How do you rate teachers whose students aren’t tested?

by David Safier

As much as I've read about linking teacher salaries and retention to student testing, I've never found a satisfactory answer to this question: what about teachers in subjects that aren't tested?

The trend toward tying everything to tests is accelerating.

[New York's] Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Wednesday that New York City public schools would immediately begin to use student test scores as a factor in deciding which teachers earn tenure, a proposal that has been bitterly opposed by the teachers’ union and criticized as putting too much weight on standardized exams.

The 2 subjects where you get the bulk of the high stakes, standardized testing are English and Math. That makes sense. Both subjects are skill based. Though we can argue about what are the most important things students should gain from those courses, it's fairly easy to test reading comprehension, writing skills and competency in math. Even the old song enshrines "Readin', Writin' and 'Rithmetic" as the fundamentals of school.

So what about the poor art teacher? Are students going to be tested on their sketching skills or sense of design? How about PE teachers? Will they rise or fall on their students' time in the 100 yard dash?

For science courses, is there consensus on what parts of the curriculum should be universally taught and tested? How about history? Will the American Revolution be 15% of the test, the Civil War be 12% and struggles for worker and minority rights be . . . no, those are a little too controversial. We'll lump them with evolution as topics we just won't put on the standardized tests.

The current solution is, give all teachers at a school with good test scores a bump and go after the entire staff at schools where scores don't improve. But that's just a work-around, not a solution to the basic problem.