Dennis Van Roekel: The National Education Association's Plan for Teacher Accountability

This piece comes to us courtesy of Education Nation’s The Learning Curve blog. Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, writes.

This summer, the National Education Association took a historic vote and adopted a new policy statement. It put us on the record, for the first time, as calling for a comprehensive overhaul of both teacher evaluation and accountability systems to improve professional practice and advance student learning.

Why now?

The myopic focus of the current education reform debate promotes lowering professional standards, finding quick and cheap ways to rate teachers based solely on tests, and making it easier to fire “bad” teachers while lowering the bar to enter the profession.

The irony is that teachers themselves have long complained that evaluation systems are broken. They have been some of the most forceful advocates for better evaluations linked to meaningful feedback and support. What’s been missing is sufficient guidance – developed by and for teachers – to help navigate this challenging and complicated environment.

The policy statement is an opportunity for NEA and our members to assert ourselves in a debate that has been raging for years. We know that current systems for teacher evaluation and accountability can be improved, but too often in the past we have simply taken a defensive posture, trying to prevent damaging policies instead of promoting those that will actually raise student achievement.

We have heard all of the bad ideas. Now it’s time for us to take the lead, and draw on our experience to propose policies that will actually work for students. This is our profession and our responsibility.

This piece has been truncated. Read the full piece at Education Nation's The Learning Curve.

Comments

[LISUPT]

12:00 PM on 09/21/2011

NEA ... where have you been for the last five years? Nothing new here other than the political reality that change is coming and that you can't be quiet any longer.

[bthafmanuthamtha]

09:57 PM on 09/20/2011

Dennis, are you running for office or speaking as a teacher?! Why don't you take on $9,000 a year and raise somebody elses brat in school for their parents and in your next article, can you please publish your college grades and classes you took and the scores on all of your standardized professional tests?

[Mytwocentstoo]

09:15 PM on 09/20/2011

It is just one thing after another hitting away at education while the unaddressed issues are a lack of state & federal funding, a lack of 0 to 5 year olds intervention to children at risk, poor quality preschool/daycare lacking in developmentally appropriate practices, lack of child development knowledge & parenting skills, and then an education system that is drill & test focused in over crowded classrooms on under staffed (administrators, counselors, librarians, classroom aids, teachers) campuses. Why would anyone choose education as a career these days?

[OHteach]

08:44 PM on 09/20/2011

No kidding, where has the NEA been? Strangely silent in a climate where everybody else seems to have an opinion.

[acumenguy]

06:02 PM on 09/20/2011

Nice policy statement. Now, I ‘d like to see the actual standards by which teachers will be evaluated.

[changing]

11:58 PM on 09/20/2011

Amen-soldout NEA and AFT national leaders are putting the hang man's noose themselves around public education. These cowardly, corporate leaders will do anything to avoid to avoid having to stand up to power. They are losing the war because they refuse to fight a battle. They keep helping to fire teachers rather than telling the real story.
This has nothing to do with education or teachers, it is about money and privatizing public education.