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A Senior Seminar Editorial by Emily Hughes, MHS 2010
A recent article in the Washington Post, “New D.C. Teacher Ratings Stress Better Test Scores” describes a new $4 million system initiated by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. The system is called IMPACT, and it will access teachers’ abilities based on their classes standardized test scores. The article claims that education reformers nationwide maintain the idea “that the best way to improve schools is to continuously monitor and improve teacher performance”, but D.C. is one of the first areas in the nation to enact a system in which teachers’ job security depends on standardized test scores. Teachers should not be evaluated solely based on their students’ test scores. This faulty system will hinder the learning process, and as a result hurt schools, more than it will improve schools.
In order for the results of students’ test scores to be effective in evaluating a teacher’s performance, all students would have to take a standardized test at the beginning of the school year. Students’ abilities may have improved during the year with the help of their teacher, but these improvements may not be visible if education reformers do not know what level these students began the year at. The IMPACT system fails to take this into consideration because it is a general system that fails to take students’ and classes’ individual situations into account. Improvement in relation to the IMPACT system is defined by a single “event”, a test day, instead of the difference between two events.
A teacher should not have to sacrifice their individuality or passion for a particular topic in order to focus only on areas that could translate into higher scores on a standardized test. If the security of a teacher’s job directly depends on a standardized test score, she is most likely going to focus on test taking skills and material that would appear on a test, instead of sharing her individual views on a topic, or leaving time for class discussions. Students will be less likely to be exposed to situations and skills they will have to face in the real world, such as, debate, analysis, and creative thinking. Teachers will lose their individuality as they all work towards a common goal. As a result, students will become bored more easily and lose interest in class more quickly, hindering the learning process. A teacher should be evaluated based on her students’ standardized test scores only if she has been the focus of complaints from students, parents, or faculty. This change in the IMPACT system would prevent teachers who are fulfilling their duties from having to face unnecessary consequences.
It is unfair to evaluate teachers solely based on their students’ standardized test scores. College applicants are not evaluated solely based on their SAT scores because their SAT scores may not be an accurate reflection of who they are as students in their entirety. Standardized test scores fail to clearly display a teacher’s strengths, weaknesses, teaching style etc. It would be difficult for education reformers to provide specific advice for teachers based on these scores so the IMPACT system, as stated in the article, would serve as “an instrument to identify and remove struggling teachers, not a means to help them improve”. Educators, who put in a great amount of effort each day in order to teach a class of “trouble-makers” could lose their jobs if several students decided to rebel by failing the exam etc; this would not be fair. The IMPACT system is a flawed system that should not be enacted nationwide.