Right Way To Grade Teachers

Chancellor Joel Klein of New York City's Department of Education and superintendents from other parts of the state are opposing language in the budget bill clarifying last year's agreement that teachers shouldn't be evaluated on student test scores; they should be assessed on how they use test scores and other data to adjust their teaching to help students improve.

This enlightened approach to tenure decisions is something that the Legislature and the governor agreed last year was eminently reasonable. The approach is akin to judging doctors on how they use the results of blood tests, X-rays, and the like to prescribe a course of treatment.

The plan, agreed upon last year, represents recognition of a real problem. Using student test scores for evaluating teachers is just as flawed a premise as using them as the sole criteria to judge children. After all, there are many factors that affect student learning that are beyond a teacher's control, such as the school's resources, class size, availability of special education, the performance of other teachers, student mobility and attendance, and parent support.

And then there are the technical limitations of the available data and the quality of the standardized tests that make it impossible to isolate the "effects" of an individual teacher. Take, for example, the fact that the state English Language Arts tests are given in January of each year. Which teacher is responsible, the 4th-grade teacher who taught the student between February and June or the 5th-grade teacher who had the child between September and January?

Perhaps the greatest myth that opponents perpetuate is the notion that student test scores can be used to make decisions for which they were never intended. Even education advocates who regularly disagree with each other conclude that, as co-director of a Washington think tank called Education Sector, Thomas Toch, wrote recently in Education Week, "standardized test scores aren't the simple solution they seem to be."

To ensure quality, the criteria for judging a teacher's performance should be rigorous and multifaceted. It should include multiple measures of student learning and instructional practices associated with exemplary teaching, such as knowledge of subject matter, the ability to tailor instruction to the needs of their students, and engagement with parents and the greater school community.

If we are serious about ensuring high teacher quality for our kids, we need to develop evaluation systems that fairly and accurately measure a student's total intellectual growth. We also must ensure that school leadership fosters a collaborative working environment and provides the resources and conditions that support high-performance teaching and learning.

Second, the tenure process is just that — a process. When the chancellor concludes that an overwhelming majority of teachers are granted tenure, he discounts the fact that about a third of new teachers leave the classroom in their first three years, most because they recognize that they are not suited for the job.

Opponents are arguing that the legislation takes away local control from school districts. In fact, it does nothing of the kind. Nothing precludes districts from making tenure decisions based on myriad criteria —just not student test scores.

At a time when schools all over the state are facing daunting budget cuts, including nearly $800 million in state and city reductions to our city's schools, it is both disappointing and perplexing that the chancellor and the superintendents don't like this legislation. Instead of fighting tooth and nail to hold onto every dollar for education, they have chosen to create a bogey man. As teachers are used to telling their young students: There is no bogey man.

Ms. Weingarten is president of the United Federation of Teachers.