Amid the thousands of teachers who organized on the White House lawn at the Save our Schools March last weekend, one in particular captured the attention of advocates and reporters alike. Actor Matt Damon, who traveled across the country to support his mother (who is a teacher), gave a speech thanking educators for their hard work and criticizing teacher evaluation systems based on value-added student test scores. Later on, when asked about using incentives to improve performance, Damon dismissed the idea as “intrinsically paternalistic,” in a hardnosed reply that led Anderson Cooper to warn others against “messing” with the well-known movie star.
While Damon rightfully praises teachers for their tireless and noble efforts, his rhetoric around teacher evaluations sends the wrong idea about policies meant to improve teacher quality, not to punish teachers. To be sure, teacher evaluation systems are far from perfect, but they are an important step in the right direction. For years both exceptional and underperforming teachers have flown under the radar, with rudimentary evaluation systems in which 98 percent of teachers were considered “satisfactory.” Efforts to address this egregious lack of information and accountability should not be seen as an indictment against teachers, but rather an attempt to equip teachers with better knowledge and support. In the case that a teacher has not made progress and continues to fail his or her students, evaluation systems ensure that another dedicated teacher is given the opportunity to serve students.