How Can We Identify "Good Teaching"? The brawl over teachers and
test scores in Los Angeles is generating a much-needed public
conversation about the use of standardized tests to measure
teaching. Another topic that needs more attention: What exactly
is "good teaching"? It’s a difficult and potentially volatile
question because it begs much bigger questions: What is a good
education? And what should children get out of school? In
today’s data-driven culture, policy debates about education are
narrowly focused on what can be measured: namely, how students
do on standardized tests. This is why there is so much focus on
using tests to evaluate teachers. Add to this that the most
provocative and influential research about teacher quality is
being done by economists, whose currency is stuff that can be
measured and counted. Teaching is too complex to be fully
captured by a test score. Even Eric Hanushek, the economist who
pioneered the idea of using tests to compare teachers, says no
single measure can do teaching