20-fold increase in standardized testing coming with Gates Foundation's "Common Core":

[maggiesfarmer]

35. no question socioeconomic issues correlate to student success

but as I said below in #34, education improvements can't fix that. I do believe that improving education is a necessary (but not sufficient criteria) to leveling those socioeconomic factors. Education improvements, however, can fix the amount of learning a student receives. We shouldn't stop trying to improve education just because we don't have immediate solutions to the wider problems.

Now, I don't want to attack teachers. Not good ones. I do want to identify the ineffective teachers and put them on an action plan. For that matter, I want to identify the most effective teachers and ensure they are compensated appropriately. I believe that measuring individual student improvement YOY provides a statistic method for quantitatively measuring student learning while providing the ability to adjust for the very socioeconomic factors you mention. I do not believe this should be the sole criteria -- I support subjective evaluation from supervisors, peers and students, continued education programs and other means that should also be given consideration in measuring teacher effectiveness.