Teacher assessments result in less time spent on «test - prep» and more time spent on learning.
The one new proposal in Ed Balls» letter is, remarkably, to increase the malign effect of school performance tables by creating a separate table for
teacher assessment results.
The damage caused by the pressure to teach to the test will now be added to by pressure to enhance
teacher assessment results for league table purposes.
Not exact matches
As a
result of these conversations, students and
teachers together created an honor code to be used with every paper, quiz, test, project, and
assessment.
Finally, after the
assessment has been conducted, meet with your child's
teacher to discuss the
results.
The
results of the
assessment can help preschool
teachers to work on any skills that might help your child in kindergarten that your child may not know yet.
If your kindergartener is given an
assessment in the first few weeks of kindergarten the
results will probably be used by your child's
teacher for lesson planning for the remainder of the year.
Based on the
results of the
assessment,
teachers can fine - tune their lessons and instructions to better suit the needs of the child.
Her ability to precisely identify and conceptualize specific issue (s) a student was struggling with, ascertain effective interventions, conduct
assessments and interpret
results in a way that is useful and understandable, and provide parents and
teachers with useful information is truly remarkable.»
This year's NAEP
results are being released the same week that state
assessments begin for students in grades 3 - 8 and as the state's largest
teachers» union is conducting a campaign to lower expectations for students on those
assessments.
As a
result of the testimony given, the report recommends the state Department of Education immediately address several concerns, such as expediting waivers from the U.S. Department of Education «to relax onerous and rigid testing restrictions placed on certain students,» especially with English as a Second Language students and students with disabilities; producing all missing or incomplete curriculum modules; aligning
assessments proportionally to curriculum actually implemented; and increasing funding for the professional development of
teachers.
Commenting on the statement by the Secretary of State for Education setting out proposals to reform the system of primary
assessment, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT - The
Teachers» Union, said: «It is important to recognise, and as the NASUWT has stated consistently, that many of the concerns expressed about statutory primary
assessment are the direct
result of their use in the current high stakes school accountability regime.
New York State Education Commissioner John King says the adjustments originally ensured that no
teacher is unfairly removed as a
result of Common Core
assessments.
At the same time,
teachers were being told they would be graded as professionals based on the
results of scores from these flawed — and really, still experimental —
assessments.
New York education department commissioner John King said in a statement released last week that he believes the latest APPR
results prove the new Common Core
assessments «did not negatively affect
teacher ratings.»
In this system, financial constraints, the restrictions of National Curricula and exam syllabuses,
assessment by
results of both pupils and
teachers, all make the likelihood of a total rethink of the education system vanishingly small.
Teachers in 21 Kentucky schools and five districts are now eligible for cash rewards for improved student performance as a
result of corrected scores on the 1996 state
assessment.
When would
teachers hold their «reflection meeting,» the last step in the
assessment cycle, to look at the new
results?
The excellent
results achieved by Finland on the PISA
assessment are a
result of the autonomy and trust that
teachers are given.
Based on
assessment results,
teachers assign students to either reteach or enrich sessions for the following week.
Traditionally, the retention of a student, uncommon as it was,
resulted from an individual
teacher's
assessment of the student's ability to succeed at the next level.
AFT's poll showed that 74 percent of respondents are worried that students,
teachers and schools will be held accountable for the
results of those
assessments before they have been fully implemented.
Michaelson estimates that the process of administering the test to a class, hand - grading each one, analyzing the class
results, and discussing them with him takes each
teacher anywhere from three hours for the reading
assessment in the early part of the year to seven hours for math near the end of the year.
Its system of identifying low - performing
teacher - preparation programs considers: the accreditation status of the
teacher education unit; passing rates on
teacher - certification exams; and
results from the state's performance
assessments of classroom
teachers.
These house meetings are also where
teachers collaborate to analyze their students»
results on Edison's monthly benchmark
assessments.
At Feaster - Edison, benchmark
assessments are administered on laptop computers wheeled into each classroom on a cart and connected wirelessly to Feaster - Edison's main system, making
results available immediately to
teachers and administrators.
On the basis of these survey
results, we created three measures: (1) the principal's overall
assessment of the
teacher's effectiveness, which is a single item from the survey; (2) the
teacher's ability to improve student academic performance, which is a simple average of the organization, classroom management, reading achievement, and math achievement survey items; and (3) the
teacher's ability to increase student satisfaction, which is a simple average of the role model and student satisfaction survey items.
• Returning the
results from any formative
assessments, like the MAP or iReady, to classroom
teachers within one week and to parents within thirty days.
To the extent that the most important staffing decisions involve sanctioning incompetent
teachers and rewarding the very best
teachers, a principal - based
assessment system may affect achievement as positively as a merit - pay system based solely on student test
results.
Fearing a second year of disappointing
results, and the subsequent risk of the child's transferring to a different school, his
teachers try a novel approach, a computerized math instruction program, since the
assessments indicated that he was the furthest behind in math.
Collaborative data meetings: When
teacher teams sit down to discuss the
results of common
assessments, principals join in and help make these meetings an engine for improvement.
Finally, under the heading of unintended consequences, I am very fearful that placing sole responsibility for standard setting with the federal government could
result in the worst of all possible worlds: national standards and
assessments that embrace the conventional wisdom and social agendas of the education «experts» who staff our schools of education,
teachers unions, and national associations.
Here's what this approach looks like: Administrators make frequent short, unannounced classrooms visits (at least once a month), followed promptly by face - to - face listening / coaching conversations;
teacher teams meet regularly to discuss planning, pedagogy, and
assessment results; and
teacher assessment is saved till the end of the school year, pulling together observations, other points of contact, and
teachers» self -
assessments.
We can leverage technology to grade
assessments - particularly if they are multiple choice
assessments, but there are very thoughtful ways to grade more open response
assessments - to give
teachers time to then analyse those
results and plan for action.
But the country's largest
teachers union, the National Education Association, still frets that the program lacks sufficient accountability for
results: «Voucher students are not included in state
assessments, so taxpayers have no way of knowing how the voucher funds have been spent, and how students have fared.»
Rigorous expectations yield impressive
results at New York's School of the Future, where regular
assessments help keep students on track, and
teachers strive to tap into students» true interests to bring out their best work.
One of our
teacher leaders used the format modeled in Driven by Data and developed a method to turn the exported
assessment results into an Excel spreadsheet that provided detailed information by student, question, and standard.
It also provided a summary of the students» On Demand
assessment, NAPLAN
results, and their English
teachers» judgements.
This product helps
teachers... Plan to spiral the ELA standards Identify standards to reteach based on
results Align instruction and strategies with desired learning outcomes Practice backward planning from
assessments.
If courts can strike down
teacher tenure laws as a violation of the rights of poor and minority children (see «Script Doctors,» legal beat, Fall 2014), why not use the
results from CCSS
assessments to go after the drawing of school boundaries in a way that perpetuates economic school segregation and denies children equal opportunity?
Providing ongoing professional development for
teachers on planning lessons based on
assessment results;
Notable recently were the Gates Foundation's call for a two - year moratorium on tying
results from
assessments aligned to the Common Core to consequences for
teachers or students; Florida's legislation to eliminate consequences for schools that receive low grades on the state's pioneering A-F school grading system; the teetering of the multi-state Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
assessment consortium (down from 24 to 15 members, and with its contract with Pearson to deliver the
assessments in limbo because of a lawsuit that alleges bid - rigging); and the groundswell of opposition from parents,
teachers, and political groups to the content of the Common Core.
Neal says that tools which include dashboards that enable
teachers to spot those all - important learning gaps on a class and individual level as
assessments are undertaken in real time, have made the formative
assessment process much easier to manage, record, and analyze
results so that a bespoke learning program can be deployed to address problem areas.
An ERIC summary of of that study's findings states... «Implemented in 1990, the Burke County initiative appears to have
resulted in expanded classroom space, improved classroom management, strengthened instruction and
assessment, enhanced student concept and relationships with peers, and improved
teacher - parent communication.
When implementing this approach, we only compare the outcomes of students for whom the same pair of
teachers is making the
assessments to ensure that our
results are not biased by certain kinds of students being assigned to
teachers with especially high (or low) expectations.
It struck me that no one in attendance had much thought about how this kind of design would compromise current efforts to use
assessment results for accountability or
teacher evaluation, or about how this would sow legitimate doubts among
teachers and parents regarding fairness in a high - stakes environment.
However, if students»
results are to be compared directly across schools, then the broad kinds of
assessment activities that
teachers use, the conditions under which students complete these, and the marking schemes for judging and recording performances on these activities will need to be consistent across schools.
The promise of the Common Core included not just multi-state standards but also multi-state
assessments,
assessments in more - or-less every grade with
results at every level of the K - 12 system: The child (though not by name, except to parents and
teachers), the school (and, if desired, individual classrooms and, by implication,
teachers), the district, the state, and the nation, with crosswalks (in pertinent grades) to international measures as well as to NAEP, the primary external «auditor» of state and national achievement.
Results and analysis of the various
assessments are shared with parents three times each year during parent - student -
teacher conferences.
But when policymakers seek to hold students,
teachers, and schools accountable for those standards by using the
results from aligned
assessments, support is far more likely to falter.