Teacher Evaluation and Ranking: A Critical Look

• In Event: Edu4: Social Imagination, Innovation, and Political Activism in Education

Abstract

Of central concern to teacher education and the field of education writ large, this working group focuses on issues pertaining to the increasing trend in the production and use of teacher evaluation and ranking. Beginning with the publicizing of teacher rankings throughout Los Angeles Unified School District, New York City became the second to follow in their implementation. At one end of the spectrum lies the argument favoring these measures by claiming that they help identify and hold teachers accountable to the “highest” standard of pedagogical instruction. At the other end is the more complex and disturbing reality defined by a socially unjust system that pressures already over-stretched teachers to meet unrealistic expectations: to ensure each student’s score goes up, regardless of limited resources, the pressures of socioeconomic status, home life, and other related circumstances. The logic of the former argument, while appealing to many in education policy concerned with “quick fixes” to the education system, falls short when seen in the light of the latter argument, especially in its “one size fits all” approach to schooling, rather than educating, our nation’s young people.

The Pearson-Stanford teacher evaluation test promises continuation of such pernicious policy, where teacher evaluation no longer falls under the jurisdiction of the school in which the teacher works, but rather comes from some distant “other,” some faceless entity seeking to simplify, truncate, privatize, and mechanize the art of educating. In light of these issues, this working group tracks and evaluates the wide range of approaches to assessing teacher effectiveness, with a commitment to human integrity, social justice, and educational equity. It researches, publicizes, and challenges attempts to reduce the complex and dynamic enterprise of teaching to a simple linear metric, while illuminating holistic and hopeful efforts working in the interest of those for whom education is truly intended: the children. It works on strategies to promote authentic and relevant assessment, sensitive to the need to resist the demonization of teachers and the simplistic measures of success.

Discussion questions:
● Has the game already been lost? How can we resist? How can we go beyond? Is public education too far along in the process of destruction to consider more holistic and humanistic efforts?
● What stance, if any, ought we to assume on this issue? Do we argue that teaching is so complex and idiosyncratic that any form of standardized evaluation (especially one based on numbers) is inappropriate? Would such a question dismiss us from much of the conversation?
● Or do we support voices like that of Linda Darling-Hammond, whose new report (http://edpolicy.stanford.edu/publications/pubs/591) presents a vision for teacher evaluation that is at least workable and somewhat fair? Is it possible to do both?

Author

• Ruth P. Silverberg, College of Staten Island - CUNY