Across the country, journalists, pundits, elected officials and advocates are calling for dramatic changes in America's classrooms. 'Experts' who operate outside of schools are making policy and funding decisions that affect teaching and learning, but too often those decisions are made without the input of the professionals who know our classrooms best -- teachers.
Teachers Want To Know is a national, grass-roots campaign to ensure that the voice of classroom teachers is heard. Its cornerstone is a pledge to demand the tools we need to improve student achievement -- most notably, a call for fair, timely data that we can use throughout the school year to measure student progress and improve our practice.
Join The Movement
WE WANT TO KNOW OUR IMPACT ON STUDENT LEARNING. Student assessment data must be a part of the teacher evaluation process, but it can never be the sole measure. It is not possible to evaluate a teacher without stepping foot inside a classroom. Better assessment data, higher quality observations, as well as the time and support to analyze this information on our practice will allow us to improve and help our students improve.
WE WANT TO BUILD A PROFESSION WITH CLEAR, HIGH STANDARDS. Our primary responsibility is to students. We want to be a part of a profession in which excellence is recognized, development is supported, and ineffective teaching is addressed promptly and fairly. We want to be on the vanguard of rebuilding teacher evaluation with a focus on our connection to students and their academic success.
WE WANT TO BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION. As districts and states move toward reforming teacher evaluation to include evidence of student learning, we want to contribute to that process. All assessments are not created equal. We seek student assessments that:
- Are fair and reliable
- Measure student growth in addition to absolute performance
- Are administered multiple times during the year
- Provide us immediate feedback on students’ strengths and weaknesses
- Are aligned to our standards, curriculum and annual state assessments
