Monday, April 02, 2012

RIDE Admits to Another Ideologically Driven Error

Dan McGowan:

Changes are coming to the state's teacher evaluation system, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) confirmed today.

The goal, according to RIDE, is to streamline the entire process, strive for clarity, accuracy and consistency and align the model with other initiatives.

Of course, the title is the meanspirited way of responding to steps to simplify RIDE's new evaluation system (I don't know if they are improvements).

The thing is, probably every single administrator charged with implementing the original plan knew it was literally physically impossible to execute, from the beginning. I don't think RIDE deserves congratulations for figuring that out, any more than they do for, say, deciding that they should wait until after a new year's data comes in to name the lowest performing schools.

This is, by the way, sort of what "winning" will look like for our side if it happens. Reformers patting themselves on the back for "discovering" what we've been saying all along and coming out with their own "innovative" initiatives that are strangely familiar.

No comments: