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Last week I read two stories about large public education systems that have stuck with me for days. One story, on page one of The Washington Post, profiled the work of Chris Lloyd, the vice president of the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), the teachers’ union representing the 12,000 classroom professionals employed by Montgomery County, MD Public Schools. It detailed the positive progress a district can make when its professionals at all levels work together to support good teaching and counsel poor performers out of the profession.  The second story, a posting on the blog Teacher in a Strange Land by Nadia Zananiri, an AP World History teacher in the Miami-Dade Public Schools, describes the tragic consequences of education policies that unfairly and inaccurately “rate” teachers using “value-added” data and publicly rank schools and the professionals who work in them by publishing those ratings in the popular press. Since both districts are large urban-suburban districts with a diverse student population, I’m puzzled by why the Florida district can’t learn from the Maryland district’s success.

For more than a decade, Montgomery County Public Schools has used a program called Peer Assistance and Review (PAAR) to evaluate, support, and improve classroom instruction.  The program was developed in partnership with the MCEA, the principals’ organization, and central office administrators with the support of the school board and focuses on providing mentoring for new teachers and ongoing feedback to experienced teachers to insure that the students in the district are successful. When a teacher’s practice doesn’t improve after counseling and support from the principal, a teacher mentor is assigned to provide extensive guidance. If, over a three year period of peer intervention, the teacher’s practice shows no improvement, then the teaching contract is terminated. According to the article in The Washington Post, the person who delivers the termination message is Chris Lloyd, the union leader. No reporters are called; nothing appears in the paper; schools and their teachers in Montgomery County, MD, are not rated with “value-added” standardized test results. The teachers’ union, the building leader, and the central office staff collaborate and work together in the hope that all teachers can improve (and many do under PAAR). However, when the teacher doesn’t improve, the union leader delivers the news that employment is over.

According to Nadia Zananiri, whose post is titled Why I Decided to Become a Private School Teacher, her highly diverse high school in Miami-Dade Public Schools, is a wonderful place to work, led by a principal who believes and vocalizes that “we have the best students in the world”. And this past year, the school received an ‘A’ grade from the state, increasing over the past few years from a ‘D’. However, the state of Florida is expected to give her school a ‘C’ grade for the coming year, because it has changed the grading standards for schools, determining that special needs students and English language learners should reach the same level of proficiency as the other students. Further, Florida teachers will now be rated based on these “value added” standardized test scores that purport to reflect student “growth”.  Teachers whose students don’t show “growth” over two years can be fired.  Ms Zananiri says she’ll opt out of public school teaching and go to work for a private school. Neither private schools nor charter schools (which receive public funding) are required to adhere to the state's new “value-added” evaluation model. It’s my hope that her principal will read her post and host an intervention to keep her in her public high school.

Something’s wrong with a public system that creates policies that discourage talented teachers and reduce the evaluation of good teaching to a student score on a bubble sheet test. And, something is really wrong with a nation that doesn’t look to successful public school districts with an eye towards crafting policies to “scale up” their successful practices. 

Teaching is a complex and nuanced craft.  Successful school districts capture that craft from their star performers and use them to help other teachers to be better. When some teachers can’t improve, their peers escort them out the door. No other profession is judged by a single measure and no job as important as teaching in the public schools should be subject to a disrespectful personnel policy that bases effectiveness on instruments like these “value-added” evaluations. We should all be enraged.

Image from ClipArts101.com