Why not junk teacher evaluations in favor of more preparation time?
I thought rating teachers would be a hot issue, but that was an understatement. Emails and online comments are still popping up on my screen in reaction to the columns I wrote on Nov. 1 and Nov. 8 describing the perils of the District’s new teacher evaluation system and the apparent lack of any serious effort towards one in the Washington suburbs. I expect more strenuous comment after next Monday’s column, which will explore, for the first time, the secrets of a D.C. teacher’s evaluation report. But in this torrent of interesting feedback on assessing teachers, I have detected rising support among some experts for a radical change of direction that appeals to me. They point to programs that have had great success giving teachers more time to confer with each other about which methods work best with which students. They are suggesting that we reduce the time spent on evaluating teachers—maybe stop altogether–and give teachers that precious time to compare notes and talk about ways to
