"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Saturday, April 02, 2011

If It's Not Good Enough for the Obama or Duncan Children . . .

The other day the President referred to the Obama children at Sidwell Friends School taking standardized tests, but tests that do not decide if their school gets shut down, if the teachers get to keep their jobs or if they are given raises, or even if a nasty letter is sent home by the Feds to parents telling them their school sucks.

From Monty Neill:

Bill Schechter here in MA, noting Obama's talk on testing and that the MA board of elementary and secondary education will soon be debating use of student test scores to evaluate teachers, wondered if the schools that Obama (Sidwell Friends) and Duncan (Arlington,VA public schools) send their children to evaluate their teachers based on student test scores. 
The responses, which Bill said I could share, are:
"We do not tie teacher evaluations to scores in the Arlington public school system."  (Arlington school district teacher, March 31, 2011)
"We don't tie teacher pay to test scores because we don't believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness."  (Sidwell Friends faculty member, April 1, 2011)

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