Opportunity Washington recently pointed out fascinating research (summarized here) which indicates:

“that national average student performance at age 15 on an internationally standardized mathematics test is predictive of that nation’s future economic growth.”

It’s yet more proof that a good education is not only empowering and life-changing for individual students, but for entire nations as well. It raises a raft of issues, such as 1) student testing, which we’ll dive into at a later date, and 2) teacher quality, which prompts the Brookings Institute’s Robert Litan to ask:

“How do we get students to learn better? We know from many academic studies that the quality of teachers matters greatly to student outcomes. So it follows that we would be helped by an educational system that weeds out poorly performing teachers while continuing to attract good new ones. Given the size of the potential payoffs, these are not incentives to ignore.”

Experts are NOT suggesting anyone go on a teacher-firing spree. However, as the documentary film Waiting for Superman illustrated in its famous “Dance of the Lemons” segment, reformers agree that keeping those few bad teachers around instead of letting them go isn’t fair to students, other teachers or school administrators.

The real keys here are attracting and retaining quality teachers, and finding effective ways to measure teacher performance.

It is reasonable to assume that better pay will attract quality educators. Washington’s recovering economy allowed lawmakers this year to fund teachers’ I-732 cost-of-living adjustment, as well as a salary increase. There’s more to come on school employees’ compensation reform as the Legislature works on the state assuming full responsibility for funding basic education – including salaries – per the state Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling. A bipartisan Senate bill introduced near the end of the 2015 session offers a good idea of how legislators are approaching the process.

As for measuring teacher performance, lots of research has been and continues to be done on how to best implement it. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project issued a report in January 2013 that was based on three years of study. Researchers from Stanford, UC-Berkeley and Arizona State University in 2011 presented a brief on Capitol Hill which found that:

“With respect to value-added measures of student achievement tied to individual teachers, current research suggests that high-stakes, individual-level decisions, or comparisons across highly dissimilar schools or student populations, should be avoided.”

The researchers’ preferred approach?

“Other teacher evaluation tools that have been found to be both predictive of student learning gains and productive for teacher learning include standards-based evaluation processes. These include systems like National Board Certification and performance assessments for beginning teacher licensing as well as district and school-level instruments based on professional teaching standards.”

Reforming education and improving student performance are vital to students reaching their full potential, and to Washington’s future economic health. We’ll continue to cover this many-layered issue and keep you updated on the latest research.