I found this on
Joanne Jacobs site. I won't add anything else except AMEN.
They (state tests) are even less reliable as indicators of teachers’ performance. For reasons that have been brought up again and again, reasons given by scholars, teachers, policymakers, and others, test scores should not decide a teacher’s fate or override human judgment. There are simply too many unstable factors–the tests themselves, the students’ lives, conditions on the day of the test–that make the scores inaccurate indicators of what a teacher is accomplishing.
In an op-ed in the New York Daily News, Arthur Goldstein points out that students’ efforts are not uniform: “For example, how much television does a student watch? … If my students don’t know how to read, haven’t been in school for the past six years or refuse to put a mark on a piece of paper, is it my fault? If a kid was dragged to the U.S. against his will and simply won’t learn English, should I be penalized?” (Having taught ESL, I have seen these situations.)
It's a good read and the comments are thoughtful as well.
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