Stupid in America

[Moristans]

The easiest standardized way to rate teachers would be by implementing yearly standardized testing across all subjects. You could then base the teachers' merit on the improvement their students showed from the previous year to their new test scores after a year of being taught by that teacher.

That may be the easiest, but it's not the most effective or the most fair. Standardized testing for NCLB does not hold kids, themeselves, accountable for results. Kids have no stake in it at all. There was a big scandal a few years back where kids who thye thought would not score well on the standardized test were actually encouraged to stay home on the day of the test. Now, any kid who misses the exam, for any reason, is automatically given a zero.

There are other problems. I teach Biology, for example. They take it one time in high school, so there is no baseline to gauge learning or improvement.

The problem though is that it would encourage teachers to "Teach for the test". That would mean valuable learning experiences would be ignored.

Hell, that's the state of things already. Schools are pretty much NCLB testing factories. The fact that most of our kids do not score Proficient on the standardized test is the main reason why we are labelled a failing school and being forced to reconsitute.

Here in Virginia we have standardized testing every few years for the students to ensure they've learned everything they need to know to advance to the next grade.

The impression I get is that Virginia has been NCLB compliant from the outset. That means that testing is required yearly to determing Adequate Yearly Progess. I don't know that performance on standardized testing has any consequence for the kid taking the test in any state.