Struggle over how to evaluate special ed teachers

Apr 24, 2011
11:40 AM EDT
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO
AP Education Writer

MIAMI (AP) -- Since the first day of class this school year, Bev Campbell has been teaching her students how to say their names.

Some of the children in her class have autism. Others have Down syndrome or other disabilities. "People don't understand where they've come from," she says. "It's slow."

Just one has learned how to say his name. Still, the South Florida teacher sees signs of growth in the nine kindergarten to second-grade students in her class.

Those little steps are what teachers like Campbell consider major leaps for students with the most significant physical and cognitive disabilities - and what are the most challenging to capture on a test. Yet that will be a significant part of the way school districts in Florida and in many other states will evaluate teachers.

Spurred by the U.S. Department of Education's $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant competition, more than a dozen states have passed laws to reform how teachers are evaluated and include student growth as a component. For most students, that growth will be measured on standardized tests. But for special education students that is considerably more complicated.

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