The Bad Teacher and the Bad Boss

Some blogging on teacher evaluations. A quote from one:

The only observation I'll make is that I suspect many reformers see teacher evaluations as a second-best approach. In an ideal, less litigious world, managers would be empowered to make hiring and firing decisions based on a number of factors, e.g., does this teacher play well with others, does he have the "soft skills" he needs to do his job well, does he use a variety of strategies to keep easy-to-teach students in his class while fobbing off harder-to-teach students on others, etc., that are hard to quantify.

 I think the comment shows the blind assumptions common to us bureaucrat types.  Specifically, the assumption is that you have the ideal principal doing the evaluations. Stating the assumption does, I think, show its falsity.  We all know no one is perfect, so we're going to have imperfect principals evaluating imperfect teachers.  That reality is one strong reason to have teachers' unions, or unions of public service employees.

Yes, we could all imagine scenarios in which the principal does her evaluation using sound information on many factors.  The reality is different, particularly because evaluation is something few people enjoy doing, or receiving, so it's likely to be done poorly.