My Child's Teacher Could Be Deemed Failing BUT My Daughter Passed.

ARE TEACHERS INEFFECTIVE AND 'FAILING OUR STUDENTS?
Measuring growth is a statistical nightmare on the new CCSS tests.

I believe that student growth is defined as successfully meeting educational requirements from one year to the next. That means, to me, that MY CHILD’S TEACHER WAS SUCCESSFUL if my child has successfully completed the material in grade 4 and then successfully completed new material in grade 5. In the world according to Beth, if my child scores an 81 in 4th grade and an 80 in 5th grade she has still grown because the 5th grade material was new and appropriately harder.  Please note, I was comparing her grade to her grade to show the effectiveness of her teacher because THAT MAKES SENSE.

If only that were true, but it is not. According to NYSED growth model, the state compares my child with other children who have similar characteristics (disabilities, socio-economic status, prior test scores). The state then compares how well my child did compared to the other children on the next year’s test. Growth is shown only if my child’s test score is higher than the test scores of a certain percentage of the other cohort student test scores. My daughter was proficient last year in ELA and Math. If she is STILL proficient, but her individual score is not as high as the other cohort students’ scores, THEN HER TEACHER IS SEEN AS NOT EFFECTIVE for my child. 

Let’s recap. My child was proficient- met the standards, passed the test; whatever you want to call it- but her teacher supposedly failed her, he was not effective since her score was not higher than the scores of other children who got the same score the year before. My daughter is still on target to be 'college and career ready' but her teacher could be fired.

<Picture me screaming>