LA teachers to be judged partially on student achievement
By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
In a potentially groundbreaking decision, Los Angeles teachers and administrators agreed with the school district for the first time to use student test scores as part of performance reviews beginning this school year.
But an attorney for United Teachers Los Angeles later said the commitment he made during a court hearing Tuesday was contingent on whether the union and L.A. Unified School District could successfully negotiate an agreement on exactly how such scores would be used in the teacher evaluations.
That drew criticism from an attorney who sought the pledge in a case he brought on behalf of Los Angeles parents, who successfully sued the district for violating a 41-year-old state law that requires evaluations to include measures of student achievement, such as test scores.
“This is exactly what we were concerned about — that [UTLA] would say one thing in court and change their position thereafter,” said Scott Witlin, an attorney for the group of unidentified parents.
In the case, which could transform teacher evaluations in California, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled last month that L.A. Unified had violated the law, known as the Stull Act. The plaintiffs’ attorneys had argued that the absence of a rigorous evaluation system that effectively identifies weak teachers for improvement or, if necessary, dismissal, deprives students of their constitutional right to educational equality.
All employees are not created equal. In industry the practice of rank ordering your employees has been going on for decades. You reward the better ones and eventually get rid of the worst ones. Why not with empolyees on the government payroll (our money).
What will result without some significant intervention is quite simply “teaching to the test”. This has alredy been happening, and it is headed by the administrators.
Teaching to a predetermined set of questions and concepts is just not right and leads to a dilution of real learning.
Teachers need to be evaluated, but this is not the way to do it in my opinion.
And please do not get me started on the responsibility that parents have to make sure there is support at home, to keep kids fed, clean and to foster good study skills. Far too many people seem to think teachers are responsible in these areas too. School is not child care.
I am in school for education and it bothers me that this teachers are being held responsible for a students test scores. There are so many problems with this situation that I do not know where to begin, but one of the biggest problems I can see is why are the parents not being held accountable for their childrens testing scores. Teachers are only with a student for a few hours in the day, when the student leaves school the parents become responsible. When my children come home from school they know homework comes first, they must sit down and do all homework before being allowed to do anything, if they do not get homework done before practice (sports) they do not go to practice. It is a parents job to make sure their child is completing their homework, or getting enough sleep at night (especially nights before tests), or to make sure their children are getting a Good breakfast before school. A teacher should only be held responsible for the things that they can control and test scores are not one of them. I have three children, two that are school age, both of them are straight A students, but my oldest child is not a good test taker and has even failed some tests, whereas my second child is a straight A student and is a great test taker, all children are different.
Also why are the tests generated for middle class white children, which means children of others cultures and backgrounds may not fully understand a question because it is worded for a middle class white child. People wonder why most inner city schools are not testing the same as other schools well first is because of the way the tests are worded, a child that lives on a farm will understand a math question that is a word problem based on mixtures of grain or something they are familure with whereas a child that is from an inner city school may look at this question and be confused but if that same inner city student was given a question math question about walking distance from one block to the next block or high rise buildings. My point is that the tests need to be worded for each different type of school so that each type of student will understand.
There are many more problems but these are just a few as to why this is such a bad idea.