What determines good teaching?

On Wednesday we were given an article about Michelle Rhee (the chancellor running the District of Columbia Public Schools). She has a very tough approach to battling the District of Columbia. She believes that creativity is nice, but if children can't read, the teachers aren't doing their job. I agree that teachers need to focus on reading for sure, but teachers should be creative in their ways of teaching. Creativity becomes a problem when it interferes with the content the students should be learning.

Rhee also believes that good teachers should be paid more based on test scores. I actually really like this idea. I get frustrated with teachers who are protected by ten year but are really unmotivated. If I knew that there wasn't job security and I could get paid more, I would be extremely motivated to be a better teacher. There has been a lot of controversy over her measure of evaluating teachers and what makes good teachers. A lot of people say that there is more teaching than just test scores. I tend to agree with this; however, if teachers are doing a good job teaching (not teaching to the test), test scores will improve. Yes, there will be the few students who do poorly because they are not good test takers, but there should be an overall improvement in scores. Rhee brings up a good point that most districts evaluate teachers before they even start teaching. They want teachers who are certified, who have a master degree and many other pieces of information that can't really predict how one will do as a teacher. Rhee explains that teachers should be evaluated after two years to determine who are the good teachers. I like this idea because it allows the teacher to reflect over the past years, and also will allow districts to keep good teachers and lose the ones who aren't.

There will continue to be a constant struggle to determine what makes good teaching. It will be interesting to see what is to come for the district of Columbia Schools.