Building a Strong Teacher Work Force
I recently attended an information-rich meeting sponsored by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), at which Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at the University of London, addressed the topic of Teacher Expertise: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How We Can Get More of It. The results of Dr. Wiliam’s research are fascinating and important as we work collectively towards improving our public education system. The first thing that came to mind after listening to his talk was the old humorous adage, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice.”What Dr. Wiliam’s work has uncovered is that only investing in existing teachers produces enough improvement to result in the changes we need in our education system and that this is not happening systematically in most schools and districts…but that it could be. As context for his research findings, he asserts that “What works?” is rarely the right question because