A new study cautions that more research is needed before common-core assessments can be used as valid and reliable measures of teacher effectiveness.
A paper released last week by the Center for American Progress argues that while there is “an intuitive appeal” to using results of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced tests to evaluate teachers, they “have not been specifically designed” for that purpose. Nonetheless, states are planning to use the tests in a range of ways, from planning professional development and rating their schools to evaluating teachers.
The U.S. Department of Education, which has funneled $360 million into the development of the tests, had exactly those kinds of uses in mind in 2010 when it invited groups of states to apply for the funding.
