I am passionate in my beliefs that education in our country needs serious reforms or our future as a nation is in peril. This is from today's New York Times editorial page regarding who grades the teachers. I would like to see detailed guided self evaluation and evaluation by peers. I know the teacher whose classroom was next to mine my first year teaching who showed movies four out of every five days was not doing his job. I know coaches who are on cell phones all the time during practice are not doing what they could do. We evaluate the students don't we? Teaching is not easy. To be a dedicated and successful teacher demands the same focus as any other profession.
The other question I have is who teaches the teachers? Who coaches the coaches? This needs a serious look.
New York Times, March 21, 2010 - Editorial
Who Grades the Graders?
While we had mixed feelings about President Obama’s plans for
reworking the No Child Left Behind Act, he got it right when he called
on the states to create credible systems for evaluating teachers and
principals. But emulating the small number of schools that already have
those systems will not be easy. It will mean creating a new school
culture and redefining not just the roles of teachers, but the roles of
principals and superintendents.
That message comes through in a study from the Center for American
Progress, a Washington think tank that has recently been zeroing in on
this aspect of school policy. The study, by the researchers Morgaen
Donaldson and Heather Peske, takes an illuminating look at the
evaluation systems used in schools in three high- performing charter
networks that educate mainly poor and minority children.
Charter schools run on public money but are often exempt from union
contracts that can influence how and when teacher evaluations are done.
In many conventional schools, for example, tenured teachers are
evaluated only once every three or four years. Evaluations typically
consist of one or two short classroom visits. Nearly every teacher
passes, even at failing schools, and an overwhelming majority get top
ratings.
The charter networks have developed a “culture of accountability,”
in which every teacher receives a major evaluation every year. Beyond
that, teachers get frequent observations — sometimes even weekly —
accompanied by detailed feedback throughout the academic year. Student
test scores factor into the evaluation, but the teachers are also
rated on planning, presentation and whether or not they reach disparate
groups of students by exploring material from different vantage points.
Only one of the of three charter school organizations in the study
operates union-organized schools. The other two regard teachers as
at-will employees who can be released at any time. Nevertheless,
dismissal rates are low for all three, partly because they provide
newcomers with extensive supports and work to retain them once they
master the job.
Doing this kind of work means reallocating resources. Two of the
charter networks, for example, have invested heavily both in evaluators
and in administrators who shoulder the burden of running school
operations so that principals can spend more time helping teachers and
attending to the education portion of the job. Given the high tests
scores and graduation rates in these schools, these changes have been
well worth it.