If we are to believe the statistics compiled by the State of Michigan’s Center for Educational Performance and Information, there are no bad teachers in the state.  Tom Gantert of Michigan Capitol Confidential reports:

Judging by the percentages, the state of Michigan didn’t have one ineffective teacher or administrator last year in the entire public school system, which covers 899 charter schools and conventional school districts.

That’s according to the cumulative reports filed by all the state’s public schools after the 2015-16 year. The percentage of teachers and administrators who were given the lowest evaluation was so small that the state rounded it down to zero percent.

OK, we all know that rounding down to zero does not mean absolute zero.  So what does the raw data indicate?

There were just 400 “ineffective” schoolteachers out of 94,164 in the state of Michigan in 2015-16, or fewer than one per school district. That comes out to zero percent.

The highest rating, “highly effective,” went to 39,327 teachers, or 42 percent of the teaching force. The largest group of teachers, 52,514 or 56 percent of all, were considered “effective.” Only 1,923 teachers, or 2 percent, were rated “minimally effective.”

So 42% in the top category and (rounded off) 0% in the bottom.  That is not a bell curve at all.  If we are to believe this rating system, we must believe that that schoolteachers in Michigan are a highly elite, selective group drawn from the top ranks of college graduates.  That does not comport with my understanding of education majors at large universities.

One way to determine whether or not these rankings are inflated would be to see if any outsiders have rated the state’s teachers and schools:

The performance evaluations come at a time when Education Week Research Center ranked the state of Michigan as 42nd in the country in K-12 achievement, giving it a D grade for 2016.

If the parents and children of Michigan were allowed to choose their own schools, as Michigan’s own Betsy De Vos hopes to promote as education secretary if confirmed, then we will see what the actual ratings of teachers are.