The Post writes up Chancellor Rhee's attempt to overhaul the District's teacher evaluation system. ????This is tougher work than it may seem. ????In addition to the obvious political hurdles, there are more mundane and trickier issues--not all teachers teach courses with standardized tests, the statistical reliability of value-added measures, the objectivity of evaluations by principals or master teachers, etc.
Rhee has a former national teacher of the year leading this up internally and has hired some reputable outside experts to help out. ????She's also set up focus groups so teachers can weigh in. ????Not a bad process.
Look for other districts to begin work on similar projects soon: to get stabilization dollars under the stimulus legislation, districts must report how many teachers receive each rating under the state's evaluation system. ????This is going to cause some embarrassment when it's revealed that lots of urban districts have all above average educators.