Not off to a promising start

Sent the NY Post, Feb. 15, 2011

The New Relay School of Education: Not Off to a Promising Start

The new Relay School of Education ("Charters get own education graduate schoool," Feb. 15) appears to demand hard evidence of effectiveness by graduates: They must show that the students they teach have increased their standardized test scores, known as "value-added" evaluation.

A number of studies show that value-added evaluations have serious problems: Different tests produce different value-added scores, and teachers' value-added ratings vary from year to year, sometimes quite a bit.

Also, it is possible to game the system and produce increases in test scores just by teaching test-taking strategies. Scores increase, but nobody learns anything.

Relay thus plans to grant Master's Degrees on the basis of an invalid measure, not a promising start for a new program.

Stephen Krashen

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/charters_get_own_education_graduate_UNJzHg5mxilU5l8WKYQTkJ