Debunking NJDOE's Propaganda on SGPs
I take no pleasure in calling a fellow teacher to account. I am sure that Elizabeth Morgan is an excellent educator, and I would never question her motives. But her op-ed in NJSpotlight, cheering on the use of Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs) and Student Growth Objectives (SGOs), comes across to me as little more than propaganda, straight from the NJDOE.
Morgan serves on the Evaluation Pilot Advisory Committee (EPAC), the group charged with advising NJDOE on the new teacher evaluation system, AchieveNJ. I know some of the other members of this committee personally; they are excellent educators and I'm sure they have the best of intentions. But the endorsement of good people is not reason enough to dismiss the very serious problems I and others have outlined with AchieveNJ.
Morgan serves on the Evaluation Pilot Advisory Committee (EPAC), the group charged with advising NJDOE on the new teacher evaluation system, AchieveNJ. I know some of the other members of this committee personally; they are excellent educators and I'm sure they have the best of intentions. But the endorsement of good people is not reason enough to dismiss the very serious problems I and others have outlined with AchieveNJ.
Teachers, administrators, parents, and students in New Jersey have to understand that this new teacher evaluation program has serious flaws that have not been acknowledged, let alone addressed. To that end - and I hope the good people on the EPAC panel, including Morgan, understand the spirit in which I offer this criticism - let me address some critical points in Morgan's op-ed:
One of the measures of AchieveNJ, the proposed system -- and the one that has received the most press attention -- is the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) score. The SGP is a measure of how a teacher’s students have grown on the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) in comparison to those statewide who are most like them
