Eight Reasons Not to Tie Teacher Pay to Standardized Test Results

Tying test scores to teacher compensation suggests that teachers are holding back on using their experience, expertise, and time because they are not being paid for the extra effort. However the evidence is strong that many teachers school districts, leaders, boards of education, and national and local legislators simply don’t know how improve educational prospects for poor children.

The standardized tests in most states are poor and so are the standards they are designed to measure.

The idea of compensating teachers individually in order to differentiate their performance from their school colleagues defeats a principal tenet of good instruction—that teachers need to learn from one another to solve difficult pedagogical challenges.

Most teachers do not teach a grade or subject that is subject to standardized testing.

Even reliable standardized tests are valid only when they are used for their intended purposes.

A key assumption of using test scores to judge teachers is that students are randomly assigned, first, to schools, and, second, to classes. Neither is true.

State data systems are in their infancy. It turns out that it is harder, is more expensive, and takes longer for states to produce reliable, accurate, and secure longitudinal data on students and teachers than widely assumed.

The rationale for tying tests to compensation is not clear. One possible reason is to increase the effort, time, and resources devoted to teaching the content and skills to be tested. However, the consensus is very strong that the No Child Left Behind Act’s testing mandate has narrowed instruction too much already at the expense of art, music, social studies, and foreign language instruction. Another reason might be to instill better practice; however there is no evidence that such measures improve instructional practices or student outcomes.

http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=PR&pubid=168

Food for thought.

for faulty output when some of the parts come in faulty ...

most "factories" don't have any of the pieces fighting being used in the process ...

I do favor merit pay based on performance, but not by way of standardized tests.

Let the teachers' peers at their school develop the evaluative criteria themselves.

That's not ever gonna happen, and this idea ignores the very real and vicious office politics that goes on in public education.

There is NOTHING like it in the private sector, trust me. Public schools are run like the military.

accurately or fairly assessed EVER, because "Test Group X" from "Year Y" NEVER IS TAUGHT BY "Teacher A" again!

That is to say, 11th-graders are only 11th-graders once, so, not being tested the following year as 11th-graders who had the same "Teacher A" again, how is either the students' progress OR the teacher's role in same to be assessed?

And standardized testing NEVER is at the end of a school year.

through them checking off or filling in the bubbles any old answer. If they don't take the tests seriously, the rest of the country shouldn't, either.

The intransigence of the NEA et al to accept that not all teachers are equal in effectiveness is clearly silly. The rabid adherence to a industrial revolution model for teachers contracts is IMO hurtful in the long run. They need to get out front and come up with effective ways to rate teachers and generate metrics. If they don't, they will be imposed on the public schools and it will not good for the system.