New Jersey’s Department of Education has announced that PARCC scores for the 16-17 school year will count for 30% of a teacher’s evaluation which is up 10 percent from last year. What does this mean for teachers in New Jersey? Let’s find out!
According to Deputy Education Commissioner Peter Shumlin, teachers that teach math in grades 4-7 and teachers that teach ELA for grades 4-8 will see this increase in weight to their teacher evaluations based on student performance on the PARCC test. This means more stress for the teachers and administrators to ensure that the students are ready and prepared to succeed on the PARCC testing this year.
The one bright spot is the fact the state will be looking not at if the students pass the assessment, but if they show measured improvement compared to their peers. If this happens, the teacher’s evaluation score will increase!
Shulman believes that going into the third year of PARCC testing schools have successfully transitioned into the new testing. According to him, the PARCC Assessment is the best testing tool that has been developed.
The New Jersey Education Association does not agree with the increase in weight toward teacher evaluations. The NJEA is one of the biggest proponents of the PARCC Testing in the State of New Jersey. The president of the organization believes that with more emphasis being put on the assessment, prep time for testing will rise resulting in less time spent on teaching and learning.
Accountability for students success was added to NJ teacher evaluation for the 13-14 school year as part of the tenure reform law that was passed the same year. When the state adopted the PARCC Assessments for the 14-15 school year, they dropped the weight of the assessments to 10% of the teacher’s evaluation. Now that there have been a few years to adjust to the new testing, the state feels it’s time to bring it back up to the 30% weight.
Teachers evaluations being tied to testing is something most states are either implementing currently or are pondering for the future. Most teacher unions oppose this on the basis that a teacher should not be judged based on one single test. With this being said, Lumos Learning offers great resources to help teachers to prepare their students to succeed on the PARCC testing. Contact the New Jersey Rep. Bonnie McRae at bonnie.mcrae@lumoslearning.com or at 1-888-309-8227 ext: 111.
Story Reference: http://www.nj.com/education/2016/08/nj_parcc_tests_teacher_evaluations.html
