Here We Go Again
Big news today in education policy and research – or was it?
- The Gates Foundation-funded Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project continues to update its research findings, and continues to argue that standardized tests and value-added measurement would be useful in teacher evaluations. (Washington Post article).
- A study by Harvard and Columbia researchers uses value-added measures to quantify the effects of good teaching in various outcomes for students, well into adulthood. (NY Times article)
A friend of mine sent a Facebook message this morning to ask what I thought of the latter study, but let me say a bit about each of them. In both cases, I remain skeptical regarding the use of standardized tests to suggest so much about students and teachers. In the MET project, I actually like much of what I’ve seen reported and summarized regarding their work. We should definitely pursue ongoing rather than intermittent evaluations, the involvement of multiple evaluators, and try to find ways to include student feedback. If reformers and politicians would compromise on the use of standardized tests, we would overcome the main policy obstacle in teacher evaluation reform efforts and find much to agree on. I share Randi Weingarten’s concern, however, that as long
