Primary Sources: America's Teachers on America's Schools - SURVEY FINDS TEACHERS DON'T TRUST ANNUAL STATE SKILLS TESTS

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY  | http://usat.ly/zhyxHZ

16 March 2012  ::  Despite years of rhetoric from lawmakers and education reformers about the importance of tying teacher pay to student test scores, fewer teachers now believe the move will keep good teachers in the classroom.

<< By Jim Weber, The Commercial Appeal, via AP - Fewer teachers think that linking salaries to student test scores will help retain good instructors, a survey finds.

A new online survey of 10,000 U.S. teachers, released Thursday, finds that only 16% believe linking student performance and teacher pay is "absolutely essential" or "very important" in retaining good teachers. That's down from 28% in 2010.

In all, only 52% of teachers say it'll make any difference at all, down from 65% two years ago, the first year the survey was done.

The massive national teacher survey by the educational publisher Scholastic was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Primary Sources: America's Teachers on America's Schools is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue with America’s teachers. To download the full report and view a presentation of the findings, please visit www.scholastic.com/primarysources.

The push to link teacher retention and salaries to scores on annual state skills tests has become commonplace in U.S. education, promoted most significantly by the Obama administration's Race to the Top grants, which all but require school districts to do so.

The survey finds that teachers simply don't trust the tests. Only 26% say they're "an accurate reflection of student achievement."

Most teachers also say that simply doing away with evaluations won't work, either: 92% say tenure, granted to many teachers after only a handful of years in the classroom, "should not protect ineffective teachers."

The findings show that teachers welcome evaluations, said Margery Mayer, Scholastic's education president. "They just didn't want it all based on one test."

Teachers also say they're seeing students whose families are struggling in the sluggish economy. About half of veteran teachers surveyed said they're seeing more students come to school hungry or living in poverty. Those findings were a revelation, Mayer said, showing that teachers "are the front line on poverty in our country."

In a finding that may reflect teachers' weariness over the lagging economy and anemic state budgets, fewer teachers now say that higher salaries in general will retain good teachers: 75%, compared with 86% in 2010.

That finding doesn't surprise Cate Dossetti, an English teacher at Fresno (Calif.) High School. By de-emphasizing pay, she said, teachers "are wanting to refocus the conversation around the real work that they do in the classroom every day."