Letter: Using student tests to evaluate teachers

Finally someone gets it right ["Some students being set up to fail," Opinion, Sept. 29]!

I recently retired as a special education teacher after nearly 30 years, teaching K-8 in Queens. I experienced all the unfair policies and more mentioned in the op-ed by state Regent Roger Tilles.

A general education student must pass with at least a 60 percent average to be promoted to the next grade. Not so for special education students with individualized education plans and modified promotional criteria. If the special education teacher writes a 30 percent criteria level, then that student will move to the next grade with only a 30 percent passing grade.

Originally, this was to prevent students from being repeatedly left back, which is unhealthy both socially and emotionally. These students move on, and their difficulties create a wider gap between their functioning level and their grade expectations.

Much classroom instruction ends and test preparation begins in December and January. During this time, many people criticize teachers for teaching to the test. There is pressure on the teachers for their students to perform well because the teachers are rated according to student improvement.

Special education students receive test accommodations, but state tests are still given according to a student's age and grade, regardless of his or her functioning academic level. A fifth-grade student who reads on a second-grade level may be given a fifth-grade test with extended time. This would be equivalent to my taking a reading test in Japanese but given extended time. As with the special education student, I would be set up to fail.

If the state mandates individualized attention, and the schools mandate individualized focus in education, then the state tests must follow suit.

Perhaps, as suggested in the article, tests should be diagnostic in nature rather than a method to determine a teacher's competency.

Elysa Parker, North Woodmere
 

I could not agree more with Regent Roger Tilles about the misguided use of one-size-fits-all testing, particularly when those results are used to evaluate teachers and schools. I cringe whenever I see the term "failing schools."

A sixth-grade social studies teacher in New York City told me that 90 percent of her students read and write at a third-grade level.

How can these students possibly be expected to interpret readings and make appropriate inferences when they can't even read the words? Many of these students cannot write a full sentence, yet they are somehow expected to express complex ideas and extrapolate information. The school and the teacher are then evaluated on this.

The current application of this testing goes against the original intent, which was to provide diagnostic adaptive testing for appropriate instruction according to the student's abilities. Students who perform three years behind their grade levels require remedial programs, not more high-stakes testing. Our schools require realistic educational strategies and resources, not more bureaucratic attempts to affix blame on front-line educators.

Anthony P. Sarola, Manhasset