Pre-Convention: NEA Executives Amend Evaluation Proposal
Even before its delegates get a chance to vote on the measure, the National Education Association's board of directors has modified the union's teacher-evaluation policy proposal—qualifying what had been a seeming openness to the use of standardized-test scores as one possible gauge of teacher effectiveness.
The original statement said that high-quality standardized tests could be used as one of several indicators of a teacher's contribution to student learning. The amended statement keeps that language, but adds a new paragraph. It reads:
"Unless such tests are shown to be scientifically valid and reliable for the purpose of measuring both student learning and a teacher's performance, such tests may not be used to support any employment action against a
