Teacher Keys Effectiveness System Synthesis Essay

There are many problems in the American public education system today. Some of those include the quality of teachers, who have no real passion for the job, and are only allowed to remain in the position because of tenure privileges. Another issue is the state budgets that are allowed for public schools, with some states investing billions of dollars, and others prioritizing it lower on the list. In hot debate today is standardized testing, and the negative effect that it has on high school education, with the limits it places on teachers and what they have time to teach in the classrooms.

“…only twenty-two percent of those surveyed said increased testing had helped the performance of their local schools compared with twenty-eight in 2007” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). Furthermore the poll indicated an eleven percent increase, compared to last year, towards the favor of discontinuing the usage of students’ test results for teacher evaluations. William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of PDK/Gallup Poll also stated, “Americans’ mistrust of standardized tests and their lack of confidence and understanding around new education standards is one the most surprising developments we’ve found in years” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). All in all, not only are these tests a concern for students, who are forced to sit through them, hoping to get a decent enough score to place into a class, receive their diploma, or even get accepted to the college of their dreams, but they are a concern for parents as well, who only want the best for their children and to see them succeed.

The new changes No Child Left Behind laws were passed earlier in 2010 stresses the importance of education has to be our main concern to ensure that our children are getting quality education. The legislation is called “Performance Counts,” It reevaluates tenure laws and evaluation. This means that teachers are evaluated and being laid off because of their performance in the classrooms. No matter how long the teacher has been in his/her position that still wouldn’t keep them in their position because of their low performance. Over the next 10 years the focus will be to prepare hundreds of new teachers in STEM science, technology, engineering, and math (Mclatchy, 2010). The program is to encourage students in the STEM field or alternative teacher certification programs to switch their careers if they choose to. For

Over the course of many years, several things have changed, including technology, science, and people; however, our culture and idea of education have not. Some of these problems include teachers that are not being as valued as they should be and students who are changing both physically and mentally, but are still not being supported by our education system. The education system itself is also problematic as well, but it can be fixed with a change in our culture. Teachers and students are the base of the education system, and by not helping them, the system is not helping itself. Students are gaining new emotions and viewpoints, but the education system has had a hard time keeping up, even teachers are changing but are still undervalued.

The Bottom line is the state should not have begun a new way of testing student and teacher performance until they were certain that teachers and students would experience zero problems while testing. Since a new test in and of itself is hard enough for teachers and students to learn how to do, the transition from TCAP to TN Ready should have been smooth from the get go, but it was not.

On one end they have to continue to prepare students who failed the PARCC assessment last year and on the other end, they have to wonder about the demise of the entire assessment as well as the unknown with the new assessment. This is particularly hard for me and my district. My leadership experiences have been affected because as the District Test Coordinator, I have always believed that I should have the answers to questions and concerns from administrators, teachers, students, and parents but unfortunately, I do not. As a result, it is difficult to get stakeholders on board when they constantly hear conflicting reports. I fear that the contradiction and inconsistency with the state assessments will to have a negative effect on students’ performance this testing cycle.

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

Standardized testing creates a lot of stress on students and educators alike. Because of how much stress is put on them to prepare students for these tests, many excellent teachers quit their jobs everyday. In fact, in April, new federal data stated that 17 percent of new public school teachers leave their profession after four years due to stress and other reasons. Some teachers fail to teach students skills that go beyond the tests because they’re so pressured to get their students ready for these exams. This amount of stress can lead to feelings of negativity towards school and learning in general as well as cause negative health issues. Standardized tests places a large amount of stress on both teachers and students.

In conclusion, our way of evaluating our schools is currently not adequate. It is and has been causing our education to degrade significantly over time. Using standardized tests to evaluate our schools is not as good as an indicator as everyone implies it is. With the use of these tests, our teachers are being forced to teach to the test just so their students can pass the tests, and what is worse is that the students are not even learning the curriculum because they are forced to memorize it. Compared to high school GPAs, standardized tests are lacking in indicating how well our students are being taught. We need to complete ditch standardized testing and use GPAs to evaluate our schools. In the long run, it will allow teachers to truly teach

While standardized testing is a good form of student evaluation, it’s many problems of rating teachers and schools, causing stress, and variety of tests can be resolved through elimination or making the tests optional, yet the best solution is to revise the tests.

A meeting with all CTE teachers administering credentialing tests revealed several issues with testing and the disseminating of information. Teachers were told to test only completers in their programs who achieved competency requirements for the course. In addition, the teachers were not made aware that Professional Standard 7 required them to document growth of students

This school has a very constant system of change and have said, “our leadership team continuously discusses what is going well, who needs more support, where we need to adjust, and where we need to build more capacity.” Overall, this is the most dedication to a student's education that I have ever seen from a district. This school has also incorporated into their daily schedule, a block of uninterrupted time for lead learners to design together, and reflect on teaching and learning, and discuss student work/progress. One of the reasons why competency-based learning is even possible at this school, is because of the level of support the district has. Support comes from outside experts and community members alike, professional learning conferences are available, and they are established with industry partners who support environments of continuous learning. All of these support systems help their teachers develop professionally and for the school to continue their great work with the competency-based learning approach. This school “embraces failures and they talk about them, share their learning, and ask questions to show our curiosity,” which is what many schools need to do, to fully expand the environment and show understanding. In these competency-based classrooms, students are completely encouraged to ask questions, observe, and create for a broad range of involvement and continuous curiosity. Pike Roads students’ have said that their work is more challenging and their teacher interactions are more rewarding, which is exactly what school should

There is also a need to change in the internal culture of the school. From informal interview it would appear some teachers due to frustration and their voices not being heard have given up on themselves and students alike.

School improvement is transformation. It is one of the most important actions of a school. It is a process that schools must use with fidelity to ensure that at all students are given the opportunity to perform and achieve at exemplary levels. School improvement is vital to schools and it is a process that cannot be done in isolation. It requires team work, collaboration, and constant analysis of data and setting of goals. School improvement goals focus on how to meet the needs of students. Addressing the educational needs, funding, and achievement gaps between subgroups is collaborative effort involves everyone that has a vested interest in the schools. These basic measures set the foundation for improvement. And so, if it is the

America is a blessed country in numerous ways, and its citizens reap the benefits. Free education is one major benefit that not many other countries provide for their citizens. While it is only a privilege to many, but in the States, people have the right to be educated. However, free education cannot be translated to success for all. For those motivated ones who cherish the privilege to be educated are those who climb up the success ladders later in life. For a certain majority of students in the States, our current educational system may not seem to serve its purpose. In this paper, I will explore two possible adjustments that could be made to improve our system to benefit our next generation. Academic improvement and class size