Tell me, did everything you learn in highschool get included in the SAT? ACT? As a teacher, if your payraise depended on your kids doing well, would you bother teaching them anything other than the material that would be covered on the test? I guess this makes teaching really easy, just follow the leasson plan that the testmakers will map out and you've put yourself into the fast track for teacher of the year.
But if nobody knows exactly what is on the test this year you just have to cover everything. (Truth be told I knew there was no advanced material in the SAT.)
Nothing is perfect but it's far better then not testing.
If the teachers see the tests first this will be a big problem. If on the other hand the teachers know the students will need to solve a quadratic and wright a thesis paragraph I'm fine with it.
Teaching to a good test is just teaching.
No, but if you read the article, their solution provides for that. Teachers of non-core subjects are judged by the school board for performance. I have no problem with that either. They are then accountable to people elected to run the school district.
I guess this makes teaching really easy, just follow the leasson plan that the testmakers will map out and you've put yourself into the fast track for teacher of the year.
Nope, it isn't easy. If it was, the ineffective tenured teachers currently pervading the system would do just fine. For my hard-earned tax dollars, I want teachers who can actually teach. I want the rest to have a fire lit under their lazy butts to start producing -- teaching their students effectively -- or find another line of work.
Dedicated, results-oriented teachers have nothing to fear from such a system, tenured or not. And that's the real point: changing the system from an incentive for simple longevity to an incentive for results. Without that incentive, the results will always suffer.