On Teacher Quality and Solutions-Oriented Thinking

Because I talk and write about teacher quality, sometimes people that I think TPS, OSPI and the Washington State Legislature should get a free pass, are doing a great job, or that I am teacher-blaming (that one fires me up the most). I have much to quibble with “the proverbial system”: testing, funding McCleary, our COLAs, ad infinitum. However, I focus on teacher quality because it's something I think "we" (me and the mouse in my pocket) can actually impact. In fact, in my opinion it’s very doable:

  • we can screen, train and hire better candidates;

  • we can conduct better PD and mentoring for teachers (especially early career ones) and 

  • we can better identify & retain our most effective teachers, even within the confines of our silly, (profoundly) messed up system.

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On Test Scores in Evals and Changing My Mind

I say often there is no magic teacher tree and that if we're going to improve the quality of schools in Washington it's going to be through a. identifying and retaining high quality teachers and b. further developing the current crop of teachers through high quality professional development (HB1345). That said, if a practice is so loathed by excellent educators, if a practice is so divisive, if a practice is so hated that excellent, solutions oriented teachers are saying it makes them want out of the career field and distrust the TPEP model, then in good conscious I can not support it.

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