One of the exercises that educators are periodically asked to perform is to look back at their schooling and identify their most effective teacher. I inevitably land on my high school pre-calculus teacher. She was a demure, petite woman who was, without question, my strictest and most effective teacher. I know that later, when I struggled through calculus in college, her teaching was one of the reasons I survived that class. Last week I read about a study where three economists tracked one million children from a large urban district from 4th grade to adulthood. The purpose of the study was to determine whether teachers evaluated on their impact on students’ test scores (value added approach, VA) had a lasting effect on what happened to the students in ensuing years. They found that students assigned to higher VA teachers are more successful in many dimensions including how much money they will earn. Who knew that you could trace your income level back to your 5th grade teacher?
As educators and elected officials struggle to figure out how to redo the way in which teacher compensation is calculated, it is clear that the metric of teacher effectiveness is going to be a significant part of the final solution to this challenge. Earlier I wrote about the need for a good evaluation system to help determine this. Perhaps students should play a bigger role in this conversation; no one has a better sense of how effective a teacher is. We need only think back to our school years to quickly remember teachers that stand out as being better than the rest of the pack. At age 15 I recognized that my high school math teacher was good. 38 years later I know that she was great.
Student Input on Teacher Effectiveness
One of the exercises that educators are periodically asked to perform is to look back at their schooling and identify their most effective teacher. I inevitably land on my high school pre-calculus teacher. She was a demure, petite woman who was, without question, my strictest and most effective teacher. I know that later, when I struggled through calculus in college, her teaching was one of the reasons I survived that class. Last week I read about a study where three economists tracked one million children from a large urban district from 4th grade to adulthood. The purpose of the study was to determine whether teachers evaluated on their impact on students’ test scores (value added approach, VA) had a lasting effect on what happened to the students in ensuing years. They found that students assigned to higher VA teachers are more successful in many dimensions including how much money they will earn. Who knew that you could trace your income level back to your 5th grade teacher?
As educators and elected officials struggle to figure out how to redo the way in which teacher compensation is calculated, it is clear that the metric of teacher effectiveness is going to be a significant part of the final solution to this challenge. Earlier I wrote about the need for a good evaluation system to help determine this. Perhaps students should play a bigger role in this conversation; no one has a better sense of how effective a teacher is. We need only think back to our school years to quickly remember teachers that stand out as being better than the rest of the pack. At age 15 I recognized that my high school math teacher was good. 38 years later I know that she was great.