A new report from The Education Trust-Midwest finds that 99.4 percent of teachers from 10 of Michigan’s largest school districts were rated “effective.” Coincidentally, 98 percent of the principals responsible for these evaluations received the same rating.
In related news, MLive.com recently found that 68 percent of all grades handed out at the colleges where these teachers and principals are trained were A’s. Like the mythical Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, apparently so are Michigan public school teachers and principals.
Unfortunately, real-life student performance paints a very different picture. For example, if we compare the performance of Michigan’s low-income students to ones with similar demographics in other states, the picture suggest something less than 99 percent “effective”: