Teaching to the Test: Impacts of Evaluating Teachers Through Student Growth Measures

This presentation examined the impact of evaluating teachers through student growth measures on instructional practices, conducted as part of the 2015 AERA annual meeting. As funding through the Race-to-the-Top program required the use of student growth measures for teacher evaluation ratings, states implemented evaluation systems based on students' test scores, which profoundly affected the way instruction was delivered. The study investigated changes in instructional practices reported by teachers who participated in a pilot teacher evaluation program in 2012-2013 in a northeastern state. The research involved 2,608 pre-K–12 teachers from 25 school districts, with data collected through an online survey administered in June 2013 with a 39% response rate. The pilot program utilized two different types of student academic measures: student growth percentiles (SGPs) for teachers of Math and English Language Arts in grades 4-8, which accounted for 35%-45% of evaluation ratings, and student growth objectives (SGOs) for all teaching staff, which could account for as little as 10% of ratings. The researchers developed a "Didactic scale" to measure test preparation practices and found several significant factors contributing to instructional shifts toward increased test preparation, including use of SGP scores for evaluation purposes, being a teacher in a low-performing district, and belief that the main purpose of evaluations was to provide formative feedback. The study confirmed that teachers of tested subjects significantly changed their instructional practices toward more test preparation and that teaching in low-performing districts contributed to added pressure and shifting toward didactic teaching approaches.