EDUCATION policy-makers and Maryland officials are investigating ways to link teachers' job evaluations to students' progress.

Before deciding to implement such a plan, school administrators and state officials should consider some issues that teachers confront daily in classrooms at a levels of education, from kindergarten through college.

First, a question: If a teacher teaches, will the students learn?

Assume the ideal world. Our teachers are academically qualified in their subjects, are fully certified, have met all of the state requirements to be in the classroom, are highly motivated and like their students.

Not only that, but our ideal teachers have had plenty of time to prepare all the books and other materials needed for their classes.

So, the teachers come to school, meet their classes and teach. They teach well, they teach with enthusiasm and creativity, and they work hard to reach every student.

In short, assume the teachers have done everything that could be expected of them in the best classrooms in the best schools.

And suppose that, when the students take the standardized state or national tests to measure their educational progress, the students achieve poorly.

Is it the students' fault that they performed poorly on the tests -- or is it the teacher's fault?

Consider, now, the real world, the one in which teachers work. State officials need to realize that teachers cannot regulate many student behaviors. Yet, all these behaviors affect student performance, and all are beyond the teachers' power to control. For example:

Absenteeism. Students who are not regularly in class cannot keep up with the flow of the work, the development of a unit theme or a complex idea.

Such students must be constantly reintroduced to the work that the rest of their classmates have completed. They are always behind the others in the class and often can't catch up. Will their absences affect their school's performance? Is that the teacher's fault?

Chronic lateness to class. Late students disrupt the classroom on arriving and then divert the teacher's attention from others in class when the teacher tries to help the latecomer make up what he has missed.

Students' failure to complete homework assignments. Teachers can assign homework. But can they force students to complete the work? No. And without homework to reinforce and expand on material taught in class, is it reasonable to assume students will progress in their studies? Or test well?

Students' lack of curiosity or motivation. While every teacher has, and uses, a "bag of tricks" to encourage and motivate students, the responsibility for learning rests on the learner, not on the teacher.

What if the students decide to "blow off" a standardized test, fail to take it seriously and do badly? Should the teacher be held accountable for those results?

Lack of parental interest. Teachers have no control over the home environment of their students. Studies have consistently shown the positive influence strong parental involvement can have on student performance. But if parents do not get involved in their children's academic lives, how can teachers be held accountable for these students' poor scholastic records?

It is an admirable goal to make teachers responsible for how they perform their jobs. They should be held accountable, but only for what they actually do, not what we would wish they could do.

The problem with linking teachers' job evaluations to student performance is that, assuming teachers teach as they should, there is no direct, cause-and-effect connection between what teachers do and how students perform on a test.

Why? Because so many of the variables described above can influence student performance. In addition, student achievement can be affected by discipline problems, mainstreamed special education students, sports and other activities. All of these distract from academics and can affect student achievement.

None of these variables is within a teacher's control. But all of them can negatively affect student performance in school and on tests. Is the teacher to blame? It hardly seems logical or fair.

Teachers can, and should be, evaluated. Teachers can be judged on their command and use of the English language, the response of students to classroom activities, the quality and character of each teacher's interreaction with students, and the teacher's lesson preparation and classroom organization, to name only a few aspects of teaching that can be observed and assessed in a classroom.

But it is unreasonable, and illogical in the extreme, to propose to link teachers' job evaluations to student performance. Teachers simply have no control over too many student behaviors that can affect students' progress and achievement in school.

Michael Holden is an associate professor of English at Delaware State University in Dover, Del. He lives in Chestertown.

Pub Date: 03/14/99