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Originally Posted by MysticCat
The question here is whether standardized testing of students is an effective way to measure whether the teacher has taught well. A teacher can be fantastic and still have students who, for a variety of reasons, don't do well on the tests. And sometimes students can do very well on tests despite having had a terrible teacher. There are those awkward outcomes you're talking about.
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Clearly
That is indeed what I meant by awkward - separating signal from noise is very difficult, to put it different terms.
I guess, then, my question is: should we even try? I'm not being glib, either - is there any way to tell who is a "good" teacher (particularly using outcome)?
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There definitely has to be a balance, and testing can certainly be part of the equation. But too often, it seems, testing is the entire equation, and I think everyone -- student and teacher -- suffers as a result.
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I think implementation is as much the problem as anything - and I mean that from the top down (test design, use of the results, integration of test materials into curricula and vice versa, etc.).
While standardized testing has well-documented issues (mostly related to biasing factors from test designers), it's not something inherently wrong or evil - it is just used in an extremely stupid fashion in most secondary schools.
We don't have the same global fight against post-secondary standardized tests - in fact, they're often embraced when performed on a smaller scale (doctors, lawyers and whatnot).