Holyoke High student doesn't think teachers should be evaluated by MCAS tests
Holyoke High student Erin HebertBy ERIN HEBERT
Holyoke High
On July 29, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education of Massachusetts approved a new system of teacher and administrator evaluation which makes student performances a more prominent factor in evaluation. This includes the students’ performance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS. This would make teachers either suffer or succeed as the students do, but is this fair to the teachers?
I believe student effort is a significant factor in student success, and if students don’t attempt to learn then they will not succeed, regardless of the effectiveness of the teacher. Some teachers instruct 100 students every day. Their time is spent attempting to motivate all students, teach them adequately and prepare them for the all- important MCAS test. What more can they do for the student who can’t be bothered to focus and to try? Some teachers are more engaging than others, but they are all the same to a sleeping student whose lack of effort will be reflected in the standardized testing results.
Similarly, there are students who work strenuously in school, but still do poorly on the MCAS simply because they do not test well. These students may be brilliant, but will suffer nevertheless because test-taking is not one of their strong suits, and now their teachers will suffer as well. Also, the teachers who exclusively teach advanced or honors classes will have students who perform better on standardized testing than students in standard, remedial, or inclusion classes.
Obviously there will always be teachers teaching standard classes, and they could be amazing teachers, but their students will likely not do as well on the MCAS as honors or AP students.
Why should teachers suffer for the classes that they teach?
I question the accuracy of educator evaluation based on MCAS scores because of this simple fact. All students take the same MCAS, but it is more likely for an honors student to score higher than a standard student, and that fact shouldn’t be held against the teacher.
Special education students also take the same MCAS as standard, honors, and AP students. Students who struggle with learning disabilities shouldn’t be expected to get the same scores on the MCAS as AP students.
The new educator evaluation requirements will put any teacher whose students do not do well or improve on the MCAS on improvement plans. Should special education teachers be put on one of these plans if their students cannot score as well as honors students? The MCAS is a standardized test that doesn’t bring into account a student’s background or disability. Different kinds of students will get different scores. This is the fault of neither the teacher nor the student, but a flaw in the test itself.
I think that we need to realize what is important when it comes to education. Is it really more important that students learn to take the MCAS rather than their own strengths and what they do best? It is clear that all students are different, and in turn they learn and test differently, making the MCAS not accurate in determining the success of their teachers.
The allure of this system of teacher evaluation is clear: holding people accountable for their jobs seems like an effective method of judging the skills of teachers and administrators. Workers are judged on their products, and it seems to make sense to then judge teachers on their students.
However, there is a difference between judging a product and judging a human being.
Students are not to be manufactured, pulled along conveyer belts, judged, and tested for proficiency on one test.
The result of that would be a student who knows how to take the MCAS, but knows next to nothing about their own strengths and other important life skills.
If teachers teach them to do anything that might benefit them besides test-taking skills, the students may not do well on the MCAS. If a teacher’s job depends on their students’ scores on the MCAS, they can’t risk teaching anything other than MCAS skills.
Students are clearly not mass-produced items all made the same way, and we cannot evaluate them as such. I do not believe that one test can judge every single student in the state of Massachusetts accurately, without taking student individuality into consideration. Because of this lack of accuracy, I do not believe teachers should be evaluated solely or predominantly on these scores.
I agree that teacher evaluation is important, but I have reason to believe that using standardized test scores to do this will be neither effective nor fair to teachers and students alike. I think it is critical to find a way for students and teachers to be successful that takes into account the individuality of students.