Is Georgia’s new evaluation system stacked against teachers?

In offering a detailed look on MyAJC.com on how teachers are now being evaluated, a Georgia teacher struck a nerve. The teacher's account has drawn hundreds of comments on MyAJC.com and AJC Get Schooled Facebook and been shared more than 500 times.

After attending state training on how teachers will be evaluated this year, the high school teacher writes, “The state Department of Education wants teacher ratings and student ratings to align. Therefore, the solution was to teach administrators how to rate teachers lower. Rather than address the reasons why students do poorly on tests, the quick fix is to downgrade the teachers who clearly failed to do their jobs.”

The teacher also notes test scores will count in teacher evaluations under a calculation that seems stacked against teachers. “I’m no expert in mathematics, but statistically I know most people are average, and I know the bell curve says that most students will score around 75 on any valid exam. It seems unfair to move students ahead in the system for being average, but to punish the teacher when an average student doesn’t score above average on a standardized test,” writes the teacher.