Nevada (Potentially) Dropping Students’ Test Scores from Its Teacher Evaluation System | VAMboozled!

Nevada (Potentially) Dropping Students’ Test Scores from Its Teacher Evaluation System | VAMboozled!:

Nevada (Potentially) Dropping Students’ Test Scores from Its Teacher Evaluation System

This week in Nevada “Lawmakers Mull[ed] Dropping Student Test Scores from Teacher Evaluations,” as per a recent article in The Nevada Independent (see here). This would be quite a move from 2011 when the state (as backed by state Republicans, not backed by federal Race to the Top funds, and as inspired by Michelle Rhee) passed into policy a requirement that 50% of all Nevada teachers’ evaluations were to rely on said data. The current percentage rests at 20%, but it is to double next year to 40%.

Nevada is one of a still uncertain number of states looking to retract the weight and purported “value-added” of such measures. Note also that last week Connecticut dropped some of its test-based components of its teacher evaluation system (see here). All of this is occurring, of course, post the federal passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), within which it is written that states must no longer set up teacher-evaluation systems based in significant part on their students’ test scores.

Accordingly, Nevada’s “Democratic lawmakers are trying to eliminate — or at least reduce — the role [students’] standardized tests play in evaluations of teachers, saying educators are being unfairly judged on factors outside of their control.” The Democratic Assembly Nevada (Potentially) Dropping Students’ Test Scores from Its Teacher Evaluation System | VAMboozled!: