Dive Brief:
- The Portland School Board is waiting to hear back from the Oregon Department of Education on whether federal officials will allow the state to refrain from using Common Core test results to evaluate teachers.
- While the state has not yet formally responded to Portland's resolution, but it has already asked the federal government for permission to delay using new test scores to evaluate teachers. School and districts will, however, still be evaluated using the scores.
- Oregon is expected to begin using the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium's test in the upcoming school year.
Dive Insight:
"There needs to be more conversation about how we best balance between accountability and support for public schools," school board member Ruth Adkins told The Oregonian. In Adkins' opinion, the evaluation system is too one-dimensional.
Portland is not alone in pushing back teacher evaluations tied to test scores — many states and districts, including the District of Columbia and New Jersey, have elected to do the same. After the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released a statement urging lawmakers to push back teacher evaluations tied to the Common Core standards, many states began to feel more comfortable pushing this. But federal officials might not react positively. Tying teacher ratings to the new standards is a big part of both Race to the Top funding eligibility and No Child Left Behind waivers.