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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

D.C. custodial staff were evaluated by student test scores. Really.

D.C. custodial staff were evaluated by student test scores. Really.:


D.C. custodial staff were evaluated by student test scores. Really.

Ron Hillyer, who retired earlier this year, is getting a hallway named after him at Janney Elementary School in the Tenleytown section of Northwest D.C.
Retired D.C. schools custodian Ron Hillyer had a hallway named after him at Janney Elementary School.
How obsessive have school reformers been with linking student standardized test scores to the evaluations of adults in school buildings?
Well, a lawsuit filed in Florida today by seven teachers and their unions is asking for an end to the state’s evaluation system that insists that most teachers be evaluated in part by the test scores of students they didn’t teach — in subjects they don’t teach.
It may sound crazy, but it’s true. Read about it here.
And then there’s this: Until this year, Washington D.C.’s IMPACT evaluation system, begun under former chancellor Michelle Rhee in 2009, linked student standardized test scores to the evaluations of D.C. school custodians. Really.
The 2011-12 IMPACT guidebook for Custodian Staff (Group 19) included this:
School Value-Added Student Achievement Data (SVA) —  This is a measure of the impact your school has on student learning over the course of the school year, as