Teacher candidate evaluations getting kicked up a notch - elsewhere

How would you feel about getting on board a passenger airplane where the pilot had done nothing more than passing a written test and completing some academic courses on flying without ever getting behind the controls with an instructor in a real airplane, let alone ever passing a practical check ride?

The Associated Press reports that many states do something similar to that with children, putting teachers in front of students without much evaluation of their actual abilities in the classroom. Pass the courses, pass the license exam and have at it with kids!

That may be changing, finally, at least elsewhere, with a new Teacher Performance Assessment program that evaluates student teachers using independent expert panels instead of the student’s education school profs, who have a biased interest in getting students licensed.

Sadly, I don’t see Kentucky listed as a piloting state for this effort.

So far, the people I’ve been able to reach at the Education Professional Standards Board have not been familiar with the program, either.