Unable to be evaluated?

Teacher evaluation, merit based pay, and the role of standardized tests are all hot topics in the education community. Nick Gillespie of the Reason Foundation recently wrote an interesting piece on teacher evaluations. A couple of quotes that stuck out to me:

Teachers consistently argue that, like doctors and lawyers, they are professionals who deserve the respect of everyone and even more money than they already make. Yet in the same breath, teachers are always asserting that their profession is uniquely incapable of being evaluated in any sort of meaningful and fair way.

No punches pulled there.

...arguing that it's so impossible to control for variables that we can't judge teacher performance is no way to lobby for more resources or be taken seriously. Especially since school systems have gotten more and more money per pupil for decades now without improving outcomes.

Teacher performance evaluation is, I'm sure, an issue we can expect to hear more about in the future.