On evaluating teachers by how they teach to the test

(picture by "Editor B" on Flickr)

From today's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/education/01teacher.html

Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains in Use, and Critics

"

A growing number of school districts have adopted a system called value-added modeling to answer that question, provoking battles from Washington to Los Angeles — with some saying it is an effective method for increasing teacher accountability, and others arguing that it can give an inaccurate picture of teachers’ work.
The system calculates the value teachers add to their students’ achievement, based on changes in test scores from year to year and how the students perform compared with others in their grade.
People who analyze the data, making a few statistical assumptions, can produce a list ranking teachers from best to worst.
Use of value-added modeling is exploding nationwide. "

(etc)


My comment to it was as follows:

Your Submitted Comment

Display Name

Wade Schuette

Location

Ann Arbor

Comment

OK, I had 6 years of post-calculus math and did very well, but I cannot for the life of me grasp why the average person needs to be able to factor polynomials to be a better human or worker or friend or parent or citizen.

If the students' reaction to what we are feeding them is to vomit and flee, maybe that should tell us something about the food, not the students.

From what I can see students do NOT need way more math and science in order to thrive in later life and contribute to the world. They need to learn to work together, resolve conflict, surface issues, and dare to care and take action on the issues they see.

Seriously. If every person in the US Government at all levels had twin PhD's in science and math, would things be better for us? How? Hey, in fact, didn't those "Quants" who demolished our banks and retirement funds HAVE PhD's in math?

Teachers need the ability and power to look UPWARD and say, "You know, I don't see how any of this stuff you ask me to do is helping." Students need the ability to look UPWARD and say, "Tell me again, after 8 more years of this, I become unemployed and then ... then ... what?"

Judging by the state of the USA today, our educational system has failed to produce people who are individually or collectively healthy, wealthy, or wise.

I'll speak for the students. "OK, grown up people. Please show me how another 8 years of THIS kind of schooling will guarantee me a good job in a great community, for me and for my children and their children. Because, doh, we look at the Social Value Added (SVA) to the community, state, country, and planet by the school system as a whole over the last few decades, and have to rate it as a total failure. Why should we even LISTEN to you? We don't believe this \"school\" is much besides a thinly disguised warehouse or prison system that even YOU can't see the point of anymore, except that it's what we've always done so SURELY, all evidence aside, it MUST be the right thing to do."

Surely. Oh, and fire all the teachers who question that narrative.