Educators Fail
Performance Assessment

Most educators use student assessment as a substitute for assessing their own performance in providing education services. The notion of relying only on student performance as a substitute for teacher performance is silly. Yet this flawed logic has established itself as the cornerstone of today's education performance assessment. The CEA provides an alternative with the means to consider other factors such as resources and faculty performance in addition to student outcomes.

Most educators do not understand the true meaning of the word assessment. Educators tend to equate “assessment” to “outside interference” from non-educators who do not understand the teaching profession. The CEA supports an assessment process that is ongoing and includes an unbiased review of performance. Assessment is not an adversarial exercise. Assessment is an exercise that should lead to improvements by sharing and applying knowledge gained over time.

The idea that educators have insufficient funding to establish effective assessment tools is rubbish. The truth is that educators use a herd mentality by choosing to purchase expensive external assessment services instead of managing internal data and resources more effectively. To make matters worse many institutions require students to pay additional fees for assessment data collection and processing. Equivalent computer processing is much less expensive when educators provide it as an internal administrative service. In addition cost savings are generated by an effective assessment process.

As a result of nine years assisting educators with assessment the CEA has come to question whether some educators are willing or able to use basic assessment techniques. Is it possible that some educators want to keep their performance data from others? Maybe the incentive for educators to account for their performance is missing?

The CEA’s stand is that schools, colleges, and universities have an obligation to use their private and public funding as effectively as possible. Effectiveness requires the collection of performance data and its use to improve education programs. The Center for Education Assessment has found that many educators deserve a failing grade, "F", in assessing their performance and sharing it with others.