All Maryland public school teachers and principals are scheduled to be judged by a new evaluation system based partly on student test scores in a little more than one year.


SoMdNews.com: Teachers to be judged by student test scores (http://www.somdnews.com/article/20120518/NEWS/705189780/1056/teachers-to-be-judged-by-student-test-scores&template=southernMaryland)

They will never be able to get teachers in Baltimore City and PG county at this rate.
talk about a hopeless situation.

Colbert King, WashPo, wrote an article a long time ago. In it he described how the Post was getting a new e mail system and that the vendor wouldn't get paid until everyone knew how to use it. His point is that THAT is how education should work. Not that you can pass a test but that you knew the material.

Colbert King, WashPo, wrote an article a long time ago. In it he described how the Post was getting a new e mail system and that the vendor wouldn't get paid until everyone knew how to use it. His point is that THAT is how education should work. Not that you can pass a test but that you knew the material.

How does Colbert propose to assess whether students know the material?

They will never be able to get teachers in Baltimore City and PG county at this rate.
talk about a hopeless situation.Sure they will. They just lower the passing score so all the kids can pass.

How does Colbert propose to assess whether students know the material?

Well, that's a good question and I don't recall his comments on that one.
However, it would seem pretty obvious to me that I, or you, could tell if a Florida High school student could read properly or not same for math, grammar and so forth. Testing is, clearly, a part of the equation. However, depending on the test, that's not always the same as knowing the material, yes?

:buddies:

Does it really matter how the teachers /students score? The teachers are afterall part of a very powerful Union. They won't get fired. So will this program even make a difference at all? :shrug:

Or just pull an Atlanta, and cheat on a massive scale.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/education/scarred-by-cheating-scandal-atlanta-schools-are-on-the-mend.html?pagewanted=all

Does it really matter how the teachers /students score? The teachers are afterall part of a very powerful Union. They won't get fired. So will this program even make a difference at all? :shrug:

This is another area where competition would help, greatly.

I think this is a bad idea. Some people "know" the stuff but are bad test takers and therefore look like they don't know the stuff.

Do they include students with learning disabitilies or lower cognitive functioning? You can't penalize a teacher for a child scoring low on a test when it is their disability that is causing the low score and not the teachers' teaching ability.

Does it really matter how the teachers /students score? The teachers are afterall part of a very powerful Union. They won't get fired. So will this program even make a difference at all? :shrug:

Speaking of making a difference, I haven't seen an evaluation system yet that can truly evaluate a teacher's performance, especially the things discussed in this...

Taylor Mali on "What Teachers Make" - YouTube (http://youtu.be/RxsOVK4syxU)

Speaking of making a difference, I haven't seen an evaluation system yet that can truly evaluate a teacher's performance, especially the things discussed in this...

Taylor Mali on "What Teachers Make" - YouTube (http://youtu.be/RxsOVK4syxU)

Isn't this the guy who 'wowed' the TED crowd?

Isn't this the guy who 'wowed' the TED crowd?

Someone sent me the link as one of those "motivational" things so I didn't know the answer to your question. So, I looked it up.

Taylor Mali | Profile on TED.com (http://www.ted.com/speakers/taylor_mali.html)

I hadn't heard about this organization before so I'll be spending some time this weekend investigating their website. Thanks for leading me to new knowledge -- that's always welcome!!

Wow. Yet another way we can entitle little Jimmy and Janey to blame others because they don't want to put forth the effort to learn the subject matter by actually doing the work that is expected of them.

When are we as a society going to get it through our thick skulls? You can lead a kid to a classroom and flog the teacher bloody, but that doesn't make them learn the subject if the fricken' kid can't be bothered to learn.

This isn't the first time it's been proposed or implemented in other school systems. Seems to me it never lasts very long, too much opposition from the teachers.

It seems like it could be a good idea for a part of a teacher's evaluation. It definitely should not make of the bulk of an evaluation. And I would hope that any evaluation of testing would be tracking student improvement more than if the students scored at the correct level.

That being said.... when are we going to start evaluating the parents??

It seems like it could be a good idea for a part of a teacher's evaluation. It definitely should not make of the bulk of an evaluation. And I would hope that any evaluation of testing would be tracking student improvement more than if the students scored at the correct level.

That being said.... when are we going to start evaluating the parents??

thank you! yes, a portion of a student's test scores can be attributed to the teacher but an equal or greater portion must also attributed to the motivation of the student and the willingness of the parents to support what is being done in the classroom. If a student has no desire to learn and the parents do not create an environment that values learning, there is very little even the best teacher can do to change that.

should test scores be looked at? of course they should. If there is a consistent trend of lower than average scores coming from one particular teacher, that could be an indicator of a problem and should warrant further investigation. It should not however be the basis of raising or lower pay if there are no other indicators of a problem.

Problem is, if you try and separate students out by level of parental effort, you will be labelled a bunch of bad names. I remember clearly a local elementary school principal telling us PTSA members of actually going to childrens houses during the summer and begging the parents to send the kids more often. And getting blown off and even mocked. Saddened me.

But, at the same time, I can think of at least one teacher in each school my children attended here in the county who really made no effort to engage and teach, and I'm sure the average scores in those teachers classes would have shown that. On the upside, only one my kids encountered in each school, which is pretty good, and those were outnumbered by the ones who were real teachers, my kids haven't suffered unduly. But there should be a way to identify those lacking teachers.