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

[knitter4democracy]

73. Different states have different teaching requirements.

Same with different teaching colleges. My college's education department would kick us out for anything less than a B in any required class, if we didn't past the National Teachers' Exam on the first try, and for a whole host of other measures. They weeded out a lot, and almost all of the people I graduated with I'd want my kids to have as teachers today. Raise the standards in the teaching colleges (which they won't because those departments are cash cows--students bear a huge financial burden, tons go through and pay tons of money for the privilege, and most programs now are 5 years long), and you'll see a difference.

When even the testing companies say that the tests are not designed to measure the effectiveness of teachers and administrators, it makes no sense to use them that way. You still haven't shown anything higher than a weak correlation, and it's bad math, bad science. Test scores are out of a principal's control--it's far more effective to measure a principal's worth through talking to staff, students, and parents; looking at what the principal has done to mediate conflict and manage staff; and have him/her put together a portfolio of all the meetings, crises, grant issues, and budget issues s/he's dealt with that year. You'll get a far more complete picture than just looking at the snapshot of one test.

That's all the tests are: snapshots. They measure how that particular student handled that topic on that particular day. That's it (and barely that much of the time). When the writing graders can spend more than 1-3 minutes per test, when the test writers have eliminated bias from the questions and content, and when we can control for the students who didn't sleep the night before or eat right in the days prior, then I would consider using them.