Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Corbett: Benchmarks for Each Teacher


Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett wants to overhaul Pennsylvania’s teacher evaluation system.
Visiting a York charter school with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Corbett unveiled his education platform.
Corbett wants to change the way the commonwealth’s teachers are evaluated by looking at student testing data, but also creating individual benchmarks for each educator.

"Where do I need to improve? Do I need to improve in my skills of sitting with a student and taking them through my classroom presentation? Am I capturing the interest of my students? Teaching is a very unique profession. We’ve all known we’ve had very good teachers, and some not so good teachers."

Corbett says he’d work with teacher unions to overhaul teacher evaluations....
"We bring them in and sit them down at the table with us. As I have done everything in my career, we will sit down with the school boards, the teachers, the principals. How do we do this? How do we learn what improves the quality of the education of the student?"

Corbett says he supports the Rendell Administration’s increase in state basic education funding, but he wants to improve accountability benchmarks, to make sure schools are taking advantage of the money. Corbett is calling for an A through F school grading system, which would include student test scores, graduation rates and other factors.

Jeb Bush says he’s endorsing Corbett because “the era of big government is over.” He says that’s due to a mix of popular will, as well as the economy, which is forcing states to trim spending.
"Either way, limited government is going to be the norm. And I think it’s important to have principled, centered leaders that have the creativity and belief for us all that it’s true. That they would do it voluntarily if they had their druthers. And that they have the creativity and energy to make it a reality."

Corbett's opponent in the Republican Gubernatorial Primary, State Representative Sam Rohrer, unveiled his education proposals recently.

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