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"Public school teachers and principals deserve fair treatment on important decisions about who should be retained and who should be fired. They should not be fired based on student test scores because the variation in student test scores is random. It is no more reliable than a coin toss. How wise would it be to fire doctors or lawyers based on a coin toss? Heads they stay. Tails they go. Imagine what this would do the moral of staff who had also most no control over whether they stayed or were fired. In this report, we will look at the scientific research (or lack of it) on using student test scores to evaluate teachers."

"Here's my quick run-down on a) the purposes of testing in schools, b) how to implement testing to best address those purposes, c) the right and wrong uses of testing with respect to civil rights concerns, and d) the role of common standards in all of this."

Education Week reports on the growth of websites that attempt to provide parents with help in choosing schools, including rating schools according to testing results. The most prominent of these sites is GreatSchools.org. Its test-based school ratings could not be more simplistic - they are essentially just percentile rankings of schools' proficiency rates as compared to all other schools in their states (the site also provides warnings about the data, along with a bunch of non-testing information). This is the kind of indicator that I have criticized when reviewing states' school/district "grading systems." And it is indeed a poor measure, albeit one that is widely available and easy to understand. But it's worth quickly discussing the fact that such criticism is conditional on how the ratings are employed - there is a difference between the use of testing data to rate schools for parents versus for high-stakes accountability purposes. In other words, the utility and proper interpretation of data vary by context, and there's no one "correct way" to rate schools. The optimal design might differ depending on the purpose for which the ratings will be used. In fact, the reasons why a measure is problematic in one context might very well be a source of strength in another.

Fueled by the ever-increasing availability of detailed test score datasets linking teachers to students, the research literature on teachers' test-based effectiveness has grown rapidly, in both size and sophistication. Analysis after analysis finds that, all else being equal, the variation in teachers' estimated effects on students' test growth - the difference between the "top" and "bottom" teachers - is very large. In any given year, some teachers' students make huge progress, others' very little. Even if part of this estimated variation is attributable to confounding factors, the discrepancies are still larger than most any other measurable "input" within the jurisdiction of education policy. The underlying assumption here is that "true" teacher quality varies to a degree that is at least somewhat comparable in magnitude to the spread of the test-based estimates. Perhaps that's the case, but it does not, by itself, help much. The key question is whether and how we can measure teacher performance at the individual level and, more importantly, influence the distribution - that is, to raise the ceiling, the middle and/or the floor. The variation hangs out there like a drug to which we're addicted, but haven't really figured out how to administer.

Using a statistical technique called value-added modeling, the Teacher Data Reports compare how students are predicted to perform on the state ELA and math tests, based on their prior year's performance, with their actual performance. Teachers whose students do better than predicted are said to have "added value"; those whose students do worse than predicted are "subtracting value." By definition, about half of all teachers will add value, and the other half will not. Carolyn Abbott was, in one respect, a victim of her own success. After a year in her classroom, her seventh-grade students scored at the 98th percentile of New York City students on the 2009 state test. As eighth-graders, they were predicted to score at the 97th percentile on the 2010 state test. However, their actual performance was at the 89th percentile of students across the city. That shortfall-the difference between the 97th percentile and the 89th percentile-placed Abbott near the very bottom of the 1,300 eighth-grade mathematics teachers in New York City. How could this happen? Anderson is an unusual school, as the students are often several years ahead of their nominal grade level. The material covered on the state eighth-grade math exam is taught in the fifth or sixth grade at Anderson. "I don't teach the curriculum they're being tested on," Abbott explained. "It feels like I'm being graded on somebody else's work."

This week I engaged in another online debate with one of Arne Duncan's press secretaries, Justin Hamilton, who readers may recall asked me to "correct" my commentary a year ago after President Obama inadvertently criticized our over-reliance on standardized tests. This time Mr. Hamilton took issue with a question I posed in advance of Duncan's latest Twitter Town Hall. I asked, "How can you say that we should not teach to test while NCLB waivers tie teacher & principal evaluations to test scores?" To this, Hamilton (@edpresssec) replied: "False. Waiver states using multiple measure not testing only."

"From my experience, education reporters are smart, knowledgeable, and attentive to detail. That said, the bulk of the stories about testing data - in big cities and suburbs, in this year and in previous years - could be better. Listen, I know it's unreasonable to expect every reporter and editor to address every little detail when they try to write accessible copy about complicated issues, such as test data interpretation. Moreover, I fully acknowledge that some of the errors to which I object - such as calling proficiency rates "scores" - are well within tolerable limits, and that news stories need not interpret data in the same way as researchers. Nevertheless, no matter what you think about the role of test scores in our public discourse, it is in everyone's interest that the coverage of them be reliable. And there are a few mostly easy suggestions that I think would help a great deal. Below are five such recommendations. They are of course not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a quick compilation of points, all of which I've discussed in previous posts, and all of which might also be useful to non-journalists."

"New teacher evaluations, based in part on student achievement, will be introduced in schools across the state in this school year - and with them will come more student testing. To evaluate teacher effectiveness, schools must measure how much progress students make in each course. So schools are adding locally developed tests to their existing schedule of state tests and course exams."

