Florida media specialist given bad evaluation for students she never taught. Not fair.

[Sgent]

19. I'm not assuming all students can be tested effectively

I am assuming that a population of students can be scored on a variety of factors that indicate overall education, and that a good teacher or teacher will increase those scores over time more than a bad teacher. I also assume that their are both good and bad teachers.

I also agree that some of the scales used (% norms vs. minimal or average score) can be misleading, and that individual student groups can get lost in a population.

The fundamental question IMHO is does a HS graduate know more than a first grader, and do teachers have an impact on that growth in knowledge? If so, can that growth be quantified in some manner -- we traditionally have used letter grades but there are many problems with them? Does teacher ability, dedication, etc., have any impact on student academic growth? If so those qualities that makeup superior teachers should be favored when hiring and promoting, and be examined for retention.

That's my theoretical background, although implementation may fall far short -- and some goals maybe unachievable directly so proxy goals need to be used.