Introduction

The role of teachers, in what many are calling the education "crisis" - the failure of public education to educate all children well, enabling them to achieve their potential, has attracted considerable national attention and stirred much debate in light of the current administration's push to evaluate teachers based on effectiveness. The battle lines are indeed being drawn.

Within the last two years the Obama administration's Race to the Top (RTTT) program has instensified the flames for educational reform and radical improvement measures across the country. To receive even the smallest portion of RTTT funds, the program's guidelines insist that states show evidence of the three principle elements of the administration's education agenda in their respective education policies. Listed in no particular order, states' education legislation must include: the expansion of charter schools, shutting the doors of academically faltering schools and finally, the use of student test score data to evaluate teachers' perfomance.

As future educators, educational policy researchers and citizens of the world we find the debate about teacher evaluation and its linkage to performance testing to be a great place of entree for us into the discussion of U.S. education. And so, here we enter. In a spirit of collaboration, our first set of blogs will simplify current media narratives about teacher evaluation to locate which narrative is currently dominating media discourse. In other words, we plan to layout how major news outlets, print and television, along with the mass media, are framing the discussions.

Is the media putting forth a consistent and constant repetition of hegemonic discourse in communicating on evaluative methods of teacher performance? We want to know why teachers' evaluations and student test performance data have become bedfellows in the pursuit to increase the academic skills of students and enhance educator effectiveness. Does media's spin - the way it arranges and presents knowledge - on our introductory topic benefit some at the expense of others? Recognizing media's capacity to socially influence society and the import of the questions we address to an informed democratic citizenry, we hope to find out. And, we hope you will join us in the quest.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

TV Media Perspective: Improving Evaluations as a Road to Success


In a clip from Education Gadfly’s Channel titled D.C. Teachers’ perspectives on Evaluations through Impact, teachers have a chance to speak regarding Impact, a new system of evaluations. The interviewed teachers are in support of Impact as a system of evaluation. Impact involves standardized test scores and five observations over the course of the year. The teachers feel that the addition of observations to the valuations process gives evaluators a better idea of teachers’ quality through taking a look at their methods in the classroom. Under Impact, the teachers have a chance to defend themselves if they do not score well. They can go over their results first with their evaluator and then their principal if they still feel that they have been evaluated unfairly in some way. The teachers who were interviewed seem to think being evaluated is positive both for their careers and for their students.
ABC News spoke with Arne Duncan, Randi Weingarten, and Michelle Rhee in an interview entitled, Crisis in the Classroom. Weingarten believes unions are not the issue so much as we need to work toward solutions. Improving teacher evaluations is an important step toward some solutions. All three interviewed agree that merit pay is important because it creates incentive to raise the standards, which is something our country desperately needs to do. Duncan stated that we have been dumbing down standards, and that is what is letting us fall behind.

Brooking’s Institution Channel interviewed Russ Whitehurst, the Director of Brown Center on Education at Brookings. The Impact evaluation system was the main subject of the interview. Whitehurst stated that having a poor teacher could have an incredibly detrimental affect on a student’s progress over the year. Students who are unfortunate enough to endure this experience over successive years may never catch up. He believes it is important to have teacher evaluations that work and are evaluating at a consistent level throughout each state and throughout the country. Even good systems are not helpful if they are not comparable.

The Politics Hour aired an interview with Michelle Rhee regarding teacher evaluations in which Rhee addressed some of the criticism that has surrounded the new Impact system of evaluation. Rhee believes the Impact system of evaluation is fairer to the teachers, because it includes an objective component. When asked if she agrees with one district’s release of teachers’ evaluation scores to the public, Rhee stated that releasing the results of such evaluations to the public would be a good idea if done in the right way.

On MSNBC, Arne Duncan asserted that we must close the achievement gap. He noted that we would do well to worry less about class size and more about the talent of the teacher. Schools in nations that have surpassed us academically, such as Finland, have sacrificed small class size to ensure that every class has a highly qualified teacher standing in front of it. Finland allows only the best in their class to educate the country’s students. We as a country need more qualified teachers. Duncan believes our current NCLB policy has many faults. He believes we should fix NCLB in a bipartisan way. We need to provide opportunities and higher expectations.



The dominant narrative in TV media is in support of a new system of evaluations that includes both the results of high-stakes testing and classroom observations of teachers. TV media takes a stance in favor of revising the evaluation system without shining a negative light on teachers or unions. Instead, the TV media is working to spread the message that improving the evaluation system is the key to achieving the academic progress our nation strives for and would be beneficial to both the students and the teachers.

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