I’ve spent thousands of hours in schools throughout the United States and some in Canada working with teachers and administrators installing various software packages that help them run their schools. Working in areas from scheduling, grading, testing and reporting so I think I have a good flavour of what happens with some of the government funding choices, and the reprecussions of testing. When the recent battle of standardized testing flared up again in BC, I must say, I sighed and shook my head.
I was in the US when high stakes testing turned teaching upside down. Teachers were incented to get students to do well on tests, which in turn, made the school look good, and receive more money. Teachers started to teach to the tests, including in some cases, giving the answers to students, and then were paid bonuses because their students were doing so well.
Crazy, I know.
I think it’s hard to evaluate teachers. In some districts the teachers require the principal to give written notice (up to a month) of when they will visit their classroom. What the heck!!! If I told my boss that he had to give me written notice to snoop around and evaluate me, I’d be out of a job in no time.
I think it’s imperative we find a way to evaluate teachers. We should make sure our children get good instruction. It’s an important job, really important. I’m not sure that raw student performance on a standardized test indicates how well teachers are teaching, it didn’t with me, of that I’m sure. But there should be some metrics to indicate which teachers are being successful and which are not so that we can figure out how to get teachers who are not doing well some help, and if they aren’t willing to do what it takes to be successful, fire them.
So, as far as the Fraser Institute and their school report… well, I’m sure it does indicate something about the school, but my guess is that it speaks more to the socioeconomic backdrop (and therefore it’s students and teachers) of the school than anything else.
