How Should Teacher Effectiveness Be Measured?
The National Journal published a short piece recently and asked that question: How should teacher effectiveness be measured? They start by referring to a recent study on teacher effectiveness measures (or the lack of them):
In a report titled “The Widget Effect,” the nonprofit New Teacher Project found that in public schools nationwide, teacher effectiveness is not measured, recorded or used to inform decision-making in any meaningful way. The result, according to the study, is a system where teachers are treated as interchangeable parts.
My first thought is that the answer can’t be a binary one. We can’t confine ourselves to the narrow box of saying that a teacher is either effective or not effective. It’s more complicated than that.
Neither can the answer be related solely to student achievement measured in a single year.
The National Journal’s blog post had 25 comments on it when last I looked at it…
