If you have not read Peter Greene’s excellent take on the new North Carolina licensure and pay plan for teachers, please do. It references great work done by NC’s own Justin Parmenter ( and a shout out also needs to be given to Kim Mackey’s work in further exposing this horrible plan).

Aside from the use of value added measurements like EVAAS, the new plan also looks to utilize administrative and peer observations as well as STUDENT SURVEYS.

That’s right. STUDENT SURVEYS.

What kinds of questions would be used? Who would write them? How would they be quantified? How would it be designed to make sure that it was an objective survey? How would the surveys be given?

When would the students take them? Right after they finished the class? The following year? Has this approach been used in other states?

What if a student was not as interested in the subject material but had to take the class as a requisite for a diploma? Would that affect a survey?

What if a teacher gave the student a grade that was truly deserved but the student had an over-inflated sense of accomplishment? Would that affect a survey?

Would teachers have recourse if the surveys negatively presented a picture that was totally different than what their performance actually was?

And does the committee that is pushing this plan have the guts to publish what questions would be in the survey?