A little investigation into Beane and the A’s would reveal the simple fact that rather than being driven by an adherence to statistics as a means to success, the A’s sought players that were underrated by other ballclubs by ANY standard. This is why the A’s of the past few years transitioned into a team that was primarily driven by pitching and defense, away from the OBP-oriented teams of prior years. Beane has kept the A’s in contention for the last decade through flexible market exploitation, not adherence to narrow ideology. Color me skeptical that public schools will ever be so creative with limited funding.

It’s probably quite true that we need to make more of an effort at all levels to find the next great teachers and find some ways to reward to best among us and find ways to either fix or remove the worst (with probably a good 90% representing the middle).

With that said, this value added nonsense isn’t the magic bullet that will tell you who will be great in the classroom, most certainly not with the types of tests we now use, the available data, the timing of the tests, the large number of variables impacting the kids (home, administration, multiple teachers, multiple subjects, off days, cheating, private test prep, alternative intervention services, etc.) Baseball, by comparison, is a relatively simplistic exercise with a historic use of complex statistics and even there, it’s as much as art as a science.

Too bad we don’t put as much effort into what does work and too bad we don’t use the obvious to determine who goes into the classroom: well spoken adults with both training and a willingness to train for a lifetime. Adults who can both write and orally communicate. Adults with a demonstrable love of their subject matter and of children. And a career path for said adults that rewards creativity and success as judged by those who are already in the profession and can make such determinations as well as by parents and students who serve as their customers.

I wonder how Chancellor Klein would feel if we used gym teachers and fire fighters and baseball players and small business owners to determine certification and evaluation standards for those pursuing law degrees. Sure makes sense to me.