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These days, we hear a great deal about problems with current teacher evaluation systems. The received wisdom seems to be that teachers will always close ranks and protect their worst colleagues. Why else cling to systems that rate almost every teacher as top notch?

A new study out of Chicago offers a very different view of what teachers want. When teachers evaluate each other, it turns out, they're a good deal more discerning than the district has been. In a pilot study of 44 Chicago schools, "37 percent of teachers received one of the two highest ratings, compared to 91 percent under the district’s existing system," reports Catalyst Chicago.

In fact, teachers turned out to be more demanding than principals.

They were less likely than principals to give a “distinguished” rating—the highest—on instruction, a finding that bolsters the view that teachers themselves are the toughest judge when it comes to identifying high-quality instruction.

(Principals seem to have had no hard feelings. Most liked the new evaluation framework.)

This peer evaluation plan is not merely a new way to throw the bums out. It adds an element that is all but absent in most policy wonks' discussions of teacher evaluation: help for struggling teachers. Expert teachers help their colleagues improve. If struggling teachers don't get better, their colleagues help them exit the profession.

The next step in the Chicago study will be to examine whether "high ratings on the framework correlate with higher student test scores." In the meantime, though, pundits should give Peer Assistance and Review a closer look.

Image: Kevin Galvin, Wikimedia Commons