Giving Compass' Take:

• RAND recently evaluated the Gates Foundation investment called the Effective Teacher Initiative which ended up being unsuccessful. However, there are important lessons to learn from the effort. 

• How will gathering data throughout the evaluation process help to better education reform?

• Read about the specific characteristics of teachers that correlate with high performance in schools. 

Last week, RAND issued its massive and mostly negative evaluation of the Gates Foundation’s ambitious effort to redesign teacher evaluation, compensation, and employment practices in three school districts and four charter school management organizations.

The foundation’s Effective Teacher Initiative, launched with great fanfare a decade ago, was an ambitious, expensive reform.

The final verdict was harsh, with RAND concluding, “The initiative did not achieve its goals for student achievement or graduation, particularly for LIM [low income minority] students.”

While it may be tempting to regard the RAND evaluation as closing the book on another oversold education reform, doing so would be a mistake. There’s much that can and should be learned from the exercise, especially given that the core idea makes good, intuitive sense—however problematically it was executed.

So what are some of the key lessons to keep in mind? There are at least five—and they are especially relevant for those who believe we can do a much better job of recognizing terrific teachers, identifying and supporting teachers who need help, and moving consistently lousy teachers out of the profession.

  • The reforms demanded too much time.
  • Big investments in new evaluation systems didn’t yield meaningful change.
  • The new systems didn’t help attract talent.
  • Little bonuses don’t induce educators to make big changes.
  • None of this means that teacher evaluation “doesn’t work.”

In the American system, philanthropy has a vital role when it comes to pioneering untried strategies and seeking new solutions. So long as foundations are transparent about what transpires and we take the time to examine what happened and why, even grand disappointments can be beneficial and instructive.

Read the full article about effective teacher initiative by Frederick M. Hess at AEI