Saturday, January 19, 2013

Louisiana Educator: MET Project Dissected

Louisiana Educator: MET Project Dissected:


MET Project Dissected

Math teacher and blogger Gary Rubinstein has dissected and uncovered serious flaws in the Gates sponsored study of effective teacher evaluation systems called the MET project (Measures of Effective Teaching). It turns out that if we look carefully at the data from the MET study we find that the basic assumptions for focusing on revised teacher evaluation and dismissal procedures as a way of improving public education are really not justified.

One of the most basic assumptions driving the major revamp of teacher evaluation and dismissal procedures in Louisiana is that poor teaching must be the primary cause of low student performance in some Louisiana schools. Our reformers (Jindal, White and big business) believe that all you have to do to improve education is to create a system that fires the worst teachers and trains all the remaining teachers to teach effectively. The new laws passed by Jindal will require the firing of the lowest performing teachers each year and provide all the others feedback on how their students are doing on state tests so they can set proper goals for improvement. Finally Louisiana teachers will watch videos of supposedly great teachers doing what is considered effective teaching so