New York Teacher Ratings Renew Evaluation Debate : NPR

New York Teacher Ratings Renew Evaluation Debate : NPR:

New York Teacher Ratings Renew Evaluation Debate

by BETH FERTIG

How do you measure who is an effective teacher?

More states are wrestling with that question, now that the Obama administration is encouraging schools to evaluate teachers with a combination of student test scores and classroom observations.

The question of whether teacher evaluations are reliable indicators for teacher effectiveness has long been controversial. But New York City reignited the debate when it rated thousands of teachers with test scores alone — and then released those ratings to the public.

Katherine Moloney, an elementary school principal at P.S. 100 in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, knows