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Health & Fitness

"There You Go, Again." -- Ronald Reagan

Reading Sen. Litzow's editorial in the Sunday Seattle Times made me think of Ronald Reagan's classic presidential debate response, "There you go again."

 

Forty years of education reform have produced dramatic improvements in Washington's schools.  But Litzow's opening comment is, "... current education practices have failed the same communities for too long."

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"There you go again."  You choose not only to ignore decades of work but to insult those professionals whose efforts brought about those improvements.

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Research on the use of student test scores indicates that a teacher determined to be in the 47th percentile of teachers could just as easily be in the 71st percentile or the 17th percentile.  That's a range of 54 points and an error ratio of plus or minus 27 points.  Not a very accurate determination, to say the least.  Yet Litzow says we should be "including student growth data from state tests to help identify high-performing and struggling teachers."

 

"There you go again."  You are ignoring the research that says the test scores ought not be used that way,  offering no research of your own, and displaying an obsessive determination to use unproven assertions.

 

While none of those who claim we will lose federal money have made any mention of Washington state having promised to use test scores, Litzow says we will "lose more than forty million dollars.  "

 

"There you go again."  If the federal government coerces Washington state by threatening to withhold money, why are we the ones at fault?  It is the federal government that seeks to change the rules of the game..  And I thought conservatives were against intrusive and overreaching federal intervention.

 

We are six months into the act of rolling out new teacher/principal evaluation protocols statewide.  This initiative is based upon proven research and  represents a decade of voluntary efforts on the part of educators, both administrators and teachers, and three years of additional work under legislative authorization.  We need to step back and allow these protocols to go into effect and to demonstrate their potential, rather than  replacing them with unproven assertions.
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