First you have to acknowledge or as our state has done disregard the danger of just teaching to a test. The main reason is, if my future hangs in the balance between kids becoming productive members of society or passing a test I am going to have a very difficult call.
Lets leave that discussion for another time and just go with test based merit pay, which is what the powers-that-be are selling, I think something like below would be fair and work.
Kids get a pre test the first week of school and a post test the last week of school. If a kid misses more than ten days and/or gets more than seven referrals (et all) over the course of the year thier scores can only count if they improve. If a kid is on free or reduced lunch thier scores only count if they improve, if a students parents don't have at least four interactions with the teacher (letter, phone call, e-mail, etc.) thier scores only count if they improve.
Teachers get bonus points for club mentoring, coaching and for volunteering with after school activities, including tutoring. If a kid transfers in their score is prorated.
Finally they should have at least one admin observation.
At some point society should say, hey we hired them lets let them teach, lets believe in them like our parents did. There is not an epidemic of bad teachers and there are not lots of and great rookie teachers waiting in the wings to replace aging teachers who have given up. These lies are almost as big as the test best merit pay being good for education one is.
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