All these metrics are severely flawed and have unintended (or maybe even some intended) negative consequences. Good schools are good because of good leadership and staff, not any metric, and crummy schools are crummy whether or not they make AYP. We have to have some kind of documentation to get rid of really crummy principals and staff, the ones who aren’t clever enough to protect themselves. But we are confusing ourselves by using student performance measures to document poor educator performance. For the latter, I suggest we use our eyes and ears and go into the classroom to observe, not use poorly designed indirect measures that don’t account for all the uncontrolled factors that influence them, like level of students coming into the classroom, parental involvement, family stress and income level, behavior problems, learning disabilities, special needs, etc.

Even the term “metric” is stupid, just a form of edujargon and business jargon. Why can’t we use the conventional terms “measure” or “measurement” or “measurement system”. Metric used to be an adjective, as in “the metric system”, not a noun. Sigh. People get PhDs in this stuff, get salaries circa $150,000 for it and all I want is the 6 paraprofessionals that that salary could buy and would really allow the teachers to give “differentiated” (aka “individualized” in non-eduspeak) instruction.

http://www.decaturmetro.com/2009/05/18/voila-market-cafe-closes/