NEW BOOK REVEALS PROBLEMS SURROUNDING PEER
REVIEW
To shed light on a $100 million "genuine peer-review
process" proposed by Governor Gray Davis, the Education
Policy Institute urgently recommends considering first the
facts and analysis in Teachers Evaluating Teachers:
Peer Review and the New Unionism. This is the first
book that impartially analyzes peer review as it functions
in school districts around the country. It raises serious
questions that should be debated when the California
legislature meets on January 19 in a special legislative
session on education.
In his research on peer review, author Myron Lieberman
visited the peer review programs in Toledo and Columbus,
Ohio, and analyzed the programs in other districts,
including Rochester, New York. His analysis reveals
that there is no credible evidence that peer review results
in a higher level of teacher competence in peer review
districts.
Lieberman debunks several other unsubstantiated claims
made by teacher unions and the school boards they dominate.
As he makes clear, peer review programs are a huge patronage
windfall for teacher unions eager to convince the public
that they are promoting teacher competence in the classroom.
In fact, evidence shows that peer review may make it
more difficult to fire poor teachers. In addition,
Lieberman documents the huge costs of peer review programs
and the practical and legal problems which arise when
teacher unions and their members take on this traditionally
managerial function. He shows that peer review undermines
the leadership and instructional role of principals, who are
not even allowed to observe and evaluate teachers in peer
review programs.
In the vast majority of public schools, the
responsibility for teacher evaluations falls to principals,
whose efforts to fire incompetent teachers are typically
frustrated by restrictive school board/teacher union
contracts. Instead of turning management responsibilities
over to teacher unions, Lieberman suggests that unions
reconsider their insistence on contractual restrictions that
cripple school district authority to terminate incompetent
teachers. "That," says Lieberman, "would be a reform with a
chance for the kind of accountability Governor Davis says he
wants."
Teachers Evaluating Teachers can be ordered
from the Education Policy Institute's web site at
http://www.educationpolicy.org, or from Amazon.com through
EPI's bookstore.
Dr. Myron Lieberman is also the author of The
Teacher Unions (Free Press, 1997). From 1975 to 1988,
he negotiated hundreds of teacher union contracts in
California school districts. Contact Dr. Lieberman at (202)
244-7535 to arrange an interview.
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