Slow to judge teachers in part by student test scores, Oregon remains at 'high risk' for No Child Left Behind sanctions, feds say
The U.S. Department of Education will not reverse its decision that Oregon is a "high risk" of failing to use student test scores to help evaluate teachers, a step it promised to take to get out from the most onerous provisions of No Child Left Behind.
Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Deborah Delisle wrote to Oregon schools chief Rob Saxton Monday that, despite his assertion that Oregon has done a lot of work on teacher evaluations since he assumed his post in summer 2012, Oregon still hasn't done what it promised.
Oregon's sluggishness to begin judging teachers and principals in part by student achievement gains puts it behind most states and high on the federal radar, the federal department reported.
"In your request for reconsideration, you discuss the work that your staff has already completed and the work it will continue to do in order to satisfy this condition prior to the end of the 2013-14 school year," Delisle wrote. "I acknowledge that the (Oregon Department of Education) has made significant strides" but the Obama administration "stands by its determination to place (Oregon) on high-risk status."
The state must therefore continue to submit to monthly scrutiny from the feds, she wrote, and get the work done by May 1 -- or else No Child Left Behind rules will kick back in.
Those rules require Oregon to give a "needs improvement" label to all 600 schools that