Stephen Sawchuk analyzes AFT Prez Randi Weingarten’s flip-flop on the use of
student standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. In 2008, in an interview with Sawchuk, Weingarten
opposed the use of value-added measures. In 2010, however, she announced that "student test scores could be appropriate if
they measured growth in learning and were coupled with other measures,” the new practice in New Jersey. Now AFT has
started a campaign called “VAM is a Sham.” Sawchuk writes,
Weingarten's decision is probably not really a spur-of-the-moment one.
It's been bolstered by an increasing anti-testing sentiment within the
union. In 2012, the AFT consequently passed a resolution opposing
many uses of tests and began a media campaign to the same end. Last summer, it issued a report on overtesting.
There is a political element here, too: Factions within the AFT deeply
critical of testing have gained power within the union, electing a president to the Chicago Teachers Union who
subsequently staged a strike in the Windy City over issues of teacher
evaluation.
Whatever Weingarten's new stance may bring for the national conversation
about teacher evaluations, it is certainly not going to turn down the heat on
this hugely controversial topic.
Labels: AFT, VAM