Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Teacher effectiveness, while not the only important factor in improving education, still plays an important role. Improving it is something which every education department, in every country, has attempted to deal with at one time or another, but due to a number of reasons, most countries have yet to be successful. Both due to a lack of political will, a lack of investment, and misplaced aims, a number of policies which have been put into practice have fallen well short of the mark, and Pasi Sahlberg believes he understands why.

Pasi Sahlberg is partially responsible for the educational reforms undertaken in his home country of Finland, which saw a massive turnaround in their educational system, pushing them from a middle tier country in quality of education listings all the way to being a top competitor. Since producing these great policy changes, he has gone on to become an author and consultant for governments who want to see the same occur in their own countries.

In a report he wrote about the USA education system, he indicated a number of issues with the quality of education, but disagrees with the methods currently in use to combat them. Most importantly, he argues, is that monitoring the teacher’s effectiveness in the role after they’ve already gotten approval is the wrong way to do it, and teacher effectiveness should be improved by implementing more stringent requirements on their entry into the profession as well as greater rewards for being a teacher.