One of the education reforms that are often talked about, and always opposed by the teachers' unions, is basing teacher evaluations on results instead of just on what the principal or other supervisor observes about the teacher's performance in the classroom. That would of course mean evaluating the teacher based on the performance of his or her students, which usually means using test scores in some fashion, whether based on the percentage of students who pass a standardized test, or an overall average score on the test, or on how well the student's score improves from one year to the next, or some combination.
The unions always oppose this. They claim to be worried that using test scores would make teachers "teach to the test," and that it would be unfair to teachers who end up with the worst students who have no chance to pass the test. But using improvement from one year to the next as one component would solve that second objection, and as to the first, if teachers are going to "teach to the test," they are already doing so in an effort to make sure that their students pass those tests, so using the scores to evaluate the teachers as well as the students won't make any difference.
This idea that "teaching to the test" is wrong has been overblown anyway. If the tests have been properly designed to evaluate what the students need to learn in a specific subject, then teachers should be teaching that material to the students. I don't know how other states do it, but in Texas teachers have a specific set of knowledge and skills (referred to as the TEKS) that they're supposed to cover in any specific subject, and then the TAKS tests (and future end-of-course tests) are designed to cover the most important parts of those objectives. For example, in 11th grade U.S. History, I am required to teach the students why certain years (1898, 1929, etc.) are important, and what certain people contributed (anyone from Dwight Eisenhower to Martin Luther King, Jr. to Caesar Chavez) to American history (this is a very small sampling of the TEKS for that class.) The TAKS test that students take that year is based on what are considered the most important skills and knowledge from those objectives, as well as a few important objectives from world history, world geography, and 8th grade U.S. History (which covers the time period up to the Civil War.) So while some might say I am "teaching to the test," I believe it is in my students' best interests to cover those topics that will be on the test, because those topics are the most important parts of American history anyway. And it's the same with math (I teach 1 math class as well.) The math skills that are covered on the TAKS test are those that are considered the most important for students to learn, so naturally those are the skills that math teachers spend the most time teaching to students. So yes, I guess I am "teaching to the test."
The fact is that the unions oppose using student performance to measure a teacher's performance because the unions' primary purpose is to protect their members' jobs, including protecting members whose performance is less than stellar. The unions know that using test scores would expose many poor teachers and make them vulnerable to dismissal. In fact, unions are really opposed to any type of evaluation, but will allow a more subjective type if pushed, because they know that it's not that hard for poor teachers to get around those. Unions have no interest in seeing teachers either rewarded for excellent performance or punished for poor performance. That's why they oppose merit pay, and why they oppose performance evaluations based on student performance. That's why they would rather see a first-year teacher who has just won an award for outstanding performance be fired than a more senior teacher who doesn't perform as well (as recently happened in Wisconsin.)
Even in a non-union state like Texas, the current performance evaluation system (PDAS) is basically a joke. Although a school's overall rating is partially used in a teacher's evaluation, the scores of the teacher's students are not supposed to be a factor. Instead, the principal or other evaluator is supposed to evaluate how well the teacher does at teaching in a "student-centered" manner. In other words, the teacher is evaluated based on how much his or her students participate in class, on how much they are involved in their own learning. In practice, this system ends up being based on whether or not the evaluator agrees with the teacher's teaching methods or even rather or not the evaluator likes the teacher or not. It is entirely subjective. It becomes a game, nothing more and nothing less (a belief that I have heard principals agree with.) It doesn't take into account how active a teacher is in extracurricular activities, such as being a student council sponsor or academics coach. It can be used to set a teacher up to be fired, by designating them as a "teacher in need of assistance." That would be fine, except the standards used to make that designation are subjective instead of objective. So it's entirely possible for a teacher who has every student pass the TAKS test to still be designated as being in "need of assistance," while another teacher, who has anywhere from 20%-40% of their students fail the test, gets a good rating. A better method of evaluating teachers would use both the test scores of their students and personal evaluation. It would take into account that there are different methods of teaching, and that ultimately it's the results that matter the most. And while it might not punish teachers who are not that involved with extracurricular activities, it should reward teachers who are willing to give more of their own time to give their students extra opportunities at other rewarding activities that sometimes ultimately mean as much to the students as classwork.
So, to state legislators in Texas and elsewhere, it's time to come up with a new way of doing things. Ignore the teachers unions and teachers groups (such as ATPE) in non-union states such as Texas, and come up with a way to evaluate teachers that is based on how well their students really learn, not based on how well they play the game. And come up with a system that rewards teachers who can be shown to have helped their students succeed, and ultimately dismisses teachers who are not doing the job properly and are hurting their students more than helping them. It's time for us to realize that schools are more than just a jobs program, and that the number one goal should be to help students succeed, not help teachers make it to retirement (except in cases where getting teachers to retire immediately would also help their students.) It's time to really put the students first, even if that means firing teachers or shutting down bad schools or giving students vouchers to use at private schools (which may end up causing bad schools to shut down and bad teachers to lose their jobs.) Ignore the teacher's unions, do what's best for the kids.
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