Peer Review Under Review
I’ve been writing skeptically of teacher peer assistance and review (PAR) programs since I began EIA in 1997. The idea was big back when Bob Chase was touting new unionism as president of NEA, but fell off the radar about the same time he did.
Now we’ve got a couple of stories suggesting PAR programs aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. Stephen Sawchuk over at Teacher Beat revisits Toledo’s PAR numbers from a recent New Teacher Project report, and the program in Los Angeles is one of many things that gets lambasted in today’s must-read article, “LAUSD’s Dance of the Lemons” in LA Weekly.
United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy promotes a conspiracy theory in the article, which suggests he’s trying to match the president of the only teacher union local in the nation larger than his.
