History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Rethinking evaluations when almost every teacher gets an ‘A’
- 01-21-2011
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By Jennifer Gollan/New York Times
Grade inflation — a term normally associated with students — is widespread among Bay Area teachers, who receive so many favorable evaluations that it is impossible to tell how well they are performing, some educators say. or the 2009-10 school year, just 40 out of 1,924 teachers — or 2 percent — reviewed by the San Francisco Unified School District received below-satisfactory performance reviews, district records show. Those figures are consistent with recent years: an average of 2.7 percent of teachers evaluated over the past five years received marks of “unsatisfactory” or “needs improvement,” records show. And education scholars say that in a system where all teachers are winners, a crucial gauge of teacher quality is essentially lost. A similar pattern has emerged in nearby school districts. In the San Jose and Oakland Unified School Districts, for example, about 1 percent of teachers received ratings of “ineffective” or “unsatisfactory,” records for 2009-10 show. Administrators emphasized that weaknesses in the evaluation system did not diminish the work of teachers who educate students under difficult conditions exacerbated by a state budget crisis that has increased class sizes and reduced financing for schools. (more…)
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