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WASHINGTON (AP) —
The vast majority of states now require that teachers be evaluated, at least in part, on student test scores — up sharply from six years ago. And in many states, those performance reviews could lead to a pink slip.
The comprehensive state-by-state analysis released Wednesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality shows 42 states and the District of Columbia have policies on the books requiring that student growth and achievement be considered in evaluations for public school teachers. In 2009, only 15 states linked scores to teacher reviews.
In 28 states, teachers with "ineffective ratings are eligible for dismissal," said the report by the Washington-based think tank.
A majority of states adopted performance-based teacher evaluations as part of the Obama administration's Race to the Top initiative, which has awarded $4 billion in grant money to states that promised reforms such as linking test scores to teacher reviews and adopting higher academic standards such as Common Core.
Other states have been pushed to adopt reforms in exchange for administration waivers giving states a pass on some of the requirements of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law. More than 40 states have received waivers since 2012.
"The bottom line of teaching is whether or not students are learning," said Sandi Jacobs, the council's senior vice president of state and district policy. "If you stand up in front of a classroom every day and deliver great lesson after great lesson but no one in the class is gaining anything, then something is off."
For 16 states, including Colorado and Connecticut, student growth is the key factor in teacher evaluations.
In Washington D.C., several hundred teachers have been fired since 2009 over poor performance reviews. Test scores made up 35 percent of evaluations for those teaching students in tested grades and subjects. But last year, the D.C. public school system suspended the practice of linking test scores to teacher evaluations while students adjust to new tests based on Common Core standards. The moratorium will be lifted next school year, according to the press secretary for schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson.
The council's Jacobs says no state considers student achievement as the sole criteria for judging teachers. Other measures, such as classroom observations and student surveys, are considered.
The emphasis on test scores has long been a contentious issue with teachers' unions and even parents who worry about over-testing.
"Student outcomes should be determined in a far more robust way than mainly using test scores, such as through student grades, projects, other student work and regular observations," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers said Wednesday. "Rather than test-and-punish systems, we need teacher evaluations that will help support and improve teaching and learning."
Parents, too, have registered concern.
A recent Gallup Poll found 55 percent of those questioned opposed linking teacher evaluations to their students' test scores. Among those with children in public schools opposition was stronger, at 63 percent.
States bucking the national trend on linking student performance to teacher reviews were California, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska and Vermont. The report said those states have no formal state policy requiring teacher evaluations consider student achievement.
Alabama, New Hampshire and Texas have policies that exist on paper, in the form of waivers granted by the Education Department. But Jacobs says the council's research turned up little evidence those states are linking teacher ratings to student achievement.
Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, says most states recognize that how students are doing in the classroom is a critical part of the teacher's role.
"There were many factors that led to this shift — federal policy, state policy, however, the most basic reason for this shift was to make sure students are at the center of these conversations with teachers," said Minnich.
According to the report, principals also are getting grades on student performance. The report said 18 states and Washington, D.C. use student growth as the key measure of how well their school chiefs are doing.
In three states, Georgia, New Jersey and Ohio, the weight of student growth in principal evaluations is usually larger than in teacher evaluations, said the report. In New Jersey, for example, the weight of student growth counts for 50 percent of principal ratings. For teachers, the range is 30-50 percent.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Ending a seven-year political saga, President Barack Obama killed the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, declaring it would have undercut U.S. efforts to clinch a global climate change deal at the center of his environmental legacy.
Obama's decision marked an unambiguous victory for environmental activists who spent years denouncing the pipeline, lobbying the administration and even chaining themselves to tractors to make their point about the threat posed by dirty fossil fuels. It also places the president and fellow Democrats in direct confrontation with Republicans and energy advocates heading into the 2016 presidential election.
The president, announcing his decision at the White House, said he agreed with a State Department conclusion that Keystone wouldn't advance U.S. national interests. He lamented that both political parties had "overinflated" Keystone into a proxy battle for climate change but glossed over his own role in allowing the controversy to drag out over several national elections.
"This pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others," he said.
Although Obama in 2013 said his litmus test for Keystone would be whether it increased U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, his final decision appeared based on other factors. He didn't broach that topic in his remarks, and State Department officials said they'd determined Keystone wouldn't significantly affect carbon pollution levels.
Instead, the administration cited the "broad perception" that Keystone would carry "dirty" oil, and suggested approval would raise questions abroad about whether the U.S. was serious about climate change.
"Frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership," the president said.
Obama will travel to Paris at the end of the month for talks on a global climate agreement, which the president hopes will be the crowning jewel for his environmental legacy. Killing the pipeline allows Obama to claim aggressive action, strengthening his hand as world leaders gather in France.
Though environmental groups hailed Friday as a "day of celebration," Obama's decision was unlikely to be the last word for Keystone XL.
TransCanada, the company behind the proposal, said it remained "absolutely committed" to building the project and was considering filing a new application for permits. The company has previously raised the possibility of suing the U.S. to recoup the more than $2 billion it says it has already spent on development.
"Today, misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science. Rhetoric won out over reason," said TransCanada CEO Russ Girling. His criticism was echoed by Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said Obama had rejected tens of thousands of jobs while railroading Congress.
"This decision isn't surprising, but it is sickening," Ryan said.
On the other side, climate activists noted the widespread assumption early in Obama's presidency that he'd eventually approve Keystone, and said his apparent about-face proved how effective a no-holds-barred advocacy campaign could be.
"Now every fossil fuel project around the world is under siege," said Bill McKibben of the environmental group 350.org.
Already, the issue has spilled over into the presidential race. The Republican field is unanimous in support of Keystone, while the Democratic candidates are all opposed — including Hillary Rodham Clinton, who oversaw the early part of the federal review as Obama's first-term secretary of state.
TransCanada first applied for Keystone permits 2,604 days ago in September 2008 — shortly before Obama was elected. As envisioned, Keystone would snake from Canada's tar sands through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, then connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to specialized refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.
But Democrats and environmental groups latched onto Keystone as just the type of project that must be phased out if the world is to seriously combat climate change. Meanwhile, Republicans, Canadian politicians and the energy industry argued the pipeline would create thousands of jobs and inject billions into the economy. They accused Obama of hypocrisy for complaining about a lack of U.S. infrastructure investment while obstructing an $8 billion project.
Amid vote after vote in Congress to try to force Obama's hand, the president seemed content to delay further and further. Most pipelines wait roughly a year and a half for permits to cross the U.S. border, but Keystone's review dragged on more than 5 times as long as average, according to a recent Associated Press analysis.
The first major delay came in 2011, when Obama postponed a decision until after his re-election, citing uncertainty about the proposed route through Nebraska. When Congress passed legislation requiring a decision within 60 days, he rejected the application but allowed TransCanada to re-apply. He delayed again in 2014 — this time indefinitely — in a move that delayed the decision until after the 2014 midterm elections.
Obama's decision on Friday risks creating a fresh point of tension in his relationship with Canada's new government. After speaking by phone with Obama on Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was "disappointed by the decision" but pledged to pursue a "fresh start" with Obama nevertheless.
For TransCanada, the financial imperative to build Keystone may have fallen off recently amid a sharp drop in oil prices that could make extracting and transporting the product much less lucrative. TransCanada has insisted that wasn't the case.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) —
Tyrannosaurus rex may have been known as the big guy around the Hell Creek Formation 66 million years ago, but a newly discovered species of raptor would have roamed the region as one of its most lethal predators.
Dakotaraptor stood 6 feet tall at the hips yet moved like a springy, agile sprinter. But the winged Dromaeosaur's 9½-inch-long killing claw could make mincemeat out of any herbivore caught in its path.
Vertebrate paleontology curator Robert DePalma of Palm Beach Museum of Natural History and his research team announced the new species in a recently published study.
Dakotaraptor helps fill a gap in body size distribution between the small bird-like Maniraptora creatures and the T. rex found in Hell Creek, which spans parts of South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.