It’s about time someone finally looked at our state’s constitution (or at least the preamble) and then looked at how we actually execute the "paramount duty" of educating our children.

And then explained how to make up the difference.

That, in a nutshell, is how I view the plan by a new task force on school funding. It’s quite a document (Thirty pages! With no pictures!) and it goes a long way towards describing what this state needs to do. It doesn’t tell how we’re going to pay for it, but that’s probably a topic best tackled after the election.

The part of the plan that particularly caught my attention was about how teachers would be assessed in order to receive additional compensation commiserate with improved classroom skills.

As I read this I recalled one of my earliest evaluations.

I was a new teacher to the school and was told to prepare a lesson which would be watched by my principal. Wisely, I asked to see the criteria by which I would be assessed. Basically, I was to teach a solid lesson, with a catchy opening followed by some modeling and explaining, followed by group work or discussion, followed by some time to practice the skill I just taught. Finally, there should be some sort of closure or assessment.

Playing it safe, I decided to showcase my talent for teaching kids how to divide words into syllables. I spent the weekend, along with my wife, constructing elaborate props to support this lesson. We employed large cardboard words, strategically divided and reattached with velcro, decorative paper bags filled with smaller "practice words" which included everyone’s name, and beautifully designed worksheets on which the lucky children could practice their new skill.

The day came and the lesson went off without a hitch. Everyone learned and everyone had fun.

I sat down after school with the principal and we talked about the lesson. And we spent an hour doing it. There we were, two grown men discussing the most ridiculously unsustainable hour of pure BS that the education world has ever seen.

At no point in our conversation did we talk about the context within which this lesson should be seen. We never talked about my literacy program as a whole. Nor did we discuss how well I knew my students and their needs and why this lesson on syllables was crafted toward that end. None of this came up. Instead we talked about how wonderful this lesson was, knowing full well that no teacher on earth would ever commit an entire weekend to the planning and preparation of a one-hour lesson on dividing words. Unless, of course, that teacher was going to be observed doing so by the principal.

Which brings me back to the Task Force Plan. In this plan, teachers would be subject to peer review. Accomplished teachers would visit their classrooms, watch them teach, check their lesson plans and student work and watch videos of them at work.

I think that’s an excellent start. It’s a lot better than watching a dog-and-syllable show. That’s for sure. But I think we should take it a little further.

As a National Board Certified Teacher I was required to submit a portfolio of my classroom work. This included videos and student work, but it also required in-depth description, analysis and reflection of what I do, why I do it and what it does in terms of student learning. Going through this process was and is the best way for a teacher to demonstrate their skills because it demands that the teachers thoroughly know their students and their curriculum and that they have solid, well-grounded reasons for doing what they do in their classrooms. It also demands that teachers think carefully about what they do after they do it, since more than likely they’ll be doing it again in a year or so. It also has a an interesting side-effect in that it’s probably the best form of professional development available to teachers.

So if I could offer one suggestion to the Task Force, it would be to amp up the peer evaluation component and require teachers to compile a portfolio, similar to that required by the National Board, but scored with a less rigorous rubric, scaled to match what teachers should know and be able to do in the early years of their career.

I applaud the Task Force’s work, even though I doubt they could have picked a worse time in which to propose a sweeping and expensive change in our education system. But I’m sure they started this work long before the economy went sour. If nothing else, they’ll have started a serious discussion within the Washington education community. And who knows, maybe by the time we figure out exactly what to do, we’ll have the money to actually do it.