Mrs. Hendrix, Mme. Ver and value-added.
Read this story. You just have to. Tissues, maybe, at the ready.
I believe there is a place for standardized testing, and I believe there is a need to reform the way teachers are evaluated and compensated. But I couldn’t read this story without puzzling over how a teacher like Mrs. Hendrix might have fared in an environment where states are racing to make sure that student test scores count for at least half of a teacher’s measured worth.
I say this as a person who is not sappy, but practical. (Okay, that article couldn’t help but make me a little sappy, and this comes from someone who groaned, “OH, PLEASE,” at the end of “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”) Forget the inspiration part—which we all know is uncountable—and just consider the logistics. Were Mrs. Hendrix’s class to exist today, a fourth grader in it would be reading at an eighth-grade level yet in many states his or her
I say this as a person who is not sappy, but practical. (Okay, that article couldn’t help but make me a little sappy, and this comes from someone who groaned, “OH, PLEASE,” at the end of “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”) Forget the inspiration part—which we all know is uncountable—and just consider the logistics. Were Mrs. Hendrix’s class to exist today, a fourth grader in it would be reading at an eighth-grade level yet in many states his or her
