Diane Ravitch, blogging about this Aaron Pallas post, notes that New York State plans to use these new, more difficult Common Core tests that 4th-8th graders are taking starting today to evaluate teachers and schools even though these test scores cannot be used to make fair comparisons to the tests from last year.
For teachers, this means there is no baseline score last year that the state can use this year to see if they have "added value" to their students test scores.
How will the NYSED and the Regents handle this problem?
Simple - they'll make up the trend between the baseline score on last year's tests and the scores from this years tests (which are expected to plummet 20%-30% since the material has been elevated by three grade levels.)
They'll issue some claptrap about how they did it, how the comparison is fair and objective and scientific and all that.
But essentially they will make it up.
And then they will evaluate teachers with this "score" and apply the new APPR evaluation system to them and declare some of these teachers "ineffective."
They'll also evaluate schools with these scores and declare some of these schools "failing."
They are less likely to want to hold students back or harm students in any way with these scores because parents will fight that.
But you can bet the scores are going to be used as a bludgeon against teachers and schools.
And the reality is, the scores will be made up.
Really - pulled straight from the nether regions of the NYSED and the Board of Regents.
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