A Twitter Surprise
When I logged onto my Twitter account last Tuesday, an interesting string of comments/news scrolled across my screen. As fate would have it, the National Education Association (NEA) annual meeting and the National Charter Schools Conference (NCSC) were both taking place, and their keynote speaker addresses filled my Twitter feed. The NEA speakers, former Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS) district superintendent Jerry Weast and Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond offered perspectives on the roles teachers can and should play as successful practitioners in the classroom and beyond. Dr. Weast profiled the MCPS Peer Assistance and Review Program (PAAR), designed in collaboration with the local unit of NEA and the district administration to institute a system of teacher evaluation led by teachers and predicated on the assumption that evaluation should be used to support improved teacher effectiveness. The PAAR system in MCPS is also used to document persistent unsatisfactory teacher performance, but its aim is to support good teaching and help teachers improve. The result has also been to dismiss teachers for whom the support has not been successful; however, as Dr. Weast emphasized, the goals are to develop teacher leaders, build professional collaboration, and honor the expertise teachers