Oregon Live – Betsy Hammond
“Oregon has won a three-year reprieve from key provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind school accountability law, officials announced Thursday. The sticking point had been the federal requirement that teachers be evaluated in part based on growth in their students’ standardized test scores. The Oregon Department of Education managed to convince federal regulators it will take that long-delayed step and will do it in a meaningful way, Ann Whalen, senior adviser to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, wrote in her letter conveying the federal OK. Oregon pledged that teachers and principals in every school district will be evaluated in part on their students’ test scores, starting in 2016. Oregon teachers had long resisted efforts to grade them in part on their students’ growth on standardized tests, arguing that test scores are a poor measurement of the breadth and depth of their work.”(more)