The Federal Department of Education has sent a letter to Washington State’s education Superintendent  removing the state’s waiver from some of No Child Left Behind’s costly requirements. Among the requirements is the mandate to provide tutoring for students from schools labeled “failing” under No Child Left Behind. (Read the news article.) According to the Olympian, some teachers say the schools can make do without the waiver. Others disagree.

Federal funding for education is like a drug. Let us clear our minds of the notion that federal money is something we absolutely need and remember that before 1965 schools functioned well without it.  Since 1965 there have been several major federal education laws granting states funds for prescribed purposes, even though federal involvement in education is unconstitutional. Federal funding always comes with strings attached.

In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed under the George W. Bush administration. It required much assessment and data collection, and it required 100% of the students to be proficient by 2014. This was an impossible goal, yet all the states accepted it-–and the funding.

Now it is 2014, and states have not met the goal. Since Congress has not enacted changes, the Obama administration distributed grants and waivers through the federal Department of Education. The grants and waivers had conditions, however. In exchange, states had to adopt many new federal requirements including the Common Core State Standards, assessments, more data collection, and teacher evaluation measures.  Washington State’s plan on using assessment scores in teacher evaluations didn’t meet federal expectations, and the state lost the federal waiver.

Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to use assessment scores in teacher evaluations?

• Unlike the objective Iowa test or traditional SAT which have been used for decades, the new Common Core Assessments have no track record whatsoever. The Iowa and traditional SAT test questions actually had right answers, while on the Common Core Assessments many questions don’t have exact answers but are open-ended. Consequently grading is subjective, as is already the case with the current Washington state assessments. The subjectivity of  the grading of Washington State’s assessments makes the scores unsuitable for high stakes decisions, and the Common Core Assessment scores will likewise be unsuitable.
• The standards themselves are unproven.
• The use of computers for this type of assessment is new to the students so there will be mistakes simply because students do not understand how to input their answers. Teachers with students who don’t have computers at home or who don’t speak English, may have poorer results than teachers whose pupils are comfortable with computers.
• The Snohomish School District superintendent stated in a letter to State Superintendent Dorn that only a small portion of what is taught in class is on the assessment and that the results cannot show whether the improvement or decline of a student is correlated with an individual teacher or a particular classroom practice.
• Studies also show that family instability is a bigger factor in poor school performance than teacher skill or inadequate funding.

In short, the assessments would be measuring a myriad of other problems and not teacher performance. Teachers’ jobs and pensions would be unfairly jeopardized. The teachers’ union may be correct that using student assessment scores in teacher evaluations at this time would be unwise. The practice would not only affect teachers, but the heightened obsession with questionable assessments would also lower the quality of education for students.

Tags: assessments, federal, funding, teacher evaluations