It may be hard to admit to what’s wrong, but when the wrong is wrong, it should be admitted and corrected. In 2010, the state legislature passed SB-191 that attached 50% of a teacher’s performance evaluation to student standardized-test scores. More than a decade later, public schools continue to implement this misguided program. SB22-044 would have ended the travesty, but it failed on a 5-to-1 vote in the Senate Education Committee.

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Tammy Story, presented a compelling case to, as she put it, “get us off the bus” of using individual-student standardized-test results in educator-performance evaluation. SB22-044 was not a screed against standardized tests. It was a balanced, carefully constructed bill to use appropriate measures for teacher evaluation as well as to reconfigure how test results should be used to support quality instruction.

The discussion over the bill brought up the standard arguments for standardized tests as a 50% metric for evaluating educators. Sen. Paul Lundeen’s favorite theory of performance evaluation is that public school educators should be assessed like employees in the private business sector. He posed this question to Colorado Concern, a business lobbying group: don’t all businesses in your organization measure their success on quantifiable metrics related to their missions?

Maybe they do. But they also get to select employees from a qualified applicant pool, train employees on specific and well-defined tasks, fire employees for tardiness or absenteeism, otherwise control their workplaces and provide performance feedback when it matters.

Public schools take in all comers – that’s the point. They teach kids all sorts of subjects. And they hope for but can’t control kids arriving to school on time and ready to learn. Some kids are homeless and hungry. Some have special needs. Some just flat out don’t like school. One final kicker: teachers don’t receive results on tests students take in March until mid-summer – too late to inform instruction for a teacher’s cohort of kids tested.

Given these facts, it’s easy to understand why teachers find the current evaluation system ridiculous and punitive. Fifty percent of their performance depends on their students testing well on math, reading and writing, even if they teach art, music and physical education.

As early as 2010, the Economic Policy Institute confirmed that standardized testing should only be a part of evaluation, and basing 50% of evaluation on the tests would be “unwise.” The Center for American Progress, in 2021, argued that current standardized tests are not valid and reliable for measuring individual teacher performance based on individual student-test results. The tests are valuable for assessing how groups of students, say elementary classrooms in a grade level, have progressed generally and what gaps may need backfilling in relation to tested areas. SB22-044 aligns with that goal.

Unfortunately, most Republicans and some Democratic leaders cling to the notion that educators should continue to be evaluated based on SB-191 criteria. They’re discounting research data, even though they claim data is their motivating interest, and they’re ignoring the education community’s testimony that the current evaluation system is a failure. The most current results of state testing in 2019 show that about half of the state’s students still are not “meeting expectations” in English Language Arts and math.

Even the state’s colleges and universities no longer rely on standardized tests for admissions. They realize that school grades are a more reliable predictor of academic success.

This ideological commitment to a business model for public education threatens its foundations. Schools, fundamentally, aren’t businesses and students aren’t products or services. The student growth model in Colorado that underlies how the state and legislature assess districts, schools and teachers is inherently flawed and has not produced predicted results.

The performance-evaluation failure is just one of several important miscalculations built into state mandates interfering with Colorado’s public education system. The ongoing battle between Adams 14 and the State Board of Education over how that district is managed shows that hiring a for-profit management company to run a school district is not a go-to solution.

SB22-054 might be a creative alternative to placing districts such as Adams 14 under state management. It allows districts to develop community schools tailored to the specific needs of specific neighborhoods. But this option may not be available to Adams 14.

The most important reform for public education that can occur right away is mundane – more money. The only way the state will recruit, train, retain and develop great teachers is to put more money into the system. Until that happens, undoing the SB-191 mess is a great idea.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.