A few days ago, I met a teacher with whom I had the opportunity to have a long and in-depth conversation about different aspects of education. Although we disagreed on some points, we were generally in agreement on the most important issues. For example, we both agreed on the importance of working on reading from birth, contrary to what is proposed in some training programs that invoke neuroscience to make pseudoscientific claims.
One of the topics he considered fundamental was the evaluation of teachers. He told me that he had worked as a teacher in other countries and that, when talking to teachers from those places, they found it strange that here there is no merit-based system to reward those who do their job well. At first, I agreed with him that it would be a good idea to somehow support teachers who perform well. However, a key question arises: based on what criteria do we determine who is doing well and who is not?
We know that there are people who provide teacher training and sell books on education despite never having managed to improve the results of a school—neither themselves nor anyone who has applied their proposals. If teachers were required to follow the guidelines of these authors in order to obtain a good score in an evaluation, the outcome would be disastrous for children.
So, what should teacher evaluation be based on? I am clear about this: results. Students and families deserve the best we can offer them; therefore, if teachers were to be evaluated, it should be done according to the results achieved by their students. It would be necessary to assess whether academic and coexistence outcomes improve year after year or, on the contrary, worsen.
For this process to be rigorous, it would be essential to publish the results of the external evaluations carried out in each autonomous community. In this way, practices that do not improve—or that even worsen—school outcomes would gradually be eliminated, while those that produce the best results in all contexts would be strengthened.
In other fields, such as medicine, it is very clear that what does not produce results must be set aside and that what works should be retained. In education, significant steps have been taken in this direction, but we should continue moving forward, since the future of children depends on it. For this reason, I would only support my colleague’s proposal if teacher evaluation were carried out in the same way as in medicine—that is, based on results.
Article translated from Periódico Educación
Primary Education Teacher.
Currently working on his doctoral thesis at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV).