Pay and Payback for test scores

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

Today, a teacher from Fresno County, California, told me that he had 
been a principal but had been sent back to the classroom because of 
low test scores in his school.

What he thought was ironic about the story was that four years before 
the low scores, he had received a $10,000 performance bonus from the 
State of California for improving scores at his school. As a new 
principal, he had noticed that most students did not finish all items 
on the state test. So he directed teachers to tell students, two 
minutes before the end of the testing session, to choose a letter and 
bubble in all remaining answers with that letter. Voila! improved 
scores, which the politicians could trumpet as evidence that 
"increased accountability" is "working."

Obviously, none of these short-term strategies truly improve student 
learning. Nor can they result ultimately in all students being 
labeled "Proficient" by the year 2014 or any other year. But they are 
the all-too-predictable result of a system that emphasizes test 
scores over any other outcomes.


George Sheridan