teacher

The Forum on Educational Accountability has published a public letter: What Should Congress Do About Teacher Evaluation? A Public Letter from the Forum on Educational Accountability.(PDF)

See Monty Neill's second written testimony to Mass Bd of Ed on teacher evaluation

See Monty Neill's second written testimony to Mass Bd of Ed on teacher evaluation

Flawed Massachusetts Teacher Evaluation Proposal Risks Further Damage to Teaching and Learning By the Massachusetts Working Group on Teacher Evaluation of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing

Full Report

2 Page Executive Summary

• For more information about teacher evaluation please see our new Teacher Page.

FairTest and allies testified to Mass Board of Education against
proposed educator evaluation proposals; their spoken comments are here.

Student Test Scores: An Inaccurate Way to Judge Teachers (PDF)

Testimony to Mass Board of Education against using
student scores to judge teachers.

NOTE: for a PDF formatted version of this fact sheet click here)

Independent researchers have found that evaluating and paying teachers for test scores is either damaging or irrelevant to improved learning.*  Unfortunately, even evidence of harm does not seem to affect the growing popularity of such schemes. Policymakers, including U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, should stop promoting this failed approach.

As we enter into a national debate on school improvement and greater public school accountability with a heavy emphasis on testing, educators are concerned that a solitary focus on testing ignores important opportunities to help all students achieve at high levels. Overreliance on testing could have the unintended consequence of hurting more than helping.

The ESEA reauthorization proposals adopted by the U.S. House and Senate and now in Conference Committee contain serious problems that make the plans unfeasible and potentially harmful to efforts to improve public schools. The major problems include: