The use of student learning objectives (SLOs) as part of teacher performance systems has gained traction quickly in the United States, yet little is known about how teachers select specific students’ learning goals. When teachers are evaluated—and sometimes compensated—based on whether their students meet the very objectives the teachers set at the start of the year, there may be an incentive to set low targets. SLO systems rely on teachers’ willingness and ability to set appropriately ambitious SLOs. We describe teachers’ SLO target-setting behavior in one school-district. We document the accuracy/ambitiousness of targets and find that teachers regularly set targets that students did not meet. We also find that, within the same year, a student’s spring test scores tend to be higher on the assessments for which they received higher targets. This raises the intriguing possibility that receiving higher targets might cause students to perform better than they otherwise would have.

在美国，使用学生学习目标（SLO）作为教师绩效系统的一部分已迅速受到关注，但是对于教师如何选择特定学生的学习目标知之甚少。如果根据学生是否达到了教师在年初设定的目标而对其进行评估（有时甚至是获得补偿），则可能有动机设定较低的目标。SLO系统依赖于教师的意愿和能力来设置适当的雄心勃勃的SLO。我们描述了一个校区教师的SLO目标设定行为。我们记录了目标的准确性/雄心壮志，发现老师会定期设定学生未达到的目标。我们还发现，在同一年内，学生的春季考试成绩在获得更高目标的评估中往往更高。