Test folly in Virginia — and in Maryland, too

06-24-2011

Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

We owe a debt of gratitude to Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell for showing us exactly how NOT to try to compensate teachers based largely on student test scores — AND how to waste $3 million in public funds. A number of states, with the encouragement of the Obama administration, have recently passed laws that do just that, over the objections of assessment experts who say that it is not a reliable and fair way to evaluate teachers. Yet the method is viewed by proponents as “objective” (though its actually not), and now, McDonnell is getting in on the act by offering up a pool of $3 million to distribute among school districts that would conduct a one-year experiment implementing performance pay for teachers. The evaluation will be done, according to an article by my colleague Kevin Sieff, with a new formula to measure a teacher’s effectiveness by their students’ standardized tests scores. (more...)

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Test folly in Virginia — and in Maryland, too

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