All students have strengths, and most of those strengths are not assessed through high stakes testing. It seems that all we hear about in education is how...or whether, our students are achieving. Although not a bad topic to discuss, it is often tied into high stakes testing. Many of us in education would like the achievement discussion to include so much more than a test our students take over a few days which are created by a few large publishers who also happen to publish the textbooks used in our classrooms. All of which happens to be a billion dollar industry.

Use a No. 2 pencil, fill out each circle completely, and don't make any stray marks-these are rules every child learns when taking standardized tests that are largely based on multiple choice. But are multiple choice exams the best way to test students' knowledge? Experts say they are-sort of.

Three days ago, Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet blog in the Washington Post published the hardest-hitting critique of testing of the year. Before discussing that, I want to take a moment to recognize her work. Ms. Strauss is the ONLY blogger in the mainstream media to consistently address education issues from a perspective that is critical of the test-crazy status quo. Every day she brings us insightful perspectives, research and reports from the field. Her column includes her own excellent work as well as that of others (including occasionally myself.) Monday's post, When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids, contributed by education expert Marion Brady, was exceptional. In the past three days, this post has been shared more than 54,000 times on Facebook. At this time, more than 500 people have commented on the post. I get excited when I see a post on my blog being shared widely, but this is in a whole new realm.

The other day the New York State Education Department (SED), which oversees the education in the state in which I reside, put out the ELA and Math testing schedule that will affect all of the K-8 students. For three days each week for two weeks our students will be tested. Six days of high stakes testing.

One of the highest compliments a teacher can get from a student is to be told that she or he is fair. When students believe their teacher is fair, they accept test grades, homework assignments, and discipline without drama. Teachers, like their students and like people in other professions, appreciate fairness and should expect it. With that in mind, I am not surprised by the pushback on new evaluation systems from teachers in Hawaii, New York, Tennessee, and many other state and local school districts. Using student test scores from flawed standardized tests as a measure of teacher evaluation does not meet the fairness test for teachers who have had to endure "reform du jour' for the last decade. It does not look like a fair deal for teachers, and fairness is one of the strongest core values of teachers.

The New England Common Assessment Program is on its way out in New Hampshire. The state Department of Education is planning to implement a new standardized test system to measure reading and math proficiency starting in 2013-14, said Paul Leather, deputy commissioner of education. The state will discontinue using the NECAP for reading and math after one more round of testing in October, and then roll out the Smarter Balanced Assessment the next school year. Leather described the new test a stronger assessment with no increased cost.

"When our schools are run for profit, there are disastrous consequences for both students and teachers. Teachers are "managed" through the "outcomes" they produce, meaning their students' test scores. This makes teachers focus not on their students strengths, not on their students' needs or interests, but rather on their deficits, on the skills and concepts the students must master to pass the next test. Students who are, for whatever reasons unable to produce test score gains (perhaps they might be uninterested, alienated, traumatized, hungry, special education, new to the English language, or a hundred other reasons) become a liability for the teacher and the school. Under the pressure to produce "profits" is the form of higher test scores, schools begin to systematically reject students like these, as we are already seeing among some charter schools. Schools care less about nurturing students or teachers. The environment becomes less humane. Turnover increases among teachers, and attrition rises for students. Residual public schools become a dumping ground for students too difficult to educate."

"Here is the reason for the collapse of test scores in New York City and New York State. State officials decided that New York test scores should be aligned with the achievement levels of the federally-administered National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)."

"Today several important civil rights organizations released a statement that is critical of the decision by many parents and students to opt out of high stakes standardized tests. Though we understand the concerns expressed in this statement, we believe high stakes tests are doing more harm than good to the interests of students of color, and for that reason, we respectfully disagree."

"Mandated as a condition for states to receive federal Race to the Top (RTTT) funds, many states and districts are concocting schemes to "evaluate" their teachers in large part based on student test scores. These initiatives are inconsistent with strong evidence showing such uses of tests are error-prone and will undermine the quality of teaching and learning. Some states and districts are mandating dozens more exams, so that all teachers can be included in test-based evaluation plans. "

"Tests are a good, if not absolutely perfect way, of assessing how well students have learned (if the Tests are well-designed). If you're trying to assess how a particular change in teaching works (e.g., a new math curriculum), you do need some method to assess performance. But where 'reformers' go off the rails is their incessant belief that Testing is a good way to evaluate how well a teacher has taught* (this belief also seems to imply that many teachers aren't performing up to snuff, but I'll let that slide...)."

""The big bad California STAR Test is in 27 days, everyone!" Mission High School history teacher Robert Roth announces at the beginning of an honors class in March. "The way you are going to feel this is we are going to go through events really quick. But don't worry, we'll look at some things more deeply after the Test," Roth explains as 25 juniors trickle in. "I'm hecka bad at these Tests," Marilyn* says out loud; she puts her head down on the desk. Roth walks over to Marilyn and puts his hands on her shoulders. "No, you are not!" he says. "You are not bad at anything that's important.""