Q & A with Laura Hamilton: States should wait to evaluate teachers under Common Core
New Common Core aligned tests are sure to have an effect on how teachers are rated now that teacher evaluations in many states are tied to their students’ test scores. The Common Core standards in math and English emphasize greater critical thinking skills and non-fiction reading, and some districts in places like New York and Kentucky have already seen their students’ test scores fall dramatically after being tested on the tougher criteria.
Laura S. Hamilton (Photo: Rand.org)
The Hechinger Report spoke with Laura S. Hamilton, senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, whose research is concentrated on assessment, accountability and evaluation of teachers and school leadership, about the repercussions of the Common Core State Standards on teacher evaluation systems.
Question: Do different tests give different value-added scores for teachers?
Answer: Yes, there’s been work that shows even different sets of items on the same test can give different value-added estimates for teachers. A lot of the differences have to do with the teacher’s own content coverage and how well the curriculum that the teacher is using matches the content of the test. If it’s testing something that isn’t included in that teacher’s curriculum, it’s likely to be less sensitive to the teacher’s effects. So it can make a really big difference.
Q: Why is there such a difference?
A: I think part of it is because you know the assumption behind these kind of teacher evaluation systems is that you have a test that’s measuring what teachers taught and measuring whether