Accountability Is The Order of the Day... Even When We're Not Sure What It Means

The NEA has just taken a strong stance on teacher accountability: namely, that there should be some. But what does this mean? Though the new policy includes a statement on the importance of a strong teacher evaluation system, union members remain firmly opposed to using students' standardized test scores to drive this evaluation... even as fifteen states are currently part of a federally-backed initiative to do exactly that. The AFT has already spoken out in favor of a strong evaluation system at least partially based on "valid assessments;" one NEA member commented that the move towards Common Core standards might come hand in hand with the longed-for "valid assessment," while others were less than hopeful. "It's too late," said once science teacher from Louisiana. "It's going to take a major fight and a lot of money to change anything now."

At the national level, the new NEA policy is rather unspecific about what teacher accountability (and evaluation) actually looks like. As it is, with the Maryland Council for Educator Effectiveness's policy of basing fifty percent of a teacher's evaluation on student scores, it doesn't appear that the NEA's policy will have much practical bearing on our professional lives in Baltimore this coming fall.