Teachers

This page contains material about the misuse of standardized test scores to evaluate, pay, promote or fire school teachers and administrators. It includes material critiquing what is called "value added measurement" or VAM and "growth models" . For information on tests of teachers themselves (e.g., the Praxis), see http://fairtest.org/resources/teacher.

• FairTest Fact Sheet: Why Teacher Evaluation Shouldn’t Rest on Student Test Scores

• FairTest submitted a comment in response to the U.S. Education Department's Proposed Priorities for the Teacher Incentive Fund. Find it here.

• What Should Congress Do About Teacher Evaluation? A Public Letter from the Forum on Educational Accountability.

• Flawed Massachusetts Teacher Evaluation Proposal Risks Further Damage to Teaching and Learning, by a FairTest working group; report and summary are here.

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

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

• FACT SHEET: Paying Teachers for Student Test Scores Damages Schools and Undermines Learning

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

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

• See our fact sheets on testing students http://fairtest.org/fact+sheets/k-12 and our “Case Against High Stakes Testing” http://fairtest.org/k-12/high+stakes for more information on why student tests are inadequate for evaluating students – and therefore also teachers.

• “What's the Value of Growth Measures?” by Gerald Bracey, 2007 Examiner article. http://fairtest.org/whats-value-growth-measures

• “Testing Consortium Guidelines Unlikely to Improve Assessments,” 2010 Examiner article http://fairtest.org/testing-consortium-guidelines-unlikely-improve-ass 
  

• “Fierce Resistance to Race to the Top Draft Guidelines Wins Modest Changes,” 2009 Examiner article. http://fairtest.org/resistance-to-rtt-draft-guidelines-wins-changes

• “Value Added, Value Lost”  by Gerald Bracey, 2000 Examiner article. http://fairtest.org/value-added-value-lost