Geoff O’Gara of Wyoming PBS reports that teachers and legislators seem to be coming together over a couple of education bills moving through the House. Everyone may be close to agreeing on reasonable ways to weed out poor teachers without putting good instructors at risk of unwarranted firing. But now the hard work begins: figuring out an objective standard for testing students so administrators can determine which teachers are performing poorly. Wyoming’s recent history with standardized student testing doesn’t give anyone a good feeling about that effort.

There is still the question of just how student success will be “objectively” measured in Wyoming – the bills set up a process for assessment and accountability, but the actual assessment tools are not firm – the state’s much-revised, much-criticized PAWS test is hardly viewed as fool-proof. And the state Department of Education, and new chief Cindy Hill, have not contributed much to the accountability models – yet they’ll have to carry out these new requirements.

Leave a comment

Want to join the discussion? Fantastic, here are the ground rules: * Provide your full name — no pseudonyms. WyoFile stands behind everything we publish and expects commenters to do the same. * No personal attacks, profanity, discriminatory language or threats. Keep it clean, civil and on topic. *WyoFile does not fact check every comment but, when noticed, submissions containing clear misinformation, demonstrably false statements of fact or links to sites trafficking in such will not be posted. *Individual commenters are limited to three comments per story, including replies.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *