Joecks: Some failure necessary for successful teacher evaluation system

(Victor Joecks, Las Vegas Review-Journal) – If no one’s failing, you have no accountability.

That’s what lawmakers need to remember as they consider AB320, the proposal from Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson, D-Las Vegas, to drop from 40 percent to 20 percent the amount of a teacher’s evaluation based on student achievement data.

Including student test scores in teacher evaluations is a textbook example of how hard it is to reform government, especially when government cedes authority to labor unions. A 2011 bill sponsored by Democrats required that student achievement data make up 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation by the 2013-14 school year. That never went into effect. Instead, AB447 from the 2015 session required that test scores account for 20 percent of a teacher’s evaluation during the current school year, with the amount rising to 40 percent next school year.

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