Andrew Rotherham, writing in Time, makes the case for being extra careful about trying to hold teachers accountable for their performance. I don’t know why Americans continue to exempt teachers from a rigorous evaluation system — the same system that millions of workers face in industry after industry. I do agree with Mr. Rotherham that data should not be the sole evaluation factor, and I also agree with this passage from his piece:
With few exceptions, teachers’ unions fight against efforts to ground teacher evaluation in data and simultaneously resist giving administrators the discretion to remove teachers. That pretty much relegates evaluations to the realm of Ouija boards.
What remains are one-size-fits-all evaluation systems that fail to acknowledge, compensate and encourage the skilled teachers while papering over and rewarding the bad ones.
