State revises method to tie evaluations to test scores

State revises method to tie evaluations to test scores

1. Austin American Statesman Wednesday, September, 4

2. Education

3. State issue

4. The article is concerning teacher's evaluations based on their student's standardized test scores.

5. This article is important to individuals/ families becasue it effects the kind of education they are receiving. If a teacher is evaluated based on test scores then they are only going to teach for the test, rather than teaching what they feel is important.

6. I feel like this takes the creativity out of teaching. Teachers already have an agenda when it comes to teaching, because they have to cover everything that will be tested, so it leaves little room for extra lessons that they feel are important. As of now 85% of school districts in Texas are failing according to federal standards, and those 85% are required to have 90% of their students to pass the tests in reading in math. Next year the percentage that are needed to pass will go up to 100%. That is a lot of stress put on these teachers. If their evaluations come from the scores then that means their pay is determined by their kid's scores, this could result in teachers teaching more aggressively and could even take the fun out of teaching. The education commissioner Michael Williams luckily said that he doesn't have the authority to make these kind of conditions mandatory and instead offered a voluntary system based on the individual districts discretion. This is still concerning because certain districts could still adopt this evaluation system. I hope that the individual districts will see that teaching should be centered around the children and not a test that doesn't take into account the different levels of learning that children have.