Bill Gates: Too Many Schools Use Teacher Evaluation For Personnel Decisions, Not As Tool For Improvement
Bill Gates defended the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations, arguing that schools can use it to help teachers improve. He said too many schools use teacher evaluations for personnel decisions, and not as a tool for teacher development.
Bill Gates said Thursday in a speech at his foundation's headquarters in Seattle that addressing education is more difficult than working on global health. He also defended the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations, explaining that it is among the several indicators that schools should use to help teachers get better
"Many systems today are about hiring and firing, not a tool for learning," Gates said.
"Test scores, of all the evaluation elements, is perhaps the most controversial," said Gates. He added that too many school systems use teacher evaluations for personnel decisions, and not for teacher development.
While the Microsoft founder said he believes that test scores are "a critical element of these systems," he said they do not tell which skills must be improved. "They are simply numbers," he added.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars into K-12 education. The foundation had also influenced federal and state policy to recognize teacher evaluation, charter schools, and the Common Core education standards.
When it comes to global health, Gates said Thursday that "every year is better than the last."
"When we come up with a new malaria vaccine, nobody votes to undo our malaria vaccine," he said. "So it's pretty steady progress."
However, Gates said K-12 education becomes less predictable when politics enters the scene.
"Because of its complexity, the relationship to management, how labor is one, you can introduce a system ... and people say, 'No, we'd rather have no system at all, completely leave us alone,'" he explained.
"That's a real possibility, if you don't nurture these systems and getBill Gates: Too Many Schools Use Teacher Evaluation For Personnel Decisions, Not As Tool For Improvement : Columns : ISchoolGuide:
