Voters in Missouri ‘Resoundingly’ Reject Test-Based Teacher Evaluations

Missouri residents on Election Day “resoundingly” voted down an initiative on the ballot that would have amended the state Constitution to require teachers to be assessed based on students’ standardized test scores.

As Breitbart News reported, Amendment 3 would “require teachers to be evaluated by a standards based performance evaluation system” and “require teachers to be dismissed, retained, demoted, promoted and paid primarily using quantifiable student performance data as part of the evaluation system.”

The people of Missouri used the power of their vote to demonstrate their contention that standardized testing is not the best way to keep educators accountable. According to the Southeast Missourian, “With 2,760 of 3,329 precincts reporting, 926,753 people, or nearly 77 percent, voted against the proposal and 277,763, or 23 percent, voted for it.”

“I don’t think the results could have been more clear,” Mike Sherman, the director of communications for Protect Our Local Schools, told the newspaper, which reported that “he said it sounds like voters knew the amendment would have a negative effect on the public school system and rejected it resoundingly.”

The Associated Press reported that the push to judge teachers based on a single test created fears that teachers would have been compelled to “teach to the test.” The AP added that Missourians were concerned that Amendment 3, if passed, “could have led to unfair results for teachers of disadvantaged students who might test poorly regardless of instruction.”

Ron Anderson, superintendent of the Jackson R-2 School District, said that voters recognized that teacher evaluations based on students’ test scores simply had no place in their Constitution, and they voted accordingly.