5 reasons parents should oppose evaluating teachers on test scores
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This was written by Carol C. Burris and Kevin Welner. Burris is the principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, N.Y. Welner is a professor of education policy and program evaluation in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and director of theNational Education Policy Center. He can be reached at welner@colorado.edu.
By Carol Burris and Kevin Welner
The 1988 film “Stand and Deliver” portrayed Jaime Escalante’sinspirational teaching of AP Calculus to his East Los Angeles students. Escalante instilled ganas, the desire to succeed, in high school students, many of whom had never before known academic success. Viewers witnessed Escalante and his students teaming up against the test; it was important to them to show the world what they had done together.
Now imagine that Mr. Escalante’s appeal to his students had been, “I need you to get at least a ‘3’ on this exam because I don’t want to lose my job.” Would his students have responded with such dedication if they knew that Escalante’s motives were personal rather than selfless?