sed assingment

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.