> It's really important that we not throw our hands up just because we can't objectively measure them.
Straw man much?
Avoid the question? You wrote a lot, but said absolutely nothing.
By what measure should we measure teachers? It's easy to say "get rid of terrible teachers," but if you can't define it, then you are back to square one.
I'm not the one throwing my hands up. You and dkarl are basing saying one thing: "Fire bad teachers." I asked you to define bad, and you merely respond with: "You have to fire bad teachers."
So, I'll try again: By what measure should we measure teachers? Test scores? Student performance? Parental voting? Secret peer ballots? Teacher testing? School board review (which pretty much amounts to parental votes)?
You're trying to find an objective/standardized measure of performance, and I was trying to illustrate that it's not necessary. Most of that crap is talked about because the situation has gotten to the insane point where one needs concrete evidence of failure to fire a teacher. That's not needed in almost any other profession, and it shouldn't be necessary in education.
All that "saying nothing" was trying to illustrate anecdotally that it was obvious to anyone who actually watched the classes who needed to be fired.
If one gave absolute firing power to every principal, minus the ridiculous hoops they have to jump through and conditions that need to be met, they would undoubtedly take care of the worst offenders quickly and accurately. That alone won't get us to uniform excellence, but it would be a very good start. That's why I was harping on the inability to fire bad teachers.
Straw man much?
Avoid the question? You wrote a lot, but said absolutely nothing.
By what measure should we measure teachers? It's easy to say "get rid of terrible teachers," but if you can't define it, then you are back to square one.
I'm not the one throwing my hands up. You and dkarl are basing saying one thing: "Fire bad teachers." I asked you to define bad, and you merely respond with: "You have to fire bad teachers."
So, I'll try again: By what measure should we measure teachers? Test scores? Student performance? Parental voting? Secret peer ballots? Teacher testing? School board review (which pretty much amounts to parental votes)?