One thing I love about the web, is that for access to information that one admires and respects, it's the great equaliser. So although I live in the middle of the Pacific, I can read quality Op-Eds from the New York time. One of which, Bob Herbert, has always impressed. That is until today. It's not terrible, Mr. Herbert continues to write quality. It's just that he's reporting an opinion on something that has many subtleties and thus he is most likely unaware of them. To give you a flavour of his (positive imho) mindset, he states that "... America's greatest national security crisis is the crisis in its schools." I don't know if this is true about America's education system, but in all the countries that I know something about (UK, Germany, Fiji) this is most apt.
However, on the negative side (imho) he wrote about a speech by the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. Ms. Weingarten wants teachers to be evaluated on their performance at least partially by the student test scores. If ever there was a conflict of interest, this has to be a contender for one of the top examples. I'm ignoring for the moment the fact that Ms. Weingarten categorically stated that this should not be the main, primary or even heavily weighted criteria, but merely 'a criteria'.
My argument is that however meagrely such an index is weighted, there are so many ways that this is inappropriate that it's not worth the trouble. For instance, what happens to teachers who teach in socio-economically depressed areas where access to teaching/learning resources is weaker; what happens to teachers who are teaching large classes (ie is there a factor to mitigate against this); what happens to teachers who've been rostered in any particular year to teach their least preferred subjects; and finally and perhaps most damagingly, are the assessments used to evaluate children's learning truly representative?
If the answer is no to any of these questions, then any basis for evaluating teachers falls down.
That does not mean to say that student test scores cannot be used indirectly. If Teacher McGubbins has consistently low national scores on English in Class 10 when the previous national test under Teacher Goodsmart 2 years previously is considerably higher, then the prudent HeadTeacher Overseer of course would investigate why this might be so, which might indicate that there is a qualitative teaching difference between her teachers McGubbins and Goodsmart.
But as a formal assessment on teacher performance? - No!
Not, I hasten to add, am I against what it is that Mr. Herbert is endorsing - far from it. I too feel that teaching quality should be assessed and if necessary poor teaching should be pruned from the system asap. Prior to this though we need, robust, reliable assessment measures as to what constitutes 'good' or 'great' teaching.
Of course I avidly await Mr. Herbert's next Op-Ed in the New York Times.