PoliticalChic
Diamond Member
Sure there are good teachers...bet each of us can name three who changed our lives.
"Value-added teacher evaluation" can help identify the good ones.
From an interesting essay in the City Journal:
1. Value-added teacher evaluationa method that estimates the contribution teachers make to students test-score gainsis a concept whose time has most definitely come. Californians are entitled to know precisely who is and isnt delivering the goods for their children.
2. The Los Angeles Times last month published a much-anticipated follow-up to its path-breaking 2010 investigation, which ranked 6,000 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade teachers based on their students progress on standardized tests year after year. The updated rankings include data for more than 11,500 teachers. Using the California Public Records Act, Times reporters Jason Felch, Jason Song, and Doug Smith obtained student math and language arts scores for the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2003 through 2009.
3. The newspaper commissioned Richard Budden, a senior economist and education researcher with the Santa Monicabased RAND Corporation, to analyze the data. Using the value-added technique, he converted the scores into percentile ratings, and then divided them into five equal categories from least effective to most effective.
4. The Times stories have exposed that what currently passes for teacher evaluation in California is useless. Currently, a principal or other administrator may visit a class several times (usually with a warning given long in advance), stay a few minutes, scribble down some notes, and leave .Thanks to this ineffective process, more than 99 percent of all teachers receive satisfactory ratings, and after just two years in the classroom achieve tenureessentially a job for life.
5. Undaunted by the unions bullying, the Times spent the next nine months showing the benefits of value-added teacher evaluations. The paper reported: Highly effective teachers routinely propel students from below grade level to advanced in a single year. There is a substantial gap at years end between students whose teachers were in the top 10 percent in effectiveness and the bottom 10 percent. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.
6. Studies have shown that two consecutive years with a bad teacher can leave students so far behind that they will never catch up.
7. Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek claims that while value-added analysis isnt perfect, its the best tool we have available to zero in on the impact of the individual teacher on student achievement gains.
8. Teachers unions dislike all forms of substantive teacher evaluation, viewing any kind of official differentiation among teachers as encouraging competition, which sows envy and thus undermines solidarity. Truth is, of course, objective evaluations show that some teachers really are more effective than others.Grading the Teachers by Larry Sand - City Journal
Let's not throw the baby out with the bad teachers....
"Value-added teacher evaluation" can help identify the good ones.
From an interesting essay in the City Journal:
1. Value-added teacher evaluationa method that estimates the contribution teachers make to students test-score gainsis a concept whose time has most definitely come. Californians are entitled to know precisely who is and isnt delivering the goods for their children.
2. The Los Angeles Times last month published a much-anticipated follow-up to its path-breaking 2010 investigation, which ranked 6,000 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade teachers based on their students progress on standardized tests year after year. The updated rankings include data for more than 11,500 teachers. Using the California Public Records Act, Times reporters Jason Felch, Jason Song, and Doug Smith obtained student math and language arts scores for the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2003 through 2009.
3. The newspaper commissioned Richard Budden, a senior economist and education researcher with the Santa Monicabased RAND Corporation, to analyze the data. Using the value-added technique, he converted the scores into percentile ratings, and then divided them into five equal categories from least effective to most effective.
4. The Times stories have exposed that what currently passes for teacher evaluation in California is useless. Currently, a principal or other administrator may visit a class several times (usually with a warning given long in advance), stay a few minutes, scribble down some notes, and leave .Thanks to this ineffective process, more than 99 percent of all teachers receive satisfactory ratings, and after just two years in the classroom achieve tenureessentially a job for life.
5. Undaunted by the unions bullying, the Times spent the next nine months showing the benefits of value-added teacher evaluations. The paper reported: Highly effective teachers routinely propel students from below grade level to advanced in a single year. There is a substantial gap at years end between students whose teachers were in the top 10 percent in effectiveness and the bottom 10 percent. The fortunate students ranked 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math.
6. Studies have shown that two consecutive years with a bad teacher can leave students so far behind that they will never catch up.
7. Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek claims that while value-added analysis isnt perfect, its the best tool we have available to zero in on the impact of the individual teacher on student achievement gains.
8. Teachers unions dislike all forms of substantive teacher evaluation, viewing any kind of official differentiation among teachers as encouraging competition, which sows envy and thus undermines solidarity. Truth is, of course, objective evaluations show that some teachers really are more effective than others.Grading the Teachers by Larry Sand - City Journal
Let's not throw the baby out with the bad teachers....