The issue of how teachers should be evaluated is a very complex and controversial topic. Many people have strong opinions on it, but if everyone works together, a solution can be reached. There are people who are for standardized testing being used to evaluate teachers, but there are also people against it. The ones against it believe that judging a teacher based on test scores is not the best way and that it is too complex to base it on a score alone. The ones for it believe that it is a simple and proper way to judge a teacher. If a student does poorly on a test, then the teacher must be to blame. This issue is very complex and cannot be taken lightly in the education field. I am interested in this research question because I am an Elementary Education major, so this issue will affect me personally because I hope to one day become a teacher. This research question did not really affect my values a whole lot, but it requires me to think on a deeper level. I was feeling pretty strongly towards one side of the issue, but I can also see things from the other perspective, as well. I was a Teacher Cadet my senior year in high school, so we talked a lot about this issue in that class. We discussed both sides of the argument and tried to think of reasonable solutions. I feel qualified to write about this because I want to be a teacher one day, so it is relevant to me. I have some prior background knowledge on it, and I am very capable of researching this issue and coming up with my own solution. 

An article in Wall Street Journal titled "Should Student Test Scores be Used to Evaluate Teachers?" presented both sides of the issue and had two different people discussing their opinions on each side. One advocated that tests should be used but a heavier focus on "gains in tests rather than end of year tests" (Kane). What Kane means by this is that we should take into account the growth of the students' scores over the year on tests, rather than just looking at end of year test scores. He mentions that students start at different points and if we are going to use test scores to evaluate teachers, then we only want to know about the student's growth in that particular class with that particular teacher. The other said tests should not be used because "teaching is too complex" (Darling-Hammond). The reason she says this is because teaching is not something that you can just put a number on. There are a lot of factors that go into teaching and students all learn at different rates, so teaching is not something simple that can be judged based on a number or test score. The author of the first article, Thomas Kane, clearly values education and teachers. He values teachers being evaluated by the right and ethical things, even though he believes test scores are one of the right things to judge a teacher by. The stakes of this section of the article by Kane are teacher's impact on the student. In his opinion, teachers have a huge impact on the student and on their test scores. The fact that this is so important to him shows that these are stakes to him; something that could be lost based on the student's score. If they do poorly, he is saying the teacher is at fault because of the impact she has on her students. It is clear that the values of the author in the second part of this article are teaching and teachers' individual abilities. Darling-Hammond is passionate about there being a fair and just system in place for teacher evaluation. Since she believes strongly in the evaluations being based on the teachers' true abilities, those are her stakes. She believes that if a teacher is judged based on a student's score on a test that scored low, it does not really show how capable that teacher is at doing her job because teaching is much too complicated and complex to place a numerical digit on. Because both of the authors are professors of education of some sort, the article has credibility but they have been working in this field for many years. Therefore, they are swayed one way or the other, which is shown by Kane believing test scores should be a factor in teacher evaluations and Darling-Hammond believing they should not be used at all. This made the article very informative and reliable. 

The Los Angeles Times addresses this issue in an article titled "Standardized Tests Don't Help Us Evaluate Teachers." This article's central claim is standardized tests are not an effective way to evaluate teachers. The evidence to back up this claim is found through looking at SAT and ACT scores and comparing them to dropout rates. This means someone will look at a specific student's SAT or ACT score that has dropped out and will make conclusions based on that. If that student had low-test scores, it makes a connection between their score and the reason they dropped out. Also, it states how a student's achievements cannot be attributed to only one teacher. That student may have pulled knowledge from a variety of teachers, so solely judging one teacher based on what a student did does not reflect properly on a teacher. The major values for this article are that the author feels very strongly about standardized testing not being used to evaluate teachers. It is clear that he really values teachers and not using scores to judge them by. This article shows that this author values teaching and a fair evaluation system because he gives many reasons as to why this system is wrong and not politically correct. The major stakes for this article are basically the teacher's reputation. He believes that there are so many things wrong with using test scores to evaluate a teacher by, so by using these, it is really not helping that teacher's reputation. He is saying it is not a fair comparison to compare certain teachers that teach completely different subjects based on test scores. That makes teachers' reputations and their personal sense of well being a stake because the author fears they could lose that if test scores are used to evaluate them.  The author, Harold Kwalwasser, has written a book about remaking America's schools for the 21st century and he has a lot of knowledge on this topic. His opinion is backed up with facts and prior knowledge he gained through his research. He does show bias, however because this article is argumentative, so he shows bias towards tests not being used to evaluate teachers. However, he stays focused on his main point and really gives a lot of evidence to back up his claims and get his point across.

Lastly, an article that pertains to the issue of standardized tests being used to evaluate teachers is found on a website called American RadioWorks, which claims that teaching is too complicated to judge the teacher by test scores alone. The author gives three main reasons why she believes this and backs each one up with evidence (i.e. studies done in classrooms, studies done in different states and cities, debates on this issue). The major values for this article are the author's feelings on standardized test scores being used to evaluate teachers, which she is very against. She clearly values teaching and a fair system to evaluate teachers by, just like the precious author mentioned. The stakes of this article are that teachers could lose their motivation and passion to teach if test scores continue to be used to evaluate them by. It is clear in this article that this is a stake because she explains how teachers have a lot to lose if they are rated "ineffective." Emily Hanford has many degrees and has worked on several big projects throughout her career, which required intensive research. She knows a lot about this topic and comes across knowledgeable and reliable to her audience. Her bias shows in this article because it presents only one side of the coin. However, she does a great job of using ethos to not attack her audience, and she comes across opinionated but wise.

The question of whether standardized tests should be used to evaluate teachers is arguable because the people who are directly affected by it have strong feelings and opinions that differ, which make it very controversial. Among the sources I found, two of the three articles agreed that standardized testing should not be used for evaluating teachers, but one author believes it should. The authors agree that standardized testing is a complex way to evaluate teachers; however, they disagree on whether or not test scores should be the only thing by which a teacher is judged. The different perspectives of the sources have swayed my opinion towards testing not being used to evaluate teachers; however, there is much more in depth research to do before my mind is made up.

