American secondary education is, in the words of MIT economist Lester Thurow, a joke. To address the dismal state of the K-12 education system, the Oregon legislature has come up with a solution, in the form of House Bill 4102. The problem, apparently, is that American students perform poorly compared to their counterparts in other developed countries because their schools don't know how to evaluate teachers. HB 4102 comes to the rescue with a mandated evaluation system, requiring all teachers to be graded according to a four-grade scale (from "does not meet performance standards" to "exceeds performance standards").
In a display of chest-beating, Rep. Jeb Snakeingrass (R-Piglick) lectured school superintendents, saying "this is going to be a real evaluation, not one where 99.9% of the teachers are graded at the top."
This fixation on teacher evaluation seems odd, since any parent with children in school knows (or at least can find out) which are the good teachers and which aren't. Teachers themselves know which of their colleagues are great teachers and which are dead wood. Is the lack of formal evaluations really the problem? Of course not.
The state government itself is mostly to blame. It forces on school districts an antiquated collective bargaining law that has given us layoffs based on seniority, bumping rights, budgets that are increasingly consumed by retiree benefits, and a greivance and arbitration process that makes it impossible to fire bad teachers. It forces schools to hire from a very small pool of self-selected guild members without regard to knowledge of subject areas or teaching skills. It forces school boards to hire from a similarly small pool of school administrators, without regard to actual management skills. It (along with the national government) dumps on schools the burden of solving a variety of socio-economic problems that schools aren't equipped to address. It stifles innovation in charter schools, school vouchers, on-line learning, and anything else that might threaten the status quo.
The state legislature has created the mess, and now has the gall to blame teachers and superintendents for it. This is no different than a parent burning a child with a cigarette, and then slapping the child for crying.
But we shouldn't be surprised. The legislators are themselves, after all, a product of the same rotten education system, and must be excused for both ignorance and failing to meet "performance standards."
