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Friday, June 24, 2011

Policy makers ignore the teachers — again - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Policy makers ignore the teachers — again - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Policy makers ignore the teachers — again

The Maryland Council for Educator Effectiveness ignored the classroom teachers on the panel when devising a new teacher evaluation system.

It should no longer shock me when classroom teachers are entirely ignored in education policy (there wasn’t a teacher in the big bunch that wrote the No Child Left Behind law, for example). But I expected better from Maryland.

Here’s what happened: Earlier this week, the the Maryland Council for Educator Effectiveness voted on a new way for schools to evaluate teachers and principals that ties 50 percent of each assessment to what are technically called “student growth measures” but which actually are scores on standardized tests.

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