Another View: City schools need collaboration, culture change
Published: Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 8A
Scott Smith, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, is responding to a July 27 commentary, "Sac City needs new teacher evaluation system," written by Jeff Cuneo, a member of the Sacramento City Unified school board. That commentary stated, "Our district lacks a robust evaluation system for teachers and principals."
Jeff Cuneo got one thing right. Our district needs a culture change, but he needs to do his homework first when it comes to evaluations.
We agree absolutely that academic outcomes matter, but test scores are primarily only narrow glimpses of what children know in language arts and math. Standardized testing is not reflective of curriculum and learning in its entirety. Sacramento City Unified School District promulgates the thought culture that test scores are synonymous with learning.
The reverse is true.
Parents and teachers know that student learning should be inclusive of the arts, physical