Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

PENNSYLVANIA lawmakers should take care in considering a bill that would let school districts use students’ test scores to measure teacher performance.

The legislation would mandate a statewide change as early as next year. Standardized-test scores would weigh heavily in determining whether teachers keep their jobs, receive tenure or get merit pay.

Given the sorry state of education, with students dropping out and flunking at alarming rates, it makes sense to use sterner measures to evaluate teachers, reward the best educators and show the door to those who continually fail to improve.

It also makes sense to include test scores as a component of teacher evaluations. After all, the federal No Child Left Behind law makes test scores the basis for its rating of schools, so how well teachers do in preparing students for tests is important.

But recent cheating scandals, including allegations of test irregularities at certain Pennsylvania school districts, that have rocked public education around the country show the dangers of placing too much emphasis on standardized testing.

In many of these cases, educators faced unrealistic expectations and pressure to meet testing benchmarks. But that’s no excuse for making decisions that cheated schoolchildren out of a real education. They were taught how to pass a test, but little else.

Union leaders have not fully embraced the Pennsylvania proposal. Instead, they have rolled out their own reform plan to revamp how teachers are evaluated. The two proposals form a good starting point for discussions leading to the best model.