Research Links
Increasing teacher quality has a greater impact than any other educational investment. With the growing recognition of the direct impact of teachers, there has been an increased focus to qualify and quantify what constitutes effective teaching, how effective teaching can be measured, and what decisions and actions should result from these measurements.
A recent report by the Equity and Excellence Commission concluded that “America’s K-12 education system, taken as a whole, fails our nation and too many of our children.” Much of the report focuses on the need to provide students with access to high quality instruction and on improving teacher capacity to teach all children well. According to the authors of the report, “states must re-examine and align their systems of recruiting, retaining, preparing, licensing, evaluating, developing and compensating effective teachers.”
http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/eec/documents.html
The majority of teacher evaluation systems currently do not distinguish among teachers in terms of their effectiveness at raising student achievement, so districts don’t provide the meaningful development and support to help low and moderately performing teachers grow and also fail to recognize exemplary educators. According to The Widget Effect, “The core purpose of evaluation must be to maximize teacher growth and effectiveness, not just document performance as a prelude to dismissal.”
The Widget Effect
The Measures of Effective Teaching study, conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough investigation into which measures most accurately and consistently identify effective teachers. Conducted over three years, the MET study included more than 3,000 teachers in six different districts across the country, including Dallas ISD.
The MET study provided clear evidence that an approach to teacher evaluation that incorporates multiple measures will consistently identify effective teachers. The three measures identified by the study are classroom observations, student achievement data, and student surveys.
www.metproject.org
As early as the 1950s, education leaders and policy makers were calling for changes in the way that educators are compensated, aligning pay more closely with the actual impact of a teacher on student learning. Over the last 20 years, studies have consistently found that teachers with master’s degrees are no more effective than teachers who hold only a bachelor’s degree; yet, school districts use a degree as a factor in determining a teacher’s salary.
The Texas Teaching Commission recommends that with the exception of cost of living adjustments, all raises should be tied to teacher effectiveness.
http://www.edtx.org/uploads/general/pdf-downloads/teaching-commission/Report-EducateTexas_CFT-web.pdf
