Tennessee Teachers Get to Play the Odds in the Evaluation Game

I will preface this post for anyone that is not aware. I taught high school math in Nashville, Tennessee for the last two years in the public school system. 

Tennessee is implementing a new teacher evaluation system this year. A NY Times article titled In Tennessee, Following the Rules for Evaluations Off a Cliff discusses the shortfalls of the new teacher evaluation system. I am aware of the challenge of measuring student achievement in classes like art, band, dance, and other subjects that don't have state tests, but this part surprised me:

For 15 percent of their testing evaluation, teachers without [test] scores are permitted to choose which subject test they want to be judged on. Few pick something related to their expertise; instead, they try to anticipate the subject that their school is likely to score well on in the state exams next spring. 

And more...

It’s a bit like Vegas, and if you pick the wrong academic subject, you lose and get a bad evaluation. While this may have nothing to do with academic performance, it does measure a teacher’s ability to play the odds. 

Although a learning curve is to be expected for states implementing new evaluation systems, allowing teachers of non-tested subjects choose which subject test they will be judged on is just a horrible idea. This blatantly bad policy needs to be scrapped, and the state department needs to go back to the drawing board. Why evaluate teachers on how their students do in ANOTHER subject? They have less incentive to teach THEIR subject well.

Sidenote: I am glad I'm not teaching right now in TN.

HT M.S.