, art; and the various "gaming" techniques. ravitch illustrates this quite thoroughly in "the death and life..."
the most powerful effect on student achievement is poverty. bracey showed that when poverty is considered, u.s. student scores are among the best in the world.
epicpolicy.org
so, the "perceived" crisis regarding student achievement is a red herring, used to distract public attention from a bigger issue--the unacceptable level of poverty in the u.s. (and support neoliberal privatization efforts). unesco's study found that, when compared to other industrialized nations, u.s. poverty is second to the bottom--only mexico is worse. this is the "actual" race-to-the-bottom, cleverly reframed as education.
i agree that standardized test scores are a decent measure of student academic performance. remembering that teachers go through weeding-out processes like degree requirements, student teaching experience, and surviving the first few years of teaching; teacher performance is best evaluated by holding teachers accountable to best practices. this should be documented by teachers and observed by principals or peer evaluators. scoring rubrics can improve the objectivity of observations. professional improvement plans should be developed and reviewed. teachers who are ineffective should be directed out of teaching.
hope this isn't too boring. -g- |
