Bee Eater Blog

Randi Weingarten at Aspen. Teachers unions are fine with input measures — graduate degrees, observations about whether you are teaching in the preferred style. Output measures, such as whether students are actually learning, are less preferred. By far.

Yes, lawyers face bar exams, but more importantly they face real-world evaluations from the managing directors of their firms. Are they performing effectively? If they aren’t, they get bounced. Teachers object to abiding by parallel measures, saying they would be subjected to school office politics. Law firms have no such politics. Newsrooms? The real point is that if school leaders were truly held to performance accountability standards, they would retain their best teachers regardless of personal dislikes. Because if they didn’t, they would be the first to get bounced.