Is D.C.'s teacher evaluation system rigged?
My guest is Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Pallas writes the Sociological Eye on Education blog for The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media. By Aaron Pallas Two old jokes about doctors and medical school: Joke #1: 50 percent of all doctors finish in the bottom half of their medical school class. Joke #2: Q: What do you call the person who finishes last in his or her medical school class? A: “Doctor.” Why do we laugh at these jokes? (At least, the first time we hear them?) Because there’s an incongruity in the idea of very high achievers (as most medical students are) being portrayed as low achievers. It’s all relative, of course. The 50 percent of the doctors who finish in the bottom half of the class at the Johns
