I think most of us agree with what you continue to say about teachers, tenure, merits, cushy jobs, etc. But why continue to beat a dead horse when you yourself know the answer. The teachers union is so strong noone can do a thing about it. Our taxes will continue to go up forever. Voting no on school budgets doesn't do any good. There's nothing we can do. Why continue to write about it?

Of course teachers resist scores. A few years ago the Regent's Exam was given to Capitol region teachers and more than HALF flunked. Repeat: More than half the high school teachers tested failed the exam!

The problem with using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers is that each year the tests are administered to a new group of students. Classes vary widely year to year, with differing student abilities. How can we compare one group's performance to another's and come out with an accurate reflection of teacher effectiveness?

I wonder what the situation looks like in private schools? Granted, the student quality may be better (or at least different) than that of the general public school student population, but there still must be teachers who consistently produce better (or worse) results than others. What standards do private schools use? Is there "tenure" in these places? Is this tenure/union thing a function of and result of government-run education?

There is simply no statistical method to compare relativistic growth in students in studies as small as one classroom to another. The sample sizes are far too small.

I guess you mean "relative growth"?

Not referring to quantum mechanics or philosophical relativism, I assume.

I'm not a teacher, but using test scores to evaluate teacher perfomance is not a great idea. After 180 days of instruction, you're going to evaluate a teacher on three days of ELA assessments? Would Carl Strock be fired for having three bad columns over one year?

A good administrator can walk into any classroom and know what is good teaching and what is bad teaching? It is obvious.

And, what about the demographics? Are the teachers in Niskayuna better than their Schenectady counterparts because the Nisky test scores are better. I guess so.

We all know that the poorer the district is, the worse the test scores are. Why do we constantly look for other factors, like blaming the teachers for the low scores in Schenectady, Albany or elsewhere. Go to www.schoolmatters.com and see for yourself.

The International Charter School just proved that. Let's get great teachers, and let's take a select group of mostly city students and get those scores up and prove that the Schenectady CSD doesn't know what they're doing. A duck will always be a duck.

The result: even lower test scores and the school's closing in June.

The point is, teachers should not be immune to job performance evaluations. It's hard to objectively evaluate any employee's performance, but that's one of the functions of management. Tenure with no accountability is not desirable, especially when the salaries are being paid by taxpayers.