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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes but none of them would really have that much influence on how much a student would learn in a single year. In other words they wouldn't effect how teachers were reflected in the test much.

Let's recap the bidding. You said:

Spanky, post #767
If you test the students at the end of the year, and compare their scores to the previous year, you know how well the teacher did. Is the teacher there to do something else other than to teach reading, writing and basic math? If not, then what could be more objective than that? What other factors are there to consider?

So I responded:

T.S., post #768
Can you really not think of things that would affect scores other than a teachers' performance? See, e.g., the list here. Hard for individual teachers to do much about most of those factors.

The page I linked to there, from a report by the National Science Foundation, says (in part):

• Many factors influence student performance, either directly or indirectly. Access to challenging courses, qualified and experienced teachers, school environments that support learning and teaching, and opportunities for using computers and the Internet are all important factors. Educational policies on curriculum standards, testing and accountability, and instructional materials also help define the broad learning context, and their practical effects on curriculum, teaching methods, and learning materials all shape the experiences of teachers and students. Looking at these and other factors affecting education provides a context for the student achievement results reported here.

In other words, your surmise that teacher performance is the only thing that affects a student's test score is wrong. It's not just the teacher. It's a bunch of other things as well.

What other criteris would there be besides tests scores?

My point, as explained above, was that a lot of things other than teacher performance affect student test scores. So you can't just look at test scores and start canning teachers.

Actually that is the way if may "sound" but addinng data makes it more objective. You just don't fire a teacher over one or two years data, or from one placement. But over time, if a teacher pefroms significantly less well than their peers in many different situations over time, that is about as objective and as fair as you can get.

I agree with the general proposition. But how you decide which data to look at, and how to weigh the different facts and circumstances -- that becomes highly subjective. No doubt that a teacher who is at the bottom of every measure is a bad teacher. That's the easy case.

Actually, I think you are wrong. That is where annual testing comes in. It is not hard to test for progress in basic learning skills.

You're right -- I misspoke. My point is not that you can't quantify how much a third grader learns, because there are ways to do that, although they have their various problems. My point is that you can't quantify how much of that is attributable to the teacher, as opposed to various other things.

If there are multiple tests giving in multiple situations, and teachers results are matched against their piers and they are doing signficantly less well, I think it is that simple.

You sound like Ross Perot. "It's just that simple."

But what do you do after the very simple cases?

In any event this is an irrelevent argument. The point is whether you agree that annual tests should be taken and such data collected. Right now we are not using annual tests so we can't even use such data as part of the teacher evaluation. I think collecting such data would be really valuable for both the student and the system. You can debate its relative, cut don't you agree such information is really useful?

I think there should be regular testing. Whether the tests are well designed and implemented, whether they are given too frequently or too infrequently -- I don't know enough to have an opinion on those questions. But this is a difficult area, and I'm suspicious of anyone who thinks there are simple answers.