Teachers union u-turn
The Las Vegas Sun reports that the Nevada State Education Association is now negotiating with Democrats in the state legislature over the issue of student test data being used in teacher evaluations. Just last month, the union was fighting to stop this change. Apparently the bipartisan support (and money) on behalf of the change has broken the union down.
The fairest way to evaluate teachers using testing data is to use "value-added assessment." This method does not penalize teachers based on the aptitude of their students. Instead, each student is compared to his previous score rather than those of other students or some preset benchmark.
Of course, the teacher union also could have simply found those loopholes that Jeanne Allen from the Center for Education Reform claims would neuter the meaningful effects of reform.
