What is it about education reform that trots out the sports analogies? Yesterday,we heard from the Economic Policy Institute about how Race to the Top’s scoring resembles the point scales in Winter Olympics figure skating. Today in the Huffington Post, another Beltway think tank urges Education Sec. Arne Duncan and other national reformers to take a page from the NFL draft. The Forum for Education and Democracy’s Sam Chaltrain delivers a nuanced argument against tying teacher performance to a “single measure of student success.”
We agree. That’s why in Tennessee, 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on two or more measures of student achievement. The other half will be based on other measures, including classroom observation. The state’s new teacher evaluation advisory committee – including several members nominated by the teachers’ unions – are busy hammering out the details over the next few months.
Tags: Race to the Top, Teacher evaluations, U.S. Dept. of Education
Posted in New Schoolhouse Blog.