Rather than Choosing "Best" Teacher, Parents Should Seek Best Match - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Rather than Choosing "Best" Teacher, Parents Should Seek Best Match - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Rather than Choosing "Best" Teacher, Parents Should Seek Best Match

by Nancy Flanagan

Guest post by Rachel Levy:

Andrew Rotherham recently wrote a column in Time advocating for parents' choosing their children's teachers. Some of the commenters at Joanne Jacobs' blog have some valid criticisms. Jacobs' summarizes in saying:

Of course, if all parents investigate teachers' reputations and request whoever's considered best, this doesn't work.

While I could make the same case against it, I want to take this criticism a step further. First of all, parents may not make the best choices for their children. Not every parent is an education expert, and they may choose based on irrelevant criteria. They might choose a teacher based on the color of his skin or based on her having an accent. Or they might choose based on the simplest and most