Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Chicago forum on teacher evaluation

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Chicago forum on teacher evaluation

Chicago forum on teacher evaluation

by Mike Klonsky

I even put a tie on

It's the day after Halloween so I didn't feel so bad about putting on a tie and dressing up like a downtown school reformer. The reason? It's the first of this year's Schools Policy Luncheon Series, organized jointly by BPI and Catalyst. This one, titled: Teacher evaluation and compensation: Getting it right, grabbed my interest for obvious reasons. The biggest crowd ever, packed the main lounge at the Union League Club (business attire required). Thus the tie.


Lunching on sliced chicken, salad greens, chocolate cake with a blackberry next to it, and lots of coffee, I heard Susan Moore Johnson from Harvard, CTU prez,Karen Lewis, and Peter Martinez, the head of UIC's Urban Leadership Program.


Johnson, coming from Harvard, of course had a Power-Point nobody could read. But her assessment of Value-Added based on standardized tests, "which measure only part of what teachers are expected to do," was great. She basically argued that VA and standardized tests should NOT be used to make important decisions about schools firing or paying teachers; that VA doesn't show teachers how to improve; and that it doesn't improve collaboration within schools. She hit hard on the L.A. Times publication of