As New York state executes new teacher evaluation plans and Common Core standards, State Education Commissioner John King must improve student performance to reduce criticism from opponents.
In an opinion piece, the New York Post pressures King to deliver results comparable to states who have seen improvements in student performance as a result of the Common Core:
The bottom line is results. If John King hopes to rebut his critics, he will need to deliver gains like those we’ve seen in Tennessee and DC.
The opinion piece referred to the latest National Assessment of Education Progress report, providing evidence on Tennessee’s recent achievements in education:
Take Tennessee. The Volunteer State adopted a fairly reasonable teacher-rating system in 2009. Like New York, it also raised its student-performance standards to match the Common Core.
Guess what: The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress reports — long considered the gold standard in testing — show the scores of Tennessee kids shooting up four to seven points over 2011 on fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading tests. Tennessee achieved these gains, moreover, at a time when scores nation-wide showed little or no improvement.
