Last week, the nation's press reported something that most teachers found unbelievable: Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that teachers should be evaluated by their students' test scores.
Teachers hate this idea because they know that teachers are not solely responsible for their students' scores. The students bear some responsibility, as do their families, for whether students do well or poorly on tests. District leaders bear some responsibility, depending on the resources they provide to schools. Teachers also are aware that the tests are not the only measure of what happens in their classrooms and that even the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said that we need better tests. There is a fairly sizable body of research demonstrating that test scores are affected by many factors beyond the teachers' control.
I was surprised too when I read the headlines and the press accounts.
I was surprised too when I read the headlines and the press accounts.
But when I read Randi's speech on the AFT website, I discovered that the media stories were wrong. In fact, Randi offered a far more complicated and nuanced proposal than what was widely reported.
She laid out a far-ranging plan for evaluating teachers, which I suspect most teachers would find fair and reasonable. Here is what she said:
First, states should set out clear professional standards that describe clearly what teachers should know and be able to do. Then, to determine whether teachers meet these standards, districts should use "multiple means of evaluation," including classroom observations, self-evaluations, portfolio reviews, appraisal of lesson plans," and a variety of other tools, including student test scores. But the scores should be based on "valid and reliable
A New Path Forward for Public Education
For American children to thrive in the 21st century, our system of public education must change from the old factory model to a new paradigm that will prepare students for today's knowledge economy. In a speech this week in Washington, I proposed a way to change this--a new path forward for our public education system, defined by excellence, fairness, shared responsibility and mutual trust. I detailed the American Federation of Teachers' comprehensive new framework for reform, which is designed, as one commentator said, "to replace the conflict-ridden approach of the past decade."
Teachers go to school every day wanting to make a difference in the lives of their students. I know this from my own experience as a high school teacher, from the incredible skill and dedication I have observed in the countless classrooms I have visited, and from AFT members' own stories attesting to their commitment to their students' success. Teachers enter this profession, as one member said, because they want to see the light of discovery in children's eyes.
The path I propose includes new ideas about teacher development and evaluation, as well as a fair and effective approach to due process. It calls for teachers to have the tools, time and trust they need to do their jobs. And it addresses the need to transform the labor-management relationship in public education into one in which teachers, administrators and all members of the wider school community have a shared responsibility and a shared commitment to ensuring all students get a great education.
All of these elements are inextricably connected. Some reports and commentaries about my speech have focused on one element or another of my proposals, missing the point that the key to success for this new approach is that its parts build upon one another and must be implemented together.
First, I have proposed a new template for teacher development and evaluation. With rare exceptions, teacher evaluation procedures are broken--cursory, perfunctory and superficial. Despite their deficiencies, such evaluations often form the basis for many consequential decisions, such as whether a teacher is deemed to be performing satisfactorily, receives tenure, or is dismissed for what is determined to be poor performance. Such an approach does nothing to help promising teachers improve or to help good teachers become great.