Rating Teachers By Student Scores Can Come Up Short

The Huffington Post (11/30, Resmovits) reports that as sates seek to help teachers improve, "either through new laws or promises made to the federal Department of Education to escape the strictures of the No Child Left Behind Act, they're facing a dizzying array of rubrics and coaching methods -- and often coming up short." While "bolstering teachers' evaluations and professional development has emerged as a popular way for school districts and states to attack the problem of underperforming schools," a new study found that "there are few professional development methods that have been shown to effectively improve student learning." Additionally, Segun Eubanks, the National Education Association's teacher quality director, said that state evaluations define teacher effectiveness "based almost solely on a teacher's ability to increase scores on narrow standardized tests that are looking at one measure of learning."