"Doesn't it make sense to link teacher evaluation and measures of student learning?" ask Pamela Tucker and James Strong in an article in the September 2001 issue of the American School Board Journal. Hardly a radical idea, though the NEA is officially opposed. In "Measure for Measure: Using Student Test Results in Teacher Evaluations," the authors describe how measures of student learning are used in teacher evaluations in four places: Tennessee, Texas (Dallas), Oregon, and Colorado (Thompson). In the first two places, sophisticated statistical analysis is used to determine how much value individual teachers are adding to student learning; in Oregon, portfolios are used; and in Thompson, Colorado, simple student gain scores on tests are examined. The authors present a series of recommendations for districts that would like to implement a teacher evaluation program that includes some measure of student learning. This article is not yet available online at http://www.asbj.com/.
