Last year, the Los Angeles school district released the ratings of their teachers based on standardized test scores. Last week, the New York City school district did the same and the results were published by the New York Times.
Interestingly, the same day that this story graced the front page of the Times, a letter to the editor penned by Bill Gates was published in the paper as well. The topic? The importance of not shaming teachers as a method of trying to improve their work. He also says naming names and ranking teachers is not a good thing.
Ironic, no?
Valerie Strauss weighed in on this topic with a well written piece about why this does not work. She even points out:
Even with states seeking waivers to get out from under NCLB penalties, they will just be swapping one set of standardized tests for another. So there will be more teaching to the test as educators work, not to improve learning, but to keep their name from being at the bottom of a list. Or maybe they won't want to teach at all...
Interestingly, the same day that this story graced the front page of the Times, a letter to the editor penned by Bill Gates was published in the paper as well. The topic? The importance of not shaming teachers as a method of trying to improve their work. He also says naming names and ranking teachers is not a good thing.
Ironic, no?
Valerie Strauss weighed in on this topic with a well written piece about why this does not work. She even points out:
"According to the New York Times, even one of the economists at the University of Wisconsin who designed the city’s ranking system, Douglas N. Harris, said that releasing the data right now “strikes me as at best unwise, at worst absurd.”Many questions linger about the efficacy of Value Added Measurements as something to be highly weighted or even included in a teacher evaluation. Too much of what a student learns in a class is not completely reflected in a standardized test score, even if the student aces the test.
Even with states seeking waivers to get out from under NCLB penalties, they will just be swapping one set of standardized tests for another. So there will be more teaching to the test as educators work, not to improve learning, but to keep their name from being at the bottom of a list. Or maybe they won't want to teach at all...
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