I ask this as a question, rather than making it a declarative statement.  But I was prompted to write about this topic based on a lead article in yesterday’s USA Today entitled Teachers take test scores to the bank as bonuses. The author described some examples of school districts offering bonuses to teachers if their students’ test scores improve or they work in “hard-to-staff” schools.

There is a link in the article in which you can read opinions of people who read the article. Readers were asked: Should teachers’ pay be linked to students’ scores? After reading the first ten responses, you’ll see that the readers have a definite opinion.  Does it agree with you opinion?

But lets explore the basic premise of the idea of linking student test scores to teacher performance. Is an increase in student achievement from the beginning of the year to the end of the year “direct” evidence tha the teacher did a good job.  Or, if student achievement decreased, can we say the teacher did not do such a good job?

The evidence from research shows that the best indicators of student achievement are the preparation teachers have and their level of certification.  Research also supports the notion that investments that made in the service of teachers also are connected to student achievement (See Linda Darling-Hammond: Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence).  There other research studies that show that trying to link teacher variables with student achievement result in very weak or now difference in student achievement.  Go to Google Scholar, and type in “student achievement teacher performance” and you will find a string of studies that don’t support the USA article.

We ought to be asking, How do students learn?  What do we know about classrooms and teaching that impact student learning?  What about the experiential knowledge that the teacher brings to the classroom?Can what students learn be determined with the kinds of tests that used in these examples?

Most of the thinking surrounding linking student achievement and teacher performance reflects very old thinking.  The underlying theory is based on B. F. Skinner’s behavioral theory of operant conditioning. Reinforcement, punishment and reward are part of its lexicon.

Supported by more than 30 years of research, our understanding of how students learn has turned away from a strict behavioral approach, and instead been supplanted by social constructivist views of learning, starting with John Dewey, and including the ideas of Jerome Bruner, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Ernst von Glasersfeld. Ideas from these theorists form the basis for The Art of Teaching Science.  In this view, students construct knowledge of science through interaction with the environment and as members of a community of learners.  The view that knowledge can be poured into the heads of students directly has gone and been replaced by more compelling views that learning is a more complex phenomenon and can not be measured by simple achievement tests.  Suggesting that teacher performance can be tied to a test score supposes that learning is fundamentally behavioral, rather can a social constructivist idea.

What is your view on this issue?