A Principal Submits... TPM Accountability Score Inflation

A LYS principal submits the following:

I was speaking to Mr. Brezina at the TASSP conference concerning the amount of padding that TPM added to test scores. I told him that I expect that the average amount of inflation was 10 to 15%. He was surprised it was that much. To assure myself that I was on the right track, I did the math on the difference between my 2010 real scores and my 2010 TPM results as reported on CSR's. The results were different by a staggering 19%. That's a school maker or breaker. Our school made gains in every reported sub-pop in math and science. In some cases, we had double-digit gains. However, we did not overcome the 19% subtraction.

SC Response

The state adding the TPM multiplier was like a teacher having a couple of bonus questions at the end of the test. Get a couple of the bonus questions right and you are no longer struggling, you are doing just fine. Even though you still don’t have a handle on the content. The schools that did best in the TPM era were the schools that had principals that wouldn’t allow their campuses to celebrate the lie of TPM success. Unfortunately, these principals were few and far between. It takes a special kind of hard case to actually tell the gift horse to take a hike. Bottom line, TPM was bad policy and bad practice and I am glad it is gone. Now we get to re-focus on improving actual student performance.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

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