Public Education: Why Can’t We Learn From the Success Stories?
Last week I read two stories about large public education systems that have stuck with me for days. One story, on page one of The Washington Post, profiled the work of Chris Lloyd, the vice president of the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), the teachers’ union representing the 12,000 classroom professionals employed by Montgomery County, MD Public Schools. It detailed the positive progress a district can make when its professionals at all levels work together to support good teaching and counsel poor performers out of the profession. The second story, a posting on the blog Teacher in a Strange Land by Nadia Zananiri, an AP World History teacher in the Miami-Dade Public Schools, describes the tragic consequences of education policies that unfairly and inaccurately “rate” teachers using “value-added” data and publicly rank schools and the professionals who work in them by publishing those ratings in the popular press. Since both districts are large urban-suburban districts with a diverse student population, I’m puzzled by why the Florida district can’t learn from the Maryland district’s success.For more than a decade, Montgomery County Public Schools has used a program called Peer Assistance and Review (PAAR) to evaluate, support, and improve classroom instruction. The program was developed in partnership with the MCEA, the principals’ organization, and central office administrators with the support of the school board and focuses on providing mentoring for new teachers and ongoing feedback to experienced teachers to insure that the students in the district are successful. When a teacher’s practice doesn’t improve after
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