Great teachers can help vast majority of teachers to improve
Whatever you think about using student test scores to evaluate teachers, it seems clear from the research that, at best, tests might reliably identify the most effective and least effective teachers in a school. The majority of teachers are in the middle – not terrible, but they could be better.
Figuring out how to help teachers get better is a complex task, and there’s not a lot of evidence that programs designed to help teachers improve actually work. Some people say it can’t be done. Eric Hanushek, the Hoover Institution economist whose pioneering research on teacher quality is fueling much of the debate, says he believes teachers are born and not made. He says the best way to raise teacher quality is to figure out who the worst teachers are, fire them, and bring in better ones.
