It's not as black and white as tweedledee and tweeldedum make it sound.
Too many people think teachers are solely responsible for the grades their students get. That's reasonable, but only part of it. More important than anything when measuring the success of a child are their parents and how their household views education. Time and time again you see that the most successful kids are the ones whose parents hold them accountable, help them with their homework, make sure they're staying on track, and encourage them.
For America it is a cultural problem. People look at school like day care these days. A lot of parent's don't want to raise their kids. This is a problem when we have a public education system that nobody wants to pay taxes for. Many opt for private or home school. Contrast this with a place like Asia that values education above all else and you see how fickle the American public is about schooling. On top of this, educators are not looked at like other professional careers, like a lawyer for example. Yet you need a master's to be a teacher, and make like, what, 1/4th of what other professions do?
Another problem with basing a teacher's performance on student outcomes is that it gives teachers an incentive to give better grades than they normally would. If their job security is on the line, why not give everyone a passing grade? It would also place too much emphasis on rote learning methods of memorization, which de-emphasizes creative thinking, a strength of our economy that's based so much on innovation.
Of course teachers need to be held accountable. My argument is that student outcomes is not an ideal way of doing so. I'm not sure what would be, either. It's hard to quantify.
|