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School districts across the country are considering important changes to how teachers are evaluated, a change that is going to lead to better teaching and learning. That's critical. U.S. students are doing mediocre at best on international tests. We can and must do better.
There is not a single school factor that has more of an effect on student learning than teacher quality. It's more important than shrinking class sizes or building state-of-the-art science labs. Sure, those are nice. But having a highly effective teacher is essential.
So how do we get there? When I was chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools from 2007 until late last year, we put a robust teacher evaluation system in place. However, before we got started