Teacher urges students to fail, resigns

Reported by Dispatch.com on 2013-10-10

A Reynoldsburg [Ohio] middle-school teacher who is accused of telling her gifted students to fail a science pretest … resigned yesterday…. The science assessment was part of the district’s new evaluation system, where teachers will be graded in part by how much their students improve over the school year. Student academic growth accounts for half of a teacher’s evaluation….

It goes without saying that this “teacher” should be out of a job, and probably should never teach again. Regarding the district’s evaluation of teachers based on student improvement, I’m not a fan. Students — and their teachers — should be evaluated on achieving high standards in reading, writing and math, not on mere improvement.