Evaluating Teacher Proficiency
In an analysis of a performance plateau by4th graders in math, according to results released by the Institute of Eduction Sciences in the Nation’s Report Card, Lisa Guernsey of the Early Ed Watch Blog notes:
“In short, if we want to improve students’ proficiency in math, we have to improve teachers’ proficiency too. That may be the best way to start bending that score curve upward again.”
To improve teachers’ proficiency in math, we would first need to measure it by testing the teachers. This would facilitate correlating gaps in specific teacher proficiency with their students’ performance, and to individualize remediation for deficient teachers.
Teachers who are actively interested in increasing student achievement should champion rigorous and systematic evaluation of their peers.
Update: Reconsidering this entry, the following additional point came to me. Such teacher evaluations should include non-graded survey questions about instructional methodology. I suspect that answers by teachers on method, which are correct according to orthodoxy, may correlate failed process with failed outcomes at the granular level of the teacher-student relationship.
