This isn’t a realistic way to evaluate teachers

As a former teacher, I would have loved to have my professional evaluations derived from the standardized test scores of my students, if my school existed in a glass bubble [“Bills would reshape how state teachers evaluated,” NWMonday, Feb. 6].

But my evaluators had to consider the external factors that constantly entered my classroom. For example, there are parents who feel they have no obligation to ensure the following: a child eats a balanced meal before attending school, homework assignments are completed, controlled substances are not within the household, truancy is not a problem, books are being read in lieu of playing video games, and manners and respect for a school’s personnel are first taught at home.

As most educators know, there is very little the individual teacher can do to stop the sloppy parenting that plagues the American school system, because politicians don’t want to confront registered voters with the truth.

On a final note, when I started teaching in 1986, my school’s administration consisted of a principal, guidance counselor and a curriculum specialist. When I retired from the same school in 2010, there were at least 10 expensive, quasi-administrative people running the school. And most of their jobs were tied to buffering poor parenting skills, which directly affected the students’ progress.

— Donell Quinitchette, Seattle

This shows real promise to improve teaching

I am a 20-plus-year nationally certified teaching veteran. I am amazed that The Seattle Times is crying foul on legislative blocking of a teacher evaluation bill, when there already is one about to be implemented (Senate Bill 6696).

And I, for one, will welcome this new system, which (finally!) will give me specific research-based feedback on how to improve my teaching.

The “value-added” systems you prefer, which use student test scores as “accountability measures,” are developed by private corporations.

They use complex and proprietary algorithms to create teacher evaluation “scores.”

Thus, teachers never know exactly what criteria they are being evaluated on, how it is weighted, or how to improve their “scores” — or their teaching.

Research has shown that their accuracy and effectiveness in measuring teacher quality is highly questionable.

The biggest benefit seems to be for the corporations who develop and promote them, since they provide great revenue streams of public tax dollars to corporate coffers.

These “accountability” systems have been adopted by credulous politicians in many other states, eager to score Brownie points with equally credulous voters.

We are fortunate to have legislators here who are better informed. Shame on The Seattle Times for not supporting them, or the previously passed (and cheaper) bill, which shows real promise to improve teaching in our state.

— Ann Morgan, Everett