Student Scores Get their First Test in Grading Teachers
Pilot districts get test scores tied individual teachers, so far with little controversy.
New Jersey’s first effort to correlate student test scores to individual teachers quietly began this month, as nearly a dozen districts were sent data that does exactly that. The new data, which uses a measure called “student growth percentiles” (SGP), was mailed early this month to the first 11 districts involved in the state’s teacher evaluation pilot -- from large ones Newark and Elizabeth to smaller ones like Bergenfield and Alexandria. The measure compares the median of a student's progress against comparable children statewide, and pairs that progress -- or lack of it -- to a specific teacher. The progress reports only cover teachers working in math and language arts in grades 3 through 8, the grades covered by the state’s annual …
