Sharon Lynn Kagan on the era of “teaching accountability”
Bob Pianta ("Neither Art nor Accident: New research helps define and develop quality preK and elementary teaching," HEL, January/February 2008) has brought life to the secret that every leader in business, industry, politics, and education has understood for decades: People matter, and they matter most. Indeed, the quality of any institution is unequivocally determined by the individuals who populate it, be it a Fortune 500 company, a great university, or a classroom. What Pianta does, and does well, is to give us a tool for better understanding and monitoring the quality of individual teaching performance in preschool and primary school classrooms.For years, truisms about teaching have mounted, been studied, and been shelved: It is a science and an art; it is a mystery that unfolds with experience; it is the nexus between theory and practice. However true these statements, they all beg the question: Is quality teaching knowable and measurable? Pianta pushes us to be systematic and strategic as we consider the correlates of high-quality instruction. In developing CLASS, he offers a tripartite paradigm which acknowledges that quality teaching transcends subject matter; and that it involves the provision of emotional, organizational, and instructional support. As such, his conception of quality teaching not only advances the care and education of young children, but has the potential to revolutionize instruction across the educational spectrum. Gone are the days of instructional truisms and platitudes about quality. Enter the era of teaching accountability.
On the one hand, the concept of teaching accountability should render solace for those who shudder at child accountability as the sole accountability metric. Inventively, Pianta helps us disentangle the performance of children from the performance of their teachers, making it feasible to explicate the specific conditions that enhance learning. His observational assessment tool allows teachers to name and gauge diverse approaches to teaching, leading the way to improved instruction. In so doing, this approach also clears intellectual and operational paths for substantial improvements in professional development and in lending precision to measures of program quality. For this, we should be appreciative.
But there is danger, too. Teaching accountability, much like child accountability, cannot be the sole rationale for high-stakes consequences. Using data from teacher performance in the absence of understanding the social, educational, and fiscal context would be as erroneous as relying solely on child outcomes. Indeed, teaching accountability must be partnered with information on children’s performance to present a fuller picture of the teaching-learning dynamic; looking at children or at teaching as solitary referents belies the benefit of Pianta’s contribution. Pianta understands that holding teachers accountable for good instruction is at least as important as holding children accountable for their learning. Ultimately, both matter.
Sharon L. Kagan, Ed.D., is Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy, codirector of the National Center for Children and Families, and associate dean for policy at Teachers College, Columbia University; and an adjunct professor at the Child Study Center, Yale University.
