[quote=pri_dk]
Nobody said that teachers should not have performance standards. In California, it is actually quite difficult to even become a teacher. Even a person of your caliber and level of success would probably need to go back to school for years just to meet the minimum requirements. (BTW: how do you ever find the time to waste on silly internet message boards with all that responsibility?)
You use phrases like “better” results and “improving it” without defining them, essentially avoiding the meat of the issue with vagueness and platitudes. It sounds so decisive, but you haven’t actually said anything.
So what is “better?” How do you know when “it” needs to be “improved?”
So back to the original question: How does one quantitatively measure the performance of a teacher? Should we “just do it,” or perhaps “get ‘er done?”
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pri_dk, you are making my point for me. The entire rest of the country could spend all its time debating how difficult it is to apply vigorous performance standards, with real effect, to everyone. But we don’t, we just get on with it. Does that mean we do it perfectly? No. Does it mean that we do it so badly that it’s worse than no performance standards at all? Not even close.
And limiting vigorous performance standards to the entry stages of a job just doesn’t cut it. That’s not how things work for most of us, and there’s a reason – it’s fighting the battle for greater productivity with one hand tied behind your back. It’s hopelessly ineffective and unnecessary.
Why don’t I get into a blow-by-blow debate about each specific technique to measure teachers’ performance? For the same reason you don’t try to prove to a mathematician that you like ice cream, using mathematical formulas. I think we’ve all seen enough to know, as well as we know that we like ice cream, that any system, in any arena, with a decent amount of competition and with real rewards and accountability for the people involved produces better results for consumers (kids, in this case) than systems without those elements.
