Her kids got street smarts

The student achievement is just one aspect of evaluation. There are several others, but, it is the one that matters the most to everyone.

It's clear that the teachers union will avoid accountability for the teachers at all costs.

Unfortunately, one of those costs is the welfare of children, again, and that is just no longer acceptable.

One thing that always comes up, that I take personally, is this emphasis on student self esteem.

It's the same reason that mush-heads don't want children keeping score, or facing a loss of any kind.

Teach, test, grade. Leave the rest to those more involved in the child's life.

You are a teacher. You teach students. Evaluating your ability to teach these students in the only way to know how you are doing overall. How do we evaluate this? Looking at test scores of the kids to know that they are gathering good information from you the teacher. We shouldn't have to explain this to the teachers over and and over.

Tying teacher evaluations to student test scores is an awful idea, and if you want to know why, just do the research. But that's not even the real issue. What's really going on is that Goodloe-Johnson and her ilk have realized that there is a lot of money to be made in education from pre-fabricated curricula (CMP2 math) to pre-fabricated tests (MAP)to for-profit charter schools. We are talking BILLIONS of dollars here and the only people standing in the way of these sharks are the very teachers everyone loves to bash.

Or the Seattle School Board, none of them have shown any accountability what-so-ever.

But, blaming the impasse here on the fact that somebody may benefit from the testing material, is the same as complaining that a profit is made on the math books used.

A tidy profit, that isn't ever an issue, so get off of that justification.

Both sides have had their turn at intently defending the status quot, and it's getting pathetic, to say the least.

The costs of this system continue to skyrocket, and the benefit to children continues to plummet.

Good teachers have to stand apart from this madness, and stand up for the right thing here, accountability, starting with them, and so far, they are afraid to be known.

That speaks volumes to me.

is like evaluating police officers based on the number of repeat offenders.

IMHO, test evaluation negates the good students, and only focuses on the lowest. Since the lowest students have the most to grow, and the best will most likely stay flat in core subjects.

I wish there was a better answer, but I'm not sure I see one.

But speaks volumes as to how you perceive of students in the classroom as future thugs.

Perhaps if they were taught, and teachers were held accountable for that, we could avoid your pretty scenario.

And your opinion of the tests negating the 'good students', and only focusing on the lowest?

You know, the biggest problem with education is the sheer lack of intelligence involved in it.

Thanks for pointing that out. Clearly.

So if she supports no testing how is she preparing her students for college? We need to dump the students who are disruptive and do not want to learn. We also need to find teachers that are with the program and not off on a tangent with the curriculum. She needs to stop saying can't or find a new career.

would be a great start toward improving the situation. A monopoly service provider should NEVER have a unionized work force. The goal of the union is to have the teachers paid like highly educated professionals and evaluated like kindergarteners at recess. Break up the monopoly and introduce some competition to the situation and improve life for the next generation of YOUR children. Simple human compassion for the young demands a change in this system.

I teach and agree that teachers need to be held accountable. There are some things that you need to consider though when it comes to test scores. There are many kids in classromms that are just learning The English Language. More than you would ever believe. Many of those kids have no idea as to what the question is and what the answer is. Test scores in Yakima would be very, very low. I have friends that teach there and I know all of the stories. The other part that comes into play are the kids that are MIA. The parents can't manage their own lives and have problems getting their kids to school on time or even there in the first place. Those extremely low scores can bring the over all class score down more than you realize. We are always asked about our school scores because we have a large population of special education students. Our school never meets standard because all of the scores are averaged. When I explain to people about this, they have no idea that those scores aren't separate from the others. When you read test scores in the newspaper and see a specific school is lower than others, there is more often than not a good reason for it other than the school must have terrible teachers. Yes, there are some terrible teachers, but there are many good and great teachers as well. Unfortunately, the terrible ones are the ones making the news these days. How often do you read a story about good teachers? Not often enough, but they are out there. Unfortunately, if you saw an article in the paper about a bad teacher and a good teacher, which one would you choose to read first?