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May 3, 2012

Our View: Evaluating special ed teachers no easy task

The Free Press

— Using student tests to evaluate teachers is controversial in certain quarters. When the students being tested are special education students, proper assessments become even more difficult.

So it’s predictable that special ed educators in several states are disappointed in reform measures that call for standardized testing to play a major role in their job evaluations. Encouraged by the U.S. Department of Education and its Race to the Top program, more than a dozen states have chosen to add more testing as a means to judge special education instructors.

Yet the problem is plain: Special education students don’t easily translate their growth through tests.

What about the students who have autism? How are the evaluators to know they’ll be tested on their best days? Other students have Down Syndrome, and various other issues which don’t show up well in testing. One special education instructor, when reacting to the testing plan in her state, said her students possess significant physical and cognitive disabilities, and they improve by small steps not readily measured.

Clearly, gains are not easily understood by anyone besides those teachers who work daily with their students.

In the quest for Race to the Top grant dollars, the Department of Education is determined to tie some of those dollars to teacher effectiveness. That’s understandable. But states are being left to determine the measurements, and there is widespread confusion on where to go with it.

The states that want to rely on the same testing procedures that are used in the general education field may be taking the simple approach. But it’s not the best approach.

A survey by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality reported that 63 percent of special education teachers agreed that student gains should be included in their evaluations. However, only 21 percent considered standardized tests appropriate. And 78 percent said their state hadn’t yet figured out how to measure students with the most profound disabilities.

There may be a few workable alternatives out there. A Florida committee has agreed that students with similar disabilities can be assessed and evaluated on where they compare to other students. Florida is analyzing a broad range of student conditions, making the necessary adjustments for each one.

Still, many other special education students simply don’t respond to tests. To evaluate their teachers, the best way may simply be to know them, know how they work, know their dedication level and know the individual ways their students respond to them. And that, of course, requires an evaluation test-taking doesn’t cover well at all.

 

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