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Education's Best-kept Secret |
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From Urban Institute: No sooner had Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed Michelle Rhee chancellor of D.C. Public Schools than critics began challenging her self-reported success in raising student performance when she taught in Baltimore. We know that the most important in-school influence on student performance is teacher quality, and the difference between the results that the best and worst teachers get in the classroom is staggering. The students of the ablest teachers show about a year and a half gain in tested performance annually, compared with only about a half-year gain for kids stuck with the less competent teachers. In any case, Mrs. Rhee probably won't ever be able to supply bulletproof evidence of her star turn in Baltimore for the simple reason that few school districts and states link student test performance over time to individual teachers. The technical data-collection and management issues are solvable. And, whatever the limits of what tests can measure, it's hard to argue that what they do measure isn't valuable or shouldn't be tracked.
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