Evaluating Schools and Teachers Based On Student Performance

As urban school systems continue to fail large segments of the school-age population, there has been an increasing concern with accountability. A major question has been: Can teachers be held accountable for the academic achievement of students? This article describes an empirical test of a method of evaluating schools and teachers based on the performance of students on standardized achievement tests. The research indicates that teachers can be evaluated using this method of predicting student performance and comparing it with actual outcomes.