For Teachers and Principals, Anger, Sadness and a Need to Explain
Some teachers said they worry that the public release of individual teacher data is going to lead to fights over high-performing students, and to the neglect of those who most need their help.
Others said they were angry that their teaching careers were being reduced to a sliver of data.
And principals spent the first day back after a week-long vacation trying to explain to parents that numbers can’t capture “the magical instruction that goes on every day’’ inside the classroom.
In school hallways and on blogs, in e-mails back and forth, and on the sidewalks in front of school buildings, few people involved in the schools could help but talk about the release on Friday of the ranking of 18,000 teachers in grades 4 through 8.
The voluminous information has provided for the first time a periscope view of what happens in each teacher’s
