False Gods Are Not Appeased By Human Sacrifices
I noticed a few folks today beating up Andrew "Eduwonk" Rotherman on the Twitter machine for his column in this week's Time. Let me quickly recap, and then make a larger point about the ongoing reformy education debate:
Predictably, Rotherman first tells us that teacher quality is a serious problem without any real evidence that it is. Yes, there are bad teachers, just like there are bad pilots and bad architects and bad edubloggers - that's how life works. But where's the evidence that this is a huge issue in student achievement? Eric Hanushek'sconjectures? Matt DiCarlo is able to dismiss those without batting an eyelid.
In his piece, even Rotherberg acknowledges that we're talking about one or two teachers per school. This is setting off alarms? I hate to point this out, Andrew, but if you have to rank everyone, someone will have to come
Predictably, Rotherman first tells us that teacher quality is a serious problem without any real evidence that it is. Yes, there are bad teachers, just like there are bad pilots and bad architects and bad edubloggers - that's how life works. But where's the evidence that this is a huge issue in student achievement? Eric Hanushek'sconjectures? Matt DiCarlo is able to dismiss those without batting an eyelid.
In his piece, even Rotherberg acknowledges that we're talking about one or two teachers per school. This is setting off alarms? I hate to point this out, Andrew, but if you have to rank everyone, someone will have to come
