Time for an acronym change?

ETEC” is one of those wonderful sounding acronyms they use to describe a well-funded Atlanta Public School reform program.

Atlanta Public Schools and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $10 million investment in the next phase of the district’s 10-year-old school reform program – the Effective Teacher in Every Classroom (ETEC) Initiative. The Gates Foundation committed to investing $10 million to help APS implement this new initiative to recruit, prepare, place and support effective teachers in every classroom throughout the district.

The three-year Gates Foundation grant and partnership will allow for a more rapid implementation of the effective teacher initiative.  The Gates Foundation has previously invested $13.6 million in the APS High School Transformation Initiative.

The effective teacher initiative includes the development of an evaluation system for teachers that is focused on student achievement and growth and classroom practice, including the development of the Teacher Effectiveness Dashboard (TED) as a tool to maximize teacher effectiveness in the classroom.  It will also strengthen the capacity of principals to successfully monitor teacher effectiveness; build a pipeline of effective teachers through an urban teacher residency program; and develop a performance compensation system that incorporates student achievement and growth.

The research clearly shows that the inclusion of an effective teacher in every classroom is the most important factor in escalating student academic achievement. The district’s school reform program began a decade ago with the elementary school reform program, followed by the high school and middle school transformation, and culminating with the Effective Teacher in Every Classroom Initiative.

The school reform initiatives that have been implemented to date have all resulted in escalating student academic performance as indicated by the results of state and national standardized tests. The Atlanta Education Fund, which works with APS on funding, public engagement and communications programs, has agreed to administer the Gates Foundation grant.

Hmmm… The higher the score, the more effective the teacher?

So what about this?

ATLANTA (AP) – Educators at nearly four dozen Atlanta elementary and middle schools cheated on standardized tests by either helping students or changing the answers once exams were handed in, according to the results of a yearlong state investigation released Tuesday.

The report said that 178 teachers and principals cheated, though only 82 educators actually confessed to misconduct dating as far back as 2001, according to a synopsis handed out by Gov. Nathan Deal’s office. More than half of the district’s 100 schools were examined, and 44 of those had cheating, the synopsis said.

I’m thinking that “Effective Teacher in Every Classroom” should be changed to  “Effective Cheater in Every Classroom.”

(The words are so similar that if you were dyslexic you might think they’re the same. Certainly they’re close enough for government work.)

 


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2 responses to “Time for an acronym change?”

  1. John S. Avatar
    John S.

    I work for an educational testing company, and every year our Test Security division uncovers numerous cases of faculty and teachers “bending” the rules to help their students get better scores. It seems to track noticeably more closely with those districts or states where the teachers or schools are evaluated based on students’ test performance.

  2. Scott M Avatar
    Scott M

    Let’s remember that No Child Left Behind came as a response to years of horror stories about “social promotion” and kids graduating that couldn’t read their diploma.

    NCLB required states to make up tests to measure the progress of children and promised to EVENTUALLY punish a school that doesn’t show sufficient progress on the state’s self-created tests.

    Compare the results on state testing versus the federal NEAP tests and you will see that many states responded to NCLB by making their tests dumb enough to get pleasing results yet some of those states are not even able to get their students to meet the weak state standards in sufficient numbers.

    We are an idiocracy.