Let's Talk With Matt — And To Each Other — About Teacher Evaluation

Matt Damon's getting dumped on by a lot of conservatives right now ("Jeb Bush rips Matt Damon for sending his kids to private school") and liberals. And he doesn't deserve it. Rather than rip the guy apart, we should be continuing the dialogue with him. We might learn something.

Just two years ago he was the hero of the NEA for defending the idea that teacher performance cannot and should not be evaluated. Now he seems to acknowledge that there is a way to measure what teachers and schools do—and act on it to the benefit of his chidren's learning. He appears to have had a change of heart and we should be talking to him about the evaluation method he used.

And it's time for us in public education to consider the obvious: Despite all the claims that teaching is unquantifiable, we all measure it, we all quantify it, and we all qualify it—all the time.

Parents request specific teachers for their children all the time. Guidance counselors have their official and unofficial lists of teachers to both avoid and assign for their children and those of friends. Just yesterday, I watched as a colleague looked at her class schedule for the upcoming school year and decided she must still be in good stead with her employer since none of her classes will be in the overflow trailers on the sideyard.

And none of these assessment methodologies involve standarized test scores.

It's time we acknowledge this and find ways to use it to advance learning, schools, and—perhaps most importantly—the teaching profession.