A Teacher’s Plea

“I know my students.  I know when I am moving too quickly or too slowly, and I know when they are succeeding and when they are struggling.  To assume that the state can determine this, and can make judgments on the effectiveness of my instruction based solely on a single measure is folly – especially when we know that students in poverty, the teachers who educate them and the schools that serve them will be judged most harshly by these measures.  In fact, standardized test scores may tell us very little about a teacher’s impact or a student’s future success.”

This quote is from a recent letter written by Ohio’s 2015 Teacher of the Year to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Ohio Governor John Kasich and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria. The letter’s author is Kristina L. Taylor, Intervention Specialist and Team Leader for James N. Gamble Montessori High School, Cincinnati Public Schools.  Her letter is very powerful and worth reading.