Those Involved with Releasing Teacher Data Reports Belong in Education Hall of Shame

The Teacher Data Reports being released today by major NY newspapers are profoundly inaccurate, as well as deeply demoralizing, according to principal after principal I have spoken to. They are based on narrow statistical variations in test scores from year to year that have no meaning in real life. Some of the best and most respected teachers ( as judged by their colleagues, parents and students) score lowest, while some of the least respected teachers score at the top. A more counterproductive strategy for school transformation could not have been invented. Anyone who thinks this kind of publicly humiliation will motivate teachers to improve is, to put it bluntly, profoundly misguided because it will drive people with pride and talent out of the profession, and make those who run the NYC Department of Education a laughing stock to everyone who works in the New York City public schools. This is what happens when people who know nothing about teaching and learning are put in charge of the nation's largest urban school system. Every single person involved in creating, computing, disseminating and publishing these reports deserves a permanent place in the Public Education Hall of Shame