If you propose a subjective system of evaluation by principals and peer evaluators, the spokesmen for the teachers union complain that subjective evaluations are open to abuse of power.
Megan McArdle, The Problem of Measurement.
There are legitimate questions about the type of structure and support necessary for better observation-based evaluation of teachers, but anyone who claims in a national venue that unions are against peer evaluations is simply ignorant (to take the charitable interpretation).
Well, what did you expect? She has the temerity to write “In my experience, managers aren’t quite the dull-witted slackards that O’Hare makes out.” concerning a statement about school principals and other K-12 education bureaucrats when her experience consists of “She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and the Economist.”
I don’t see “school teacher” anywhere in there, so she has ZERO experience with being managed the way teachers are managed. What a clever way to say “based on total ignorance of what goes on in schools”.
I would also note that a banker doesn’t work in an environment where the money they are responsible for (a laughable thought after the last few years) is out of their control for 2/3 of the time and where the quality of the investment vehicle is assigned to them at random, or worse. “Here you go: this year you get a set of 2007 mortgage-backed securities written for liar loans in the Tampa slums. We expect a 10% return by next year.”
And I left out the false dichotomy of subjective evaluation by a single manager (hence possibilities of favoritism) and some vague “more” objective alternative that gets conflated with the pure reliance on test scores. IMHO, peer evaluations are “more” objective than those of a single manager, just as the inclusion of attendance, past learning history, and disciplinary data will be “more” objective than just raw test scores.
As a member of the “evil teachers unions” in Florida I know the NEA journal has had articles on peer review and it was presented as part of union plans for school reform.
The quote below is from Rethinking Schools ( http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/quality_teachers/uneval.shtml ) and refers to the Cincinnati School District Peer review program. Note it is actually part of the Union contract with the district and is typical of the type of union, school board cooperation I see in my own district to improve teaching.
“In the program’s first year, consulting teachers rated 10.5% of interns less than satisfactory, compared to 4% of new teachers evaluated by administrators, according to the union. Five percent of beginning teachers under peer review were dismissed, compared to 1.6% of those evaluated by principals. Results have been comparable in following years.
Peer appraisal has also been more rigorous with veteran teachers. From 1986-90, there were 43 teachers recommended for intervention. Of those, 16 were either fired or left teaching at some point during the process. Fifteen had their teaching brought up to acceptable standards, and the other cases were either continued into 1991 or were put on hold.
The peer program does not eliminate evaluations by principals and administrators. Approximately 70% of new teachers, however, are evaluated and “mentored” under the peer program. The district hires roughly 300 new teachers a year, in a system with 3,500 certified teachers.
There are 14 consulting teachers, each working with a maximum of 14 teachers. Veteran teachers on “intervention” count as 1.5 because of the extra time needed. While consulting teachers appraise most new and troubled teachers, administrators still evaluate teachers during their third year, those seeking tenure, and those who change subject areas.
Mooney said the union initiated the peer program in part to answer the criticism that the union wasn’t concerned with incompetent teachers or guaranteeing professional standards. After negotiations, the program became part of the contract between the teachers and administration.
The consulting teachers are selected jointly by the union and the Cincinnati Public Schools administration. They make their reports and recommendations to a Peer Review Panel, which consists of five teachers appointed by the union and five administrators appointed by the superintendent. The panel makes the ultimate recommendation to the superintendent whether new teachers should be renewed and whether a troubled teacher should be dismissed.
The consulting teachers leave the classroom for two years, then return after that time. George Varland, director of employee relations for the Cincinnati Public Schools and co-head of the Peer Review Panel, said a two-year maximum was imposed because “some people feel that if you’re out of the classroom too long, you’re going to forget what it was like.””
As for Megan Mcardle, she is just doing her job. If the local unions and school boards can solve problems by working cooperatively there will be fewer reasons to give a substantial part of the 700 billion dollar a year US education dollars to the education industry instead of to the actual schools. So the unions and teachers are under attack because it is profitable. If we really wanted to solve these problems we would be working together and listening to each other instead of pointing fingers but it is becoming more obvious to more people every day that the agenda is to make money not to reform our schools.
McArdle is right if you modify her statement slightly: Unions aren’t opposed to peer and principal evaluations, they’re just adamantly opposed to those evaluations being used for any decision whatsoever (such as merit pay or firing). If you want principals to actually be able to fire teachers with horrible evaluations, the unions will most definitely object to the potential for “abuse of power.”
Counter-examples: Toledo, OH; Hillsborough County, FL; AFT policy statements; most higher-ed faculty unions, where peer and chair review is a core part of tenure decisions. You can certainly point to individual locals or state affiliates where you’re closer to the mark, but universalized statements about union positions on the pragmatic issues of personnel decisions are pretty fragile things.
Principals ALREADY have the power to fire novice teachers with bad evaluations. The evidence in the comment by kmlisle, that administrators notice far fewer problems than expert teachers, is consistent with my view that too little attention is given to the Principal who granted tenure to that person that everyone now agrees is incompetent.
Indeed, as Sherman points out, extensive peer evaluations in the university process (which also takes more than twice as long) might be something the K-12 folks should emulate.
Sure, in a country with 14,000+ school districts, you can find a handful where teachers agreed to merit pay. That doesn’t refute the larger point that 99% of the time, unions are overwhelmingly opposed to evaluations having any meaningful consequences. Even in Hillsborough and Toledo, did unions agree that principals could fire tenured teachers for poor teaching?
Higher ed: irrelevant to McArdle’s point, plus how many tenured higher ed faculty get fired for anything other than outright fraud? Right, too few to count.
Interesting side shot at the end–the majority of faculty in the U.S. are non-tenure track, so that dog won’t hunt.
Broader point: McArdle made a universal generalization that is false. Period. End of story. You want to use that as a springboard to talk about where unions are flexible or not (and I disagree with you on the extent), fine. But that doesn’t make McArdle’s statement any more correct.
The fact that few university faculty are found to be incompetent is a good thing, not a bad thing. It reflects the use of effective peer review methods and a process that takes as much as 20% of a typical career before you get tenure.
But how do you know there are too few to count? Consider the possibility that HR rules make it highly unlikely that every firing of a tenured prof (or the removal of tenure), let alone every denial of tenure after 7 years, will make the news. Most of the cases I know about involve a quiet resignation or early retirement.
What she was saying was true in service of the larger point that “until we can develop that never never system which inerringly identifies teacher performance, they want us to stick with the current system of rewarding seniority and advanced degrees in education, even though this is the one thing we know for sure doesn’t work.”
In other words, she was hamhandedly getting at the point I was making: teacher evaluations are very rarely used for any meaningful purpose (the salary schedule and tenure are the mainstays in most places).
So the ends justifies the means of a blatantly untrue statement? I may be misreading what you wrote, but that seems very close to justifying lying entirely for its propaganda value.
Her statement is perfectly true with the addition of the bracketed words below, and any inaccuracy in the technical literal meaning of her statement isn’t as important as the larger point:
“If you propose [to meaningfully use] a subjective system of evaluation by principals and peer evaluators, the spokesmen for the teachers union complain that subjective evaluations are open to abuse of power.”