Uhm, Houston, we have a problem...

Houston is gonna measure teachers by their test scores -- and fire the ones that don't add up.

Interesting stuff.

I guess we always knew it would come to this, didn't we? Nobody is questioning the tests; everyone is questioning the teachers that don't deliver the test scores.

The article is well worth a read. Seems as though they have a sophisticated prognostication thing-ey which can generate a "value-added test score".

As the article says...

The value-added score, based on a complex statistical formula, is a measure of how much a teacher's students exceeded expectations on standardized tests (mostly the TAKS: Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills). The formula projects how well students should score based on their own past performance.

If the formula is so good at projecting how well the students should score, then how come the formula can't discern that there is no formula for knowing where actual live human beings will be 3-4 years down the line?

Can you guess what will happen 3 years from now? Sure you can. Let's just go back to 2007 and look at some of the most widely held best "guesses" for 2010 from way back then.

The best minds on Wall Street. They took a shot in 2007 on a thing called derivatives. And they have Harvard MBA's.

Oops. Not so good.

Okay, that's not fair. I mean who could have predicted credit swap defaults and the recession? Let's guess about something else. We'll make it easy. A virtual lock in 2007 to do all sorts of unprecedented, amazing things in 2010. A man who was gonna approach if not break all kinds of records by one Golden Bear.

And the winner is... Tiger Woods.

Whoops! Wrong again.

Sure, we should fire teachers based on not measuring up to their "value-added" scores. Cause three years from now is so easy to predict -- especially when it comes to student success -- that there is simply no sense even doubting the veracity of this approach to professional evaluation.

Uhm, Houston, we have a problem...