Indiana Set to End Test Scores as a Mandatory Part of Teacher Evaluations
The idea of using student test scores to measure teachers is ridiculous. Testing companies know as much; that is why no testing company dares advertise its standardized tests as suitable for measuring anything other than the aptitude or achievement of the individual completing the test.
Even so, the life blood of so-called education reform is danmation by test score, be it damnation of teachers, or schools, or districts, or states, or even our nation as a whole.
After a while, though, the ed-reform, system-shake-up appeal of standardized testing loses its luster. Such has happened in Indiana as concerns the state-mandated use of student test scores as a component of teacher evaluations.
Indiana Representative Anthony Cook (R-Cicero) authored HB1002, “AN ACT to amend the Indiana Code concerning education,” a bill in which Cook simply removed the 2011 language requiring “school corporations” to include in teacher evaluations…
…objective measures of student achievement and growth to significantly inform the evaluations. The objective measures must include:
- Student assessment results from statewide assessments for certificated employees whose responsibilities include instruction in subjects measured by statewide assessments
- Methods for assessing student growth for certificated employees who do not teach in areas measured by statewide assessments, and
- Student assessment results from locally developed assessments and other test masures for certificated employees whose responsibilities may or may not include instruction in subjects and areas measured by statewide assessments.
Consequently, the bill also relieves the state board of education of “Adopt[ing]… CONTINUE READING: Indiana Set to End Test Scores as a Mandatory Part of Teacher Evaluations | deutsch29
