Every job I’ve ever had was based on my job performance. Why should teachers be different? They want to get rid of FCAT because so many schools failed but claim it is because it takes so much of their time. Now they don’t want to be accountable at all? Nice gig if you can get it I guess.
I have worked for 30 years in post-secondary education. Evaluating teaching effectiveness is one of the hardest tasks that administrators have. Even metric that is commonly used has serious fundamental flaws which usually lead to some dysfunctional behavior as instructors attempt to game the system.
“Every job I’ve ever had was based on my job performance. Why should teachers be different?”
Because in most jobs, it is in fact YOUR job performance that is being measured. In teaching, no matter how good I do my job, I cannot guarantee the outcome, especially not when it is being measured by a test taken by someone other than myself, i.e., the student. Some fool who stamps license plates can guarantee that 1. he can stamp them all the same size; 2. that they are all the same consistency; 3. that I make so many in an hour, so many per day, etc. It is in fact a lot like being a doctor- if you tell the patient “take 3 of these and you won’t die” and the patient takes one and croaks, then it is not the doctor’s fault (although some pathetic lawyer can probably turn that into falsehood...)
You guys want to make a real difference in education? It won’t be by trying to run it in the same way you stamp license plates. The real difference is made by 1. getting conservatives elected to school boards, who will hire conservative administrators, who will hire conservative teachers. Graduate conservative students who go on to college, some of whom will eventually become school administrators, teachers, and even college professors. Give money to private conservative universities, and if such don’t exist, found some. When we can get people into education that have sensible notions about what is possible and what is not, then we can at least begin to address the numerous ills with what once functioned as an education system.
And yes, I teach- and I am a better teacher 12 years after I started than I was when I started, and I hope I will be better still in the years to come. Experience matters in most jobs more complicated than swinging a mop- and it even helps with that.
I agree that teachers should be paid based on how good a job they do. Unfortunately, the teachers often have very little control over what goes on. I have thought for years about how to make a merit system that really bases pay on how good a teacher is. Unfortunately, not all teachers start out with equal students, and you have to add into the mix the parents, the administration and many stupid laws (the ADA for one) that bind their hands.
There is a lot not to like about public education, but the teachers are not the sole cause. But they are an easy target.
I think the closest thing we could come to is getting the feds out of it completely funding included) and let the local folks have control. Let them decide what sort of measure they want to use for teachers. Of course, that won’t happen.