Doyle's plans for reform

I've been mulling over Governor Doyle's announcement of reform plans that appeared in last Sunday's paper. In brief this is what the Governor is proposing:

1) Track student performance from kindergarten through college.

Well implemented I think this could be a real boon to improving educational outcomes, it is something I have advocated for at every opportunity. Test results can be useful if well designed, but the real measure of the success of our schools is in how well prepared our students are for post-secondary education (and for life.) A really comprehensive evaluation of our student's performance in state colleges could be of immense value in improving our programs.

2) Require 3 years of Math and Science to graduate from high school.

MG would have to increase its graduation requirements as we currently require only 2 years of each. And while I do think this is a good idea this falls under the category of incremental change and not comprehensive reform.

3) To quote the WSJ article: "Revamp school finance and teacher pay. Doyle wants to let districts get out from under state revenue caps, imposed since 1993, if they work together on union contract negotiations, make employees use the state health plan unless they already use a cheaper plan, and revamp teacher pay, among other things"

Yes we need comprehensive school finance reform, but this is too vague a statement to evaluate.

One other thing in the article is an apparent commitment to change the law that prevents standardized test results to be considered in teacher evaluations. I understand the concerns teachers might have about standardized tests, particularly with the limitations of the WKCE. Given what I know about it and my conversations with the DPI, I wouldn't consider using it for evaluating teachers. However I have discussed some of our own assessment tools (like the MAP test) with our administration and done significant statistical analysis on my own. Based on that work I believe that carefully designed growth measures can be developed that give a fair and accurate assessment of the effectiveness of teaching in at least some of our content and age areas over time. Carefully designed and administered outcome based evaluations may prove a useful tool in improving academic achievement. The best teachers are already using the information available to improve their effectiveness.