Progress made on making Connecticut’s teacher evaluation system fairer - Wait What?

Progress made on making Connecticut’s teacher evaluation system fairer - Wait What?:

Progress made on making Connecticut’s teacher evaluation system fairer

The Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test is an unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory measure that seeks to determine how well public school children are doing.  Despite the massive problems with the testing scheme, supporters of the testing program have argued that the test should be used to judge and label students, teachers and public schools.

In a significant development, it appears that the State of Connecticut may, at the very least, be taking steps to ensure that the test results are not inappropriately used as part of Connecticut’s teacher evaluation system.

As the Connecticut Education Assocation is reporting,

“The Performance Evaluation Advisory Council (PEAC) took a giant step forward in addressing teachers’ concerns regarding the use of state mastery examination results in teacher evaluations. PEAC defined the clear use and purpose of the state mastery exam, agreeing that it should not be used to evaluate teachers.

PEAC unanimously agreed to recommend new guidelines for educator support and evaluation programs to the State Board of Education. These new guidelines support the use of state mastery test scores to inform educator goal setting and to inform professional development planning, but prohibit their use as a measure of goal attainment or in the calculation of the summative rating for an educator.

If adopted by the State Board of Education at its next meeting – April 5, 2017 – the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) test would still be used for a variety of purposes but would play a much more limited role in the teacher evaluation process.  The SBAC test could still be used for the following purposes;

Informing goals for individual educators
Informing professional development for individual educatorsProgress made on making Connecticut’s teacher evaluation system fairer - Wait What?: