Lest anyone think I never see Albany doing anything good, this article was good to see:
In the latest rebuke to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's agenda, state lawmakers have decided to bar student test scores from being considered when teacher tenure determinations are made.
Legislators said the move was the final detail negotiated as part of the budget, which they expect to complete on Wednesday. It was a setback to efforts by the mayor and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer to hold teachers accountable by using student performance data, and a boon for the teachers' unions, which hold enormous influence over the political process in the capital.
The new language being prepared for the state law says that for the next two years student scores will not be considered in decisions on teachers' tenure; in the meantime, a commission is to be created to study the issue.
Test scores are only a snapshot of a moment in time, and it is impossible to pinpoint their causation to a single teacher. Furthermore, test scores measure little except for the ability of a student to take a standardized test, and they often cause classrooms to become test-tutoring centers instead of educational opportunities.
This is not to suggest that some form of accountability is warranted for schools and teachers. A better way would be to analyze schools in their entirety with meaningful criteria, such as % of students who graduate, % of students who go to college or graduate school, % of students employed, unemployed, or in prison 5 or 10 years after finishing school. If the school as a whole slips backwards in these categories for too long, the whole school should be re-evaluated. And as for tenure, that is something principals should decide- not bureaucrats who analyze test scores. |
