When Nice Won’t Suffice

Elisa MacDonald asserts that professional learning communities must be able to tackle issues and give and receive constructive criticism for there to be any real improvement within a school. She offers strategies for addressing a “culture of nice” that prevents a team from being effective.


This report explores public school districts’ failure to measure or record teacher effectiveness in any meaningful way and argue that in addition to measuring and recording teacher effectiveness, school districts should use that information to inform decision-making. They lament that the only way to determine who effective and ineffective teachers are is usually through word of mouth.