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> The Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the 'Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative' [0], only to find that teacher ev
by koolba 8y ago
> The Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the 'Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative' [0], only to find that teacher evaluation isn't an effective way to improve student outcomes.
Did you actually read the article to which you linked? Some choice quotes (emphasis mine):
> The reforms demanded too much time. The evaluations required an enormous amount of time and paperwork, and were frequently seen as a burden and distraction by teachers and school leaders alike.
> Principals tended to rate teachers highly, and scores inflated over time. It turns out that principals generally don’t like to give negative evaluations to their teachers, especially when they don’t really trust that poor performers will be removed. If principals expect that teachers will stick around regardless, they’d rather be on good terms and avoid alienating their staff.
> None of this means that teacher evaluation “doesn’t work.”
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickhess/2018/06/25/5-less.. https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickhess/2018/06/25/5-less....
The problem isn't that rating and firing teachers doesn't work. It's that rating without the ability to fire is pointless and whatever rating system they came up with was too onerous. I blame both of those on teacher's unions which are, IMHO, one of the worst forms of public sector unions.
- pjmorris 8y agoI did overstate my case. I think you are also overstating yours. > rating without the ability to fire is pointless A fair point. > whatever rating system they came up with was too onerous. All measurement systems come at a cost. Picking the unions to blame without looking at what the researchers or the funders required seems premature. You don't like unions. Finland, where education reform has worked, has teachers unions. It might serve you well to investigate further if you want to achieve education reform here.
- pjmorris 8y agoOne more thing: It's worth a pass over the next-level article [0] summarizing the findings of the RAND corporation study, notably this cherry-pick of my own: > A near-exclusive focus on TE might be insufficient to dramatically improve student outcomes. Many other factors might need to be addressed, ranging from early childhood education, to students' social and emotional competencies, to the school learning environment, to family support. Dramatic improvement in outcomes, particularly for LIM students, will likely require attention to many of these factors as well. It vastly oversimplifies things to focus on teacher evaluation (and consequences) as a solution, and further oversimplifies things to blame unions. [0] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2242.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2242.html