Should Student Test Scores Be Used to Discipline Teachers?

A bill just passed by the state Legislature that would allow school districts to discipline and even fire teachers based on their students' test scores is coming under fire from area educators who say such results aren't the best gauge of a teacher's abilities.

Currently, administrators can use scores on standardized tests like the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam (WKCE) to evaluate teacher performance — but only if certain conditions are met. For example, a district that wants to evaluate teachers based on student performance has to develop a multifaceted teacher evaluation plan.

However, Senate Bill 95 allows test scores to be used as a factor in discipline, suspension or firing without any of the current conditions. Those scores could not be the sole factor for firing or disciplining a teacher, however.

The bill, which received final legislative approval this month, comes as the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction prepares a statewide evaluation system for teachers that also includes the use of test scores.

Under the framework crafted by a DPI task force, half of a teacher's evaluation would be based on student outcomes, including the WKCE. The other half would be based on more traditional measures, such as preparation and collaboration with other teachers.

”I think at our school, it would be sort of ridiculous and toxic."

Although the WKCE is under review for replacement, many area educators are worried about the state test being used to evaluate teacher effectiveness.

"The WKCE test is not a good assessment. It never has been," Superintendent Rachel Boechler said. "I think it would be blatantly unfair to use them to evaluate teachers."

Boechler and administrators from 30 other school districts are working as a coalition to develop its own ideas for a statewide teacher evaluation system. That group is working as a separate team from the DPI task force, although Boechler said it is in communication with and supported by DPI.

"We’re trying to align our work with the state to have some influence over what the state comes up with," she said."We want to make sure they don’t just use test scores."

Port Washington-Saukville Superintendent Michael Weber said he has concerns about taking on a state-standardized evaluation system and abandoning the one the district has crafted and tailored to its needs — one that does not include WKCE scores.

The district's evaluation system, like Shorewood's and many others, uses measures such as scheduled and unscheduled classroom observations and walk-throughs to measure performance.

"The present evaluation is working, it’s effective and built on several years of sound educational research on performance of teachers, and that is the system that we want to keep," Weber said. "If we are required to use test scores as part of that system, then we’ll figure out how to meet the requirement.

"I don’t see how our system would improve if we were required to use WKCE test scores," he added.

What's in a Test Score?

Mark Conforti, seventh-grade math teacher at Bayside Middle School, said he thinks standardized test scores should never be used to evaluate teachers.

"It puts our evaluation in the hands of the way kids think," Conforti said. "We all have different abilities ... We can teach them, but we don't control how a student reads a question and answers it."

Mark Yanisch, president of the Whitefish Bay Education Association and a seventh-grade science teacher at , said the WKCEs, which are taken in November, are a brief and limited snapshot of a student.

"I try to be an introspective teacher and sneak in some foreshadowing of topics that won’t come out for a couple years," Yanish said. "As teachers, we plant seeds, and we might not be the ones to watch those seeds grow. It makes me an effective teacher, but it may not show on a standardized test."

Shorewood Superintendent Blane McCann also said test scores offer a limited view, but he said he thinks they do have a place in evaluating teachers.

"I don’t support using test scores only as a sole criteria. There’s so much more that goes into a child demonstrating achievement," McCann said. "But I do think student performance is extremely important to how we're doing. It is our business to make sure students perform well and achieve."

McCann said while the scores are not a full reflection of a teacher's work, good teaching will lead to good test scores.

"If you have teachers working hard to build positive relationships, our test scores will be good, and our district I think bears that out," he said.

But Yanisch said he is skeptical of that connection.

"What we do as teachers is we raise the bar for the kids, and we measure it based on multiple tests and multiple ways," he said. "To put it all on a single high stakes, one-day test on a given area just doesn’t seem right.

"There are so many other things that go into a student's readiness to learn, from their parents backgrounds on down the line," Yanisch said. "Maybe they got in a fight on the bus, or their parents just got a divorce, or mom was diagnosed with cancer. It's an oversimplification of something that should be respected as a complex issue."

The Pressure of Evaluation

Conforti, the Bayside Middle School teacher, said using the scores in evaluations would create an atmosphere in which teachers are competing rather than helping each other in the interest of their students. 

"It’s already started — just the talk of it and the rumblings of it," Conforti said. "The morale is low. It doesn’t leave room for collaboration between teachers. Why would I go across the hall and share something that I’m doing when someone’s going to come in and evaluate me based on it? I’m not going to share my ideas and I think that’s true for a lot of people. It seems very mean spirited."

Sachin Pandya, multi-age teacher at and vice president of the Shorewood Education Association, had similar concerns.

"I think at our school, it would be sort of ridiculous and toxic," Pandya said. "You become concerned about what teachers are doing, as opposed to doing what’s best for the students. The whole model comes from a business management approach to dealing with school districts. It’s sort of a fad and it’s a little frightening."

Pandya and Conforti both said they see the move to use test scores in evaluation as the most recent of steps to limit the power of teachers, beginning with losing the ability to negotiate.

"It gives school boards complete control on how they want to do business and doesn’t rely on the professionals who are in the classroom," Conforti said. "We’ve kind of become like robots ... It seems like the political agenda right now is to destroy public education."

Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state teachers union also tied the legislation to other recent actions from Gov. Scott Walker.

"This is another example of the extremes the governor and his followers will go to in order to defund public schools, devalue the professionals who work in them and disrespect all that Wisconsin values," Bell said in a statement.

Yanisch said the move to a statewide evaluation system incorporating standardized test scores takes power from local school boards, too, potentially giving the state more influence over school curricula as schools adapt to the test's subjects.

"We decide our curriculum as a team in cycles," Yanisch said referring to the science department. "Are we going to interrupt that cycle and redo everything to match the next standardized test? Those are questions that are going to be asked."

The bill, which includes a slew of other changes to education, will go to Walker's desk as DPI continues to expand on its framework for a statewide evaluation system.