Stop Testing and Punishing Teachers
Mercedes Schneider is a high school English teacher and the author of "A Chronicle of Echoes: Who's Who in the Implosion of American Public Education."
UPDATED MARCH 3, 2015, 3:30 AM
When I began teaching in 1991, the quality of a teacher would never have been reduced to a student's score on a standardized test. However, it is 2015, and standardized-test-driven education “reform” dominates the political and business minds driving nationwide education policy. “Quality” in the public education classroom has become synonymous with “high test scores,” and a good teacher is the one who raises student scores on standardized tests.
If you want good teachers, reduce class size and give us autonomy, respect and time to plan during the day and confer with our colleagues.
As result, teachers are being forced to choose between viewing students as multifaceted human beings worthy of opportunities for well-rounded, healthy development via a dynamic teacher-student relationship and our professional self-preservation, gained by twisting our students’ classroom lives into a largely dehumanizing, career-saving vehicle. Get those scores up, or lose your job.
I choose the healthy development of my students, without reservation. However, I understand the pressure teachers are under to put test scores ahead of students.
This school year is the second time in which I must “prove my effectiveness” based on my students’ test scores. Their performance is 50 percent of my rating. Classroom observations will count for the other 50 percent, unless my students’ test scores are too low, in which case low test scores override any positive administrative rating.
Last year I was rated “highly effective.” Many of my talented colleagues did not fare as well. For my "highly effective" rating, I received a "bonus" of $427.76. But since I don’t control test selection nor test results, and since there is no selective admission into my classroom, this year’s “highly effective” rating could easily be next year’s “ineffective” one. And then what?
We are sailing a test-score-driven sea of professional uncertainty.
If this skewed thinking continues to drive educational policy, no smart person will want to be a teacher. And there will be no teaching profession, because dedicated classroom teachers will give up in the face of this insanity.
If we want to assess and retain good teachers, for starters we need to stop the test-and-punish ratings systems. A second step would be to ask teachers what they need to do their jobs effectively. I know, for instance, that if my classes exceed a certain size (around 20 students), it becomes difficult for me to work individually with students and to differentiate based on skill level. I also need time to plan during the day, talk to my colleagues and discuss what works in the classroom. And I need support and trust from administrators.
To thrive, the teaching profession must be afforded respect and autonomy. Teachers choose teaching because they desire to invest their lives in other human beings. No test score can capture the value of such an investment.
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