Teachers' pay should not be linked to students' scores
Five years after Congress passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act,
American schools are more preoccupied with test scores than ever.
Toddlers in a Prince George's County preschool are now taking spelling
tests on words like "me" and "the." Head Start programs are testing
4-year-olds to identify them as either "gifted" or "not gifted."
Schools that do not meet annual progress standards are in danger of
"failing" - as Blair knows all too well.
To add to the nation's testing obsession, the U.S. Department of
Education has proposed awarding bonuses to teachers who boost
students' test scores. The proposal, one of several changes pending
NCLB's reauthorization next year, has already been approved by state
legislatures in Florida and Texas. But a pay-for-performance program
would have detrimental consequences if it is implemented nationwide.
Even without their salaries on the line, educators have already taken
desperate and sometimes illegal measures to boost student scores. In
2001, several teachers and administrators at Silver Spring
International, one of Blair's feeder middle schools, were fired for
showing sixth-grade students the math section of the Comprehensive
Test of Basic Skills before the exam was formally administered. The
previous year, a fifth-grade teacher and the principal of Potomac
Elementary School were caught helping students with difficult
questions and providing them with extra time on a state assessment.
Both of these incidents occurred even before NCLB was implemented.
The heightened emphasis on testing results brought on by pay
incentives will only push more teachers to resort to unethical means
to raise student test scores.
Even for those teachers who do not cheat, a pay-for-performance
program will force them to teach to the test. Proponents of this
teaching approach claim that by structuring their lessons to address
topics on specific tests, instructors are still teaching students the
concepts they are supposed to learn from the class. But this argument
erroneously assumes that state-mandated standardized tests, such as
the High School Assessment (HSA), are always written to assess
subjects accurately and comprehensively.
National, State and Local Government teacher David West wanted to
teach his students last year about credit, which he said is an
integral topic in his course. But because it was not covered on the
HSA, he skipped over the topic entirely. With the exam approaching,
West focused only on the material that would be on the test. "I felt
obliged to teach about monetary and fiscal policy instead," he said.
Pressure to prepare their students for the HSA restricts teachers'
independence in planning lessons. "The test limits teachers' ability
to select topics that are motivating to the students we work with,"
West said.
Teaching to the test does not mean teaching well. When Florida
approved bonuses for teachers who improve standardized test scores
last March, Governor Jeb Bush asked, "What's wrong about paying good
teachers more for doing a better job?" But good teaching is not
limited to preparing students to answer test questions. The educators
who deserve raises are those who inspire students to take what they
learn in class beyond scantron responses and apply concepts in the
real world.
The overemphasis on standardized testing in the American educational
system will only be perpetuated by teacher-pay incentives based on
student test scores. The belief that teachers should be compensated
according to student performance on standardized assessments fails to
take into account the unfortunate reality that pressure to boost
scores often interferes with school integrity and student learning.