The Misuse of Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers

Time Out From Testing reported the following information yesterday at a meeting for the Save Our Schools campaign.

The New York City Department of Education is prepared to release 12,000 internal teacher data reports, with individual teachers identified, rated, and ranked based on their classes' state test score changes in English Language Arts and Math from one year to the next.

There are several problems with this public release:

• The calculations are unreliable because they do not take into account all variables that affect test scores, such as the influence of tutors and the deliberate decision of principals to place struggling students with particular teachers. 
• There is many errors in the raw data used to calculate scores.
• The tests on which the evaluation has been placed are themselves unreliable. These tests have become easier to pass in the past few years, and are, thus, not an accurate measure of improvement.
• The DOE's technical advisers for the evaluations warned that they should not be used to judge teacher performance as these test scores only capture one dimension of teacher effectiveness.
• The public release of these evaluations may promote more "teaching to the test."

How can we hold teachers accountable without resorting to public evaluations based on flawed data?