Here’s how a system of teacher choice would work in practice. In primary schools that have more one teacher per grade level, parents would be asked to rank teachers in order of preference. School administrators would then try to assign students to teachers based on their parents’ choices. Of course, this would not always be possible, since parents would naturally gravitate towards the highest-quality teachers. School administrators would have to even out the number of students in each class, which means that some parents would have to settle for getting their second or third choice teachers.
Teacher choice boasts several advantages over both the status quo system of randomly matching students with teachers and the school choice system of matching students with schools.
Most obviously, the system will do a better job of matching students with teachers than the current system, for the simple reason that parents will be able to take into account their child’s individual needs, and then find the teacher whose strengths best complement those needs. It also gives parents an incentive to research teachers and get involved in their children’s education.
Second, teacher choice will help expose which teachers are more effective than others. Generally speaking, the good teachers will earn more votes than bad teachers. This will give school administrators a metric other than standardized testing by which to evaluate teacher performance. In the long run, this will allow schools to implement merit-based pay and identify which teachers they should retain or fire.
While it is easy to see some flaws in the system, but if merit pay is going to be introduced, this would be a far better way to do it than to rely on standardized test results.
Neat. Put me in the supporter of that idea column.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree that a teacher's personality and teaching style have a huge effect on a child's ability and desire to learn.
My question is, are the school systems too much of a fossilized bureaucracy to take a change internally, or must they have to be forced to externally?
I would be concerned that teacher choice would turn it into a popularity contest which is quite different from a "best" teacher contest. Teachers who let kids slide in order to preserve the appearance of successful teaching might be preferred, for at least a while, while teachers who actually taught children and made them think and do homework might find themselves on the list of "to be avoided".
ReplyDeleteAlthough I think NCLB was an incredibly bad idea in the way that it was built and implemented, I don't think this is such a good idea either.
This is wrong from so many angles. I've worked in elementary schools as a volunteer and a staff member for twenty years and this sounds good but would be a nightmare. Favoritism is already rumored in schools and this would compound it. Would the popular or wealthier parents get their wishes over others? How about kids who should not be in the same class together? What if their parents ask for the same teacher? We've all seen where parents request a teacher so that little Bob and Tom can be together when EVERYONE is in agreement that their togetherness will not improve their educational experience. Gossip...I've been in schools where the gossip mill demeans one teacher over another and it turns out that the hated teacher is a good teacher. The popular teacher is just easier on the students. How about parents helping their kids with homework; showing up for meetings with teachers; informing teachers when they cannot attend meetings: not automatically assuming the school is wrong when the kid gets in trouble. Education isn't perfect by any means but letting the parents (actually it will be the kids if they are old enough) choose teachers sets a bad precedent.
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