Do You Understand My School? (Part Two)
Yesterday, I posted “Do You Understand My School (Part One)” and argued that policy makers place unwarranted faith in state test scores as a tool for teacher evaluation. In large part, I believe that happens because they don’t really sufficiently understand how schools operate. The argument continues:
To further complicate matters for the test advocates, they have no formula to account for the students who change classes, teachers, or schools during the year. You can’t just weight the test score according to the percentage of instructional time spent in a class, since classes do not cover the same content and skills all year long. That’s not a trivial matter affecting a small number of students. In some school communities, student transiency is a huge factor; additionally, in some schools, students can drop a class, or be removed from it for disciplinary reasons, but the student still must take the state test in that subject. In some schools, semester long courses mean teacher changes for an entire student body at the middle of the year. How do you use state tests to evaluate a teacher’s performance across semesters when that test is given before the completion of the second semester, but months after the first?
If my school expects me to take on a different teaching assignment, new curriculum, or new methodology next year, am I allowed a one-year grace period on producing test results? After all, the first year of teaching a new curriculum presents some unique challenges during a period of adjustment. Or, should I fight any change to my duties, in order to protect my livelihood? If I’m deemed effective as a teacher of juniors but my principal asks me to teach freshmen, that change might involve some adjustment, or I just might not be as good with one age group as I am with another. Why take a chance? If I teach seniors, they don’t even take a state test, depriving me of a chance to (supposedly) prove my effectiveness.
If I teach courses for two grade levels, will I be evaluated with student test results separated by grade levels?If so, we should be concerned about sample size – how much weight is given to each single student’s results –