Commentary: Student test scores do not reflect our teachers’ abilities

A lasting legacy of the federal No Child Left Behind Act has been the notion of tying student test scores to teachers’ job evaluations.

Because of the controversy generated by the idea, school districts across the country have limited its influence on a teacher’s overall performance review.

Now, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is proposing to make test scores the primary factor in rating teachers, increasing the weight to 50% and downgrading the effect of traditional principal classroom observations to a scant 15%.

Teachers unions are not happy about this development, especially considering that many of the politicians who support this trend are Democrats, the party that teachers support financially.

The question is: Is it possible for students to perform poorly on tests but still have a skillful teacher?

The answer: Absolutely.

Is it possible for patients to be in poor health but still have a skillful physician?

Let’s say a doctor gets paid based on how healthy his patients are. Looking at this nation’s fitness statistics, an awful lot of physicians would be taking a pay cut.

Some aspects of a person’s health are based on lifestyle, while other ailments come on randomly or are based in genetics. A doctor can only control a small amount of the choices a patient makes. And the same concept applies to education.

Yes, brilliant teachers can make a difference in some students’ academic lives. But others will remain beyond a teacher’s reach for reasons entirely out of his or her control. Teachers are not miracle workers. Learning is a two-way street.

An Advanced Placement teacher may falsely appear as a master of pedagogy because his students score high, while a special-education teacher of higher quality could be in jeopardy because her students score low.

As noted education writer Diane Ravitch said on her website, “The majority of the variation in test scores is attributable to factors outside of the teacher’s control, such as student and family background, poverty, curriculum and unmeasured influences.”

To primarily use test scores to determine teacher quality is insulting. Education should not be so finely defined that academic success is viewed as a high score on a test. I have had plenty of hand-raising young people who stimulate discussions yet struggle to express themselves on paper.

As a teacher, I use multiple measures to determine if my students meet language-arts standards. This includes class participation, speaking ability and writing competency as well as test-taking skills. A student can’t be judged solely in one of those areas and be given a grade that meets all the standards. And neither can a teacher be judged competent based on a test that is not even created by that instructor.

Numbers drive our society, and No Child Left Behind, with standardized test scores that determine rankings of schools, feeds into that mentality.

No doubt looking at test results versus having principals make classroom visits takes less time. But it also reveals less information.

Having humans observe a teacher, live in front of students, is a much more accurate assessment tool. The dynamic between teacher and student, the energy level in the room, the enthusiasm of a student for the work don’t all appear in a test score.

Those in charge of change in education — largely non-educators — should wake up and realize that among educators and parents is a growing sentiment to lessen the influence of standardized test scores in classrooms.

Job No. 1 is to attract people to the profession. Job No. 2 is to ensure that those good teachers already in classrooms remain there.

Teaching already has enough negatives to dissuade people from entering the field. We don’t need to worsen how educators get evaluated to further erode the confidence of this country’s faculty.

BRIAN CROSBY is a teacher and the author of “Smart Kids, Bad Schools” and “The $100,000 Teacher.”