10 years ago EVAAS was not the powerful yet erroneous value-added measure system used to “label” teachers.

It is now.

In 2013, the state of North Carolina started using a value-added measurement scale to help gauge teacher effectiveness and school performance. Developed by SAS which is headquartered in the Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, EVAAS collects student data and creates reports that are used to measure teacher and school effectiveness.

Around that same time, NC took away graduate degree pay and due-process rights for new teachers and also took away longevity pay for veteran teachers. All of those “reforms” are still in place today.

EVAAS stands for “Education Value-Added Assessment System.” For teachers, it is supposed to give an indication of how well students are supposed to do in a given year on the tests that are used on evaluations. 

SAS is owned by a man named Jim Goodnight.

School performance grades are largely measured by EVAAS. Just look.

But it’s what the public sees that is concerning because not everyone knows what happens behind the scenes.

The state pays more than four million dollars annually to SAS which is still run by Jim Goodnight who according to Forbes Magazine has been one of the top donating executives to political campaigns. In 2016 he donated much to a PAC for Jeb Bush who while in Florida instituted the school performance grade system that North Carolina uses now – the same one that utilizes EVAAS reports to measure schools.

Anyone who has followed the use of these school performance grades knows that the only real metric that gets measured accurately is how much those grades reflect poverty rates in schools.

From this past fall in the Charlotte Observer:

Those trends have been in place since the school performance grading system began – right after EVAAS became so powerful.

Right after pay scales and “reforms”that have devastated the teaching profession in NC came into fruition.

AND NOW GOODNIGHT IS ON RECORD AS SAYING:

Later in that very news report:

Goodnight could go further than that.

A 10% raise for teachers will not cure what ails this state’s efforts to recruit and retain good teachers. When graduate degree pay, due-process rights, longevity pay, and more teacher input about what would strengthen our schools are properly restored, then you might have a start.

And Goodnight knows that.

As far as I am concerned, he has as much to do with why NC is in this situation as anyone.