Opt Out FACT – SBAC test will be unfairly used in Connecticut’s teacher-evaluation process - Wait What?

Opt Out FACT – SBAC test will be unfairly used in Connecticut’s teacher-evaluation process - Wait What?:

Opt Out FACT – SBAC test will be unfairly used in Connecticut’s teacher-evaluation process

As more and more parents understand, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Testing program unfairly discriminates against poor students, students who aren’t fluent in the English language and students who require special education services.  It serves no useful purpose in today’s classrooms and certainly should not be used as a “high-stakes” test and punish program.

To make matters worse, as part of Governor Dannel Malloy’s “education reform” initiative, the SBAC test will be used as part of Connecticut’s teacher evaluation system despite the fact that the test is developmentally inappropriate for many students and fails to adequately measure what is really being taught in Connecticut’s classrooms.

As Teacher Development Specialist, Kate Field, explained in a an April 2016 CT Mirror article,

Even the best standardized test is unable to measure the sizable domain of knowledge acquired over a year of study, and contains only a small sample of questions. Selection bias may unintentionally skew the sample of test items, which could result in some students scoring lower than others, not necessarily because they know less, but because they did not understand the way a question was worded.

Standardized tests also do a poor job of measuring important skills like creative problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Standardized tests tend, to varying degrees, to be culturally and linguistically biased against English language learners and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Field added,

Using SBAC [to evaluate teachers] undermines the integrity of teacher evaluation, because the test was not designed to Opt Out FACT – SBAC test will be unfairly used in Connecticut’s teacher-evaluation process - Wait What?: