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Sunday, March 8, 2009

Andy Berke on Education

Senator Andy Berke is right. We need a great teacher in every classroom!

That's possible with a comprehensive reform that includes his Teacher Fellows program to attract the best and brightest college students to the teaching profession.

It also means providing meaningful support by way of mentoring for 1st- and 2nd- year teachers.

And incentive pay for the highest-performing teachers to help keep them in the profession.

We should 1) raise salaries for all TN teachers to the national average and 2) reward the best teachers through a system that includes multiple measures to evaluate success

We should also more systematically use value-added data to improve classroom teaching and yes, to help remove ineffective teachers.

We can't just raise pay and attract bright people, we've also got to have accountability that results in keeping the best teachers and removing the worst.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I totally agree. I have 4 (almost 5) children in the public school system. I'd love to make the schools better and the teachers more motivated.

Andy said...

GREAT! then work with groups like Stand for Children to help improve the quality of teachers via more support, incentive pay, and getting rid of those who are not effective.