The #SOTU and #education hints at quite a bit missing

Education Week reports on the State of the Union and what it had to say about education.

“Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones,” he said. “In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn. That’s a bargain worth making.”

Fantastic, but let’s talk about teaching to that damn test. The prevailing measure right now to measure teacher quality, to keep good teachers on the job, are test scores, value added models. That’s the tool being touted at the expense of any other. If your livelihood depends on test scores, how can you then make the plea to not teach to the test? Strange.

And where the hell was Race to the Top?