Guest columnist
There is no denying that good teaching has an impact on student academic growth. The problem lies in how student assessment data can be accurately linked to the effects of a specific teacher and in turn fairly and equitably used to evaluate teachers and make decisions regarding performance-pay and job retention.
States are scrambling for the $4.3 billion in competitive grants offered through the Race to the Top program authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In order to be competitive for these federal dollars, states must have implemented a statewide longitudinal data system with unique student and teacher identifiers and have the ability to track student data over time and link individual students and teachers. Currently, only 17 states -- including North Carolina -- have the ability to link teachers with student assessment data.
There are several inherent problems with using student assessment data to evaluate teacher effectiveness. First, in North Carolina there is an absence of standardized testing in some grades and subject areas. Many feel our schools already focus too much on testing, thus adding annual testing to currently untested grades and subject areas would be controversial.
Second, value-added assessment -- which measures student academic gain -- requires technically skilled personnel to run this statistical model while controlling for all the other variables that might impact student achievement (i.e., English language proficiency, family income, etc.). Such expertise is essential to ensure that a true estimate of teacher effect is actually reported. While some of our state's larger school systems might have the resources to hire such personnel or contract with a consulting firm to analyze these large data sets, smaller districts would have more difficulty.
Third, most student assessment data is not processed and analyzed until the fall of the year following test administration, yet teachers' summative evaluations typically occur each spring. As a result, teachers would have to be evaluated on the progress of their previous class of students rather than their current one.
Fourth, the North Carolina End-of-Grade and End-of-Course Tests are criterion-referenced assessments that are designed to measure proficiency on specific content standards. Most questions on these assessments do not address content and skills significantly below or above these standards. For this reason, these tests insufficiently assess the progress of very high and very low achieving students and would not adequately measure growth in such groups of students.
Fifth, there are too many unanswered questions that cause many to doubt the validity of the results derived from such analyses. For example, what influence do support personnel (i.e., ESL teachers, teachers of the gifted) who work periodically with students have on student achievement, and how might this negatively or positively impact measuring teacher effect ?
How does teacher effectiveness in one grade level influence the teacher effect in subsequent grade levels for the same student? In other words, if a student has a poor teacher in 4th grade and makes little growth, how might this negatively impact the teacher effect for the student as a fifth grader when he or she has to play "catch-up"? How would a particular student's growth differ if he or she had been assigned to another teacher? Though we may not be able to answer any of these questions with relative certainty, they are important to consider when such data are being used to make decisions that will impact an individual's career and livelihood.
Ensuring that statistically derived teacher effects are valid is mandatory if teachers are to be convinced that such data should be used to evaluate their performance. With lingering doubts, the practice of linking student assessment data to teacher evaluation may influence a teacher's career decisions. Will there be a surge of teachers seeking employment at charter and private schools? Will teachers be more likely to gravitate towards those public schools with less challenging populations? Will teachers choose to move to those states where such linkages are against the law or protected by collective bargaining agreements?
I asked one of my graduate classes comprised of 25 Durham Public and Chapel Hill Carrboro City School teachers how linking student assessment data to their performance evaluations would impact their career decisions.
The overwhelming majority of teachers indicated they would seek employment in schools with higher student achievement, more parental involvement, and greater access to instructional resources.
Our toughest schools already have enough barriers to recruiting and retaining highly qualified, effective teachers -- do they need another one?
Kristen R. Stephens is assistant professor of the practice in the Program in Education at Duke University.
