How can a taxpaying public evaluate schools and
teachers? That is the 50 million dollar question. There is no easy
answer to this, if there was we would be doing it already. With the
pressure of failing schools and the questions being raised over school choice,
it is more important than ever that we find a way to answer this
question. Speaking with teachers that are friends of mine, I hear that
the current evaluation system is not even implemented by people who know the
subject being taught. How can someone evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness
in teaching a topic if the evaluator is ignorant of the topic being taught?
Standardized tests used to test the student’s
progress are currently in vogue as a way to test teachers, however, not all
students are good test takers, and this will adversely affect the evaluation of
the teacher. The standardize test in some instances are not even written
by educators and again this isn’t a thing that seem to be productive. How
can someone outside a field with no knowledge of the exact workings of the
field being evaluated create a test that will correctly evaluate the
teacher?
Our society today is filled with interest groups
pushing their agendas politically, socially and in education. How can we
successfully evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness when the people who are
creating the evaluations have ulterior motives? All these forces are
pulling our schools in different directions and standardizing the content isn’t
necessarily doing the students any good. Again speaking with a teacher I
know, I am told that under common core she must complete a certain section
within a specific time frame whether or not the students
have understood the material. She tells me she cannot spend any extra
time on the topic even if the majority of the class isn’t grasping it.
How does this rigid standardization help the students learn? How does
teaching for a test ensure competency?
So what is the answer? I don’t know, but
perhaps a start would be to ensure that the tests used are written by educators
and professionals in the fields being taught. Perhaps the people who
evaluate the teachers should have teaching experience within the subject being
taught. Maybe we should not expect the students to act like cogs in a
machine with rigid standardization that offers no time for students to
understand the material being taught to them, and perhaps we should not
concentrate on teaching for a test but teaching for a life after school.
Perhaps the best way to evaluate the schools is to see how the graduating
student adapts to society outside of the class room. Can the ex-student
actually begin college without having to be retaught how to write a paper?
Isn’t that what they should have learned in high school? Can the
ex-student get a job with only a high school diploma? If not maybe, we
need to rethink what we are teaching them in high school.
