Governor Haslam Moves To Lower Stakes Of Standardized Testing

Thousands of teachers in Tennessee received training on Common Core over the summer. The state has now fully incorporated math and reading standards, though the Common Core testing has yet to begin. Credit: Education Plus via Flickr

Governor Bill Haslam is moving to lower the stakes for standardized testing in teacher evaluations. The administration has outlined a series of steps in an effort to “support teachers.”

This includes a proposal to adjust the weighting of student test scores in annual evaluations as students start taking a new assessment next year, which will be called “TNReady.” The test scores would only count for 10 percent of a teacher’s evaluation at first, then gradually return to 35 percent. For teachers in non-tested grades and subjects, test scores would permanently go from 25 to just 15 percent of their evaluation.

The legislature would have to sign off on the changes.

Governor Haslam also announced plans to disclose questions on the 2014 test and which ones were most often answered correctly and incorrectly. The state will release practice questions ahead of the 2015 test and provide training on how the assessment was designed.

“We’ve asked more from our teachers,” Haslam said in a statement. “Educators are vital to continued progress in Tennessee, and we want to make sure we’re supporting them in meaningful ways.”