Anthony Cody is hosting a dialogue with the Gates Foundation at
Living in Dialogue. In the latest round, the Foundation’s Director of the College Ready Education,
Vicki Phillips, says that “Education debates are often characterized wrongly as two warring camps: blame teachers for everything that's not working in our schools or defend all teachers at all costs.” Dr. Phillips also asserts, “But there's actually serious work going on in the middle.” The good news is that the Measuring Effective Teaching (MET) project, and districts from Hillsborough to Tulsa, have made constructive, collaborative efforts to serve a “common purpose.”
If the past continues to be prologue, there will be state and local leaders with the moral integrity necessary to help teachers use Gates’ research to “get better at their craft.” There will also be plenty of administrators who use a new evaluation system as a weapon against “the status quo,” i.e. teachers and our unions. Others will use it to settle scores and drive out dissenters. So, it seems certain that some schools, educators, and students will benefit from the MET, while others will be damaged by its misuse.
