I haven’t had time to write much this past week but the issue of the times is quite clear and one that I’ve addressed before. Linking teacher evaluation to student test scores jumps out from many arenas.

Important to this process is the increasing confidence in the value added approach to evaluation which goes beyond comparing one year’s fifth grade test to the next’s. Value added uses the three year results of a given student to project what his/her next year’s test result should be, and evaluating his/her teacher by its relationship to that projected score.

The second and most significant aspect of the teacher evaluation link is that The American Federation of Teachers is underwriting local projects that are using the teacher evaluation link to student scores. Even more ballyhooed is the latest teacher contract in New Haven Connecticut which not only connects teacher evaluation to student scores but also allows underperforming schools to be closed and requiring all teachers to reapply for positions at the reopened schools. Both the AFT and the NEA have praised the contract, and Secretary of Education Duncan cites it as a model of collaboration that he hopes other urban district will employ.


The third piece is the Race to the Top funding which requires applicants to have teacher evaluation linked to student scores. Earlier I had pointed out how some states had changed laws preventing this linkage, and attributed their willingness to do this, to the large amount of money RTT was offering.
Many thought the unions would make their stand around this point, but apparently they too see the writing on the wall and will give this one to the administration.

It’s still difficult to know what will put the best teachers in front of our kids, but it feels better to be trying something new and with promise, than merely accepting the status quo.