Carl Bialik, the Numbers Guy for the Wall Street Journal, talks about the effectiveness of teacher metrics this week. It’s a pretty good rundown of the risks of applying such a system, including:

  • Incentives to teach to the test.
  • Incentives to cheat outright.
  • Disincentives to go into teaching if the system is seen as unfair by teachers.
  • Problems with measurement resulting from classroom assignments.

I’d consider this piece mandatory reading if you read the LA Times piece about teacher evaluation.