Evaluate teachers so we can pay them what they're worth

Dick Startz:

Teachers are seriously underpaid, but the public won't support paying the good teachers more without tools to evaluate them. Teachers ought to be leading the way in designing fair evaluation systems.

Linking teacher evaluation to pay is an increasingly hot button issue in Washington state and around the nation. Too much talk is about evaluation and too little about compensation. Sure, teacher evaluation is important. But it's the wagging tail, not the dog. Evaluation schemes won't attract and keep great people in front of the class unless positive evaluations bring meaningful financial rewards.

Teachers make an enormous difference in what children learn. Every parent knows teachers matter. Extensive scientific evidence backs up the importance of teachers to education outcomes. One oft-cited statistic is that a good teacher moves students up one-and-a-half grade levels in a single year. Students of a poor teacher learn only half a year's material.

To reward good teachers we need to identify them. Evaluation should focus on measuring what students learn and then associating student learning measurements with the teachers who taught them.

Charlie Mas comments on Startz's (who has a book on the way) article.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 17, 2010 2:03 AM
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