Students rating CMS teachers

Want to know who the best teachers are?  Just ask students.

It's a comment that comes up frequently when people talk about crunching numbers to calculate teacher value.  On Tuesday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board will hear teachers talk about both approaches:  Using student survey data and revisiting the controversial "value-added measure" to gauge teacher effectiveness.

Some of the teacher study groups reported enthusiastically on their  "talent effectiveness project"  work at the Feb. 14 meeting (see the video here;  the report starts at about the 1:50 mark).  Tuesday's follow-up promises to be even more interesting, as the remaining groups report on using student surveys, trying to make value-added ratings useful and dealing with the subjects and schools that are hardest to find teachers for.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m.  Read the agenda here, and go to the video link above to watch it live online.

Update:  At a news conference after the last presentation,  a teacher involved in studying classroom management invited reporters and the public to sit in on upcoming focus groups for teachers.  However, when I asked for specifics, I was told CMS has decided to keep those sessions closed.  "There will be community engagement events later in the semester,  however,  that will be open to the public,"  says David Pollack,  the communications coordinator for the talent effectiveness project.