> the harder it is to isolate individual teachers as the cause of children not learning on pace and then fire them
The Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the 'Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative' [0], only to find that teacher evaluation isn't an effective way to improve student outcomes.
Maybe there's more to improving student education than isolating individual teachers as a cause.
> 5. None of this means that teacher evaluation "doesn’t work." Rather, the point is that it’s much more complicated and much harder to do well than advocates, the Gates Foundation, or these districts initially anticipated.
There is clearly more to 'improving student education than isolating individual teachers as a cause', but average effectiveness of the faculty of a program is going to be a fairly defining metric.
What if we focus on evaluating the technique rather than the teacher to take a little bit of the vindictiveness out of the discussion and more properly equip those that are entering the field? Today new K12 teachers in the US are given basic skills around classroom management, building student relationships and the technical substrate required to teach the material. From there, young teachers learn on the fly from the staff they work with (usually the first problem), their own intuition and whatever resources and experiences are available to them.
Clearly there is some kind of spectrum, Richard Feynman vs Ben Stein in Ferris Beuller's Day Off, how do you decompose those differences in a way that you can measure their component contribution to overall effectiveness and build the most important ones up in those that are just entering the field. Maybe there are different 'roles' in teaching that could be aligned to personality types...the 'inspirers' and the 'questioners' and the 'fortifiers' and the 'ass kickers'.
I don't know the answer. I do know there are good teachers and great teachers and ones that are ten years overdue for a different career and I feel that it's worth continued time and energy sorting out what makes it that way.
> The Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the 'Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative' [0], only to find that teacher evaluation isn't an effective way to improve student outcomes.
Did you actually read the article to which you linked? Some choice quotes (emphasis mine):
> The reforms demanded too much time. The evaluations required an enormous amount of time and paperwork, and were frequently seen as a burden and distraction by teachers and school leaders alike.
> Principals tended to rate teachers highly, and scores inflated over time. It turns out that principals generally don’t like to give negative evaluations to their teachers, especially when they don’t really trust that poor performers will be removed. If principals expect that teachers will stick around regardless, they’d rather be on good terms and avoid alienating their staff.
> None of this means that teacher evaluation “doesn’t work.”
The problem isn't that rating and firing teachers doesn't work. It's that rating without the ability to fire is pointless and whatever rating system they came up with was too onerous. I blame both of those on teacher's unions which are, IMHO, one of the worst forms of public sector unions.
I did overstate my case. I think you are also overstating yours.
> rating without the ability to fire is pointless
A fair point.
> whatever rating system they came up with was too onerous.
All measurement systems come at a cost. Picking the unions to blame without looking at what the researchers or the funders required seems premature.
You don't like unions. Finland, where education reform has worked, has teachers unions. It might serve you well to investigate further if you want to achieve education reform here.
One more thing: It's worth a pass over the next-level article [0] summarizing the findings of the RAND corporation study, notably this cherry-pick of my own:
> A near-exclusive focus on TE might be insufficient to dramatically improve student outcomes. Many other factors might need to be addressed, ranging from early childhood education, to students' social and emotional competencies, to the school learning environment, to family support. Dramatic improvement in outcomes, particularly for LIM students, will likely require attention to many of these factors as well.
It vastly oversimplifies things to focus on teacher evaluation (and consequences) as a solution, and further oversimplifies things to blame unions.
The Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the 'Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative' [0], only to find that teacher evaluation isn't an effective way to improve student outcomes.
Maybe there's more to improving student education than isolating individual teachers as a cause.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickhess/2018/06/25/5-less...