National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen García on the use of student test scores to evaluate teacher effectiveness:
They’re “the mark of the devil.” “For us, one thing is clear. Before anything is going to get better: It’s the Testing, Stupid. Better yet, it’s the stupid testing.”
New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) Vice President Marie Blistan on the use of student test scores to evaluate teacher effectiveness:
“We need to safeguard against a test-taking tsunami that enriches private corporations’ wallets but impoverishes our students.”
Denver, the site of the NEA’s annual meeting last week, is a long way from Trenton but you’d never know it from the sound bites.
During this past year the rhetoric from both the national teacher union leadership and N.J.’s state chapter have grown progressively more rancorous. The bicoastal target of ire is, ostensibly, the practice of linking student test scores to teacher evaluations.