CDE website search and critique - Essay Example

Journal Article Critique: A Teacher Wonders, Can Grading Teachers Work? In essence, this article was an evaluation of how teachers are held responsible for students’ progress or the lack thereof. It talked about the value- added system used in Tennessee as a way to evaluate teachers based horizontally across grades. It discusses how other factors such as socioeconomic factors also influence students as opposed to just teaching influences. The author discusses the unfairness of holding teachers responsible for their students’ academic achievement.

He also gives discussion how this is a critical factor in the debate with education versus budget cuts. The author states that factors such as influx and transient mobility of students aren’t considered a factor; neither is the impact of ESL students. Due to such mobility, critical data is missing in the overall evaluation of this approach. His argument is sound and the resources support his paper. The author tries to be objective in his approach to the data; however, decides that due to multiple flaws, it’s not relevant as there are many important factors left out.

He includes another article giving more specific data about who is responsible for student learning; perhaps this was his attempt at objectivity. He sides with the educator; he is also an educator with a job to protect. He doesn’t go into any details on how the evaluation could be more objectively done, or offer any alternatives to ways in which teacher evaluations could be more indicative of their efforts at education as opposed to the students’ performances. It is, indeed, a twofold approach which provides the most objective picture and the fairest evaluation of teachers’ impact in the classroom; careful combination of teacher innovation and student readiness is involved.

References Epstein, Marc. A Teacher Wonders: Can Grading Teachers Work? American Teacher. Fall 2008, p 14-17. American Federation of Teachers. Web. April 8, 2011. http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall2008/epstein.pdf