If you haven’t yet felt the need to let your legislators know why SBAC shouldn’t be part of your evaluation, comments today made by state Board of Education members should drive you to action.
After an hour of intense discussion and strong reluctance towards delaying the use of SBAC in teacher evaluations for one year, members of the Board today ultimately voted for the postponement recommended by an advisory committee—with stipulations.
Board members made very clear that they will not accept any further delays in tying SBAC to teacher evaluations. Members said that, if left up to them, SBAC will be part of teacher evaluations for the 2017-18 school year.
The amended resolution passed by the Board states that, “The board fully supports and expects the implementation of the use of state test data in the 2017-18 school year… and informs the Performance Evaluation Advisory Council (PEAC) that the state Board of Education will not grant any additional extensions.”
CEA has been a strong advocate for permanently delinking SBAC from teacher evaluations because it is not a fair, valid, or reliable means of evaluating educators. SBAC is not able to show growth for students performing significantly above or below grade level and it is not an effective means of demonstrating educator effectiveness.
SB 380 currently before the state legislature gives teachers a chance to stop what researchers, and even mastery test makers themselves, have said is bad practice and permanently end the link between SBAC and teacher evaluations.
Click here and contact your legislators today! Let them know why SBAC does not belong in your evaluation. Tell them to support SB 380.
State Board of Education members want teachers evaluated by SBAC ASAP
Below are some Board of Education members’ comments from today’s meeting.
“I remember sitting here last time we postponed the use of mastery scores in teacher evaluations,” said Joseph Vrabely, who ultimately abstained from the vote. “I said publicly that if a postponement came back to the board again I would not approve it.”
Estela Lopez expressed concern that the state keeps moving back the deadline for the use of SBAC scores in teacher evaluations. “There is no perfect evaluation system. I have been evaluated all my life,” she said. “You have to begin to apply it, it’s never going to be perfect.”
“I have no doubt on the essential point that we have to relate some portion of evaluation to the effect of a teacher on a student,” said Board Chair Allan Taylor. “It just baffles me that anyone could be suggesting that until we solve every other problem in society that we can’t evaluate teachers.”
Taylor continued, “I’m drawing my line in the sand this year. One more year of postponement, no more.”
There is no separation between the Governor, the SDE, the SBOE, CABE, CAPSS, CAS, CCER, and ConnCAN on this issue; they are all about controlling and privatizing public education. Despite the abundance of evidence decrying the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations, they stay the course. Despite evidence that SBAC is an extremely poor measure of student progress, they refuse to acknowledge the harm that it has done at every level of public school instruction. Despite an opportunity to determine a new course under ESSA, they want to continue the same failed policies that – for more than fifteen years – have demonstrated no progress in closing the achievement gap. I certainly hope every teacher will contact their legislator because this abuse of power needs to end.