Seeking–and Finding–Good Teaching

By Julie Sweetland

Education policymakers are starting to act on what teachers have long known: No matter what policies, curricula, or governance structures are in place, they are only as effective as the teacher who translates them into the daily life of the classroom. Issues of teacher quality are absolutely critical, because research shows that teachers are the single most influential school-based factor in student success. As the education establishment increases its focus on excellent instruction, it’s imperative that the players in the teacher-quality arena don’t take the politically expedient but educationally dangerous shortcut of equating good teaching with high student test scores.

If the goal is to foster excellent teaching, a better alternative may be to finally invest in a dramatically improved approach to teacher evaluation. It’s time to adopt an approach that creates a common language of what good teaching looks like, helps everyone in a school system learn that language, and provides a clear means of supporting them as they walk the talk.

The task is difficult, but the time is right. There are signs that the standards movement that has dominated public discussion on school reform for the past decade is finally giving way to a teacher-quality movement. At every level of governance, a consensus is emerging that teacher-quality policies are something that we have to get right. Both major-party candidates in the presidential race are tackling the issue of performance pay for educators. On Capitol Hill, a Democratic plan for revising the federal No Child Left Behind Act includes devoting major federal funding to research into performance assessments for teachers. In the high-profile local school reform effort under way in the nation’s capital, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is looking for ways to link teacher effectiveness to compensation. In this, the District of Columbia school system would be following in the footsteps of districts such as Denver, Minneapolis, and Toledo, Ohio—all of which have adopted innovative approaches...