I sent the letter below to the Chicago Tribune editors this morning in response to their thoughtless editorial about the need to raise the percent of student test score “growth” in teacher evaluation from 25% to 50%. They won’t print it, but I will!
The Tribune deserves a “D-minus” for today’s editorial on the new Chicago Public Schools’ teacher evaluation plan. In it you commend CPS for making student standardized test score growth 25% of the evaluation, but claim that 50% would be better. Tribune Math score C- : there’s no evidence that simply doubling a percentage improves the result. In fact, doubling a figure that is considered by experts to be unreliable likely yields no value. The National Academy of Sciences has come out strongly against use of student tests for purposes other than those for which they were designed –
