Reply to "Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]This whole "high stakes" characterization seems a bit warped to me... Testing has been around for decades. But, apparently we are to understand that now, if teachers' evaluations are based on whether or not kids show improvement in their classrooms, that's "high stakes" whereas before we apparently didn't give a shit if kids didn't show improvement as they progressed since that apparently wasn't "high stakes" testing... [/quote]

Testing has been around for decades, but it wasn't until 2001 (NCLB) that tests were used to take "punitive" actions (like forcing the school to pay for tutoring or reorganizing the school, or giving parents the choice to move their children to other schools).  This is what "high stakes" meant.  Those actions caused schools to do things that many would consider a corruption of the intention of the NCLB law (like teach to the test, take out classes that were not related to the test, and in extreme cases, cheat).

When the tests are related to teachers' evaluations, there may be unintended consequences, but that depends on what the whole thing means to the teacher.  For example, if it means that the teacher has to come under some sort of punitive action, the teacher may take steps to make sure the students pass the test, but those steps may not be what the standards writers intended.  There may be teachers who spend a lot of time on teaching testing strategy instead of teaching real content.  There may be teachers who refuse to teach certain classes or groups of students if they know that those students will be unlikely to pass the tests.  There may be teachers who refuse to teach in low income schools.

The words "high stakes" came into being because of the mandated testing and the legal consequences that were put into place based on the mandated testing.  Testing had been around way, way before NCLB and we did give a shit, but schools were not sanctioned and individual teachers were not sanctioned in punitive ways.  American schools were actually testing at higher levels before NCLB.  And, the states with the highest scores have always been states with strong teacher unions.  Go figure. 
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