Test Results and Teacher Performance

Do you feel you are evaluated appropriately when you rely on how your students perform on their end of the year tests?

I have not seen where the student's last year test result is compared with the year you taught them.  That would be a little more appropriate to evaluate each student on their growth from the year before.

But what happens if a divorce is affection your student?  What happens if your student is not homeless?  How will their test be if they had a parent die, or loose a job?

Motoko Rich wrote in the New York Times, on 8/22/14, in an article called, "States Given a Reprieve on Ratings of Teachers that states could delay the use of test results on teacher-performance ratings for another year.

Secretary of Education, Mr. Duncan wrote, "I believe testing issues today are sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools."

For over fours years, 40 states have adopted test scores affect teacher evaluations.  This is scary to me.

If I could test my classroom at the beginning of the year and then give them a similar test at the end of the year, you could base that performance on my evaluation.   But if you give my students the fifth year test and I have increased their personal performance from second grade to fourth grade knowledge, I would only be seen as a failure because the student does performs very below basic for 5th grade material.

I don't mind the common core and these evaluations, but they need to be focused just on my students and how much they have improved over the year.  Their environments also need to be documented at the time of the test.

Unless there is careful analysis of the data, test results might not show how great a teacher really performs.