“To be clear, these numbers do not answer the fundamental question of whether more teachers should be dismissed. They also don’t include ineffective teachers who leave the profession of their own volition or who are counseled out by administrators without going through the formal dismissal process. And they do not include tenured teachers dismissed for reasons unrelated to performance. Finally, such stats can’t show whether or not the processes for dismissing tenured teachers across the country are overly cumbersome.”

Listen, I don’t have a problem with firing teachers. I just don’t think the common perception of “infinite job security” for teachers is accurate.

A much larger and more concerning issue - in my opinion - is that we have very poor measures for teacher effectiveness. This is problem in at least two major ways. It inhibits districts from dismissing poorly performing teachers. It likewise prevents teachers from improving their performance because it often isn’t clear what problems might exist in their curriculum and instructional practices.

I also believe that if we were able to make teacher designed and administered assessment more universally trustable (as their results are now only [sometimes] trustable within the context of that specific teacher’s coursework) we could start to address some of these problems.