Ineffective Schools are Ineffective at Judging Effectiveness?

More precisely, failing schools rate their teachers higher than successful schools rate theirs. Well, at least in some cases. Grant Wiggins tries to compare NY schools that are doing badly with some that are doing well, as a way of evaluating Cuomo's much-criticized criticisms. This is not easy, and he ends up comparing just three against three. In Teacher Effectiveness Ratings – Part 1 he finds a

Tentative conclusion. From this (limited) data we can infer that in a successful school – whether clearly improving or doing well in absolute terms, on credible exams and client survey results – the local teacher effectiveness ratings are often lower, sometimes far lower, than those provided locally to teachers in failing schools. So, there would appear to be some merit to the core premise of the Cuomo report, regardless of how mean-spirited the approach feels to many NY educators.

This fits my biases. In an ideal world, we would just make the failing schools do teacher evaluations like the more successful ones, and then all schools would be successful. Somehow, my confidence in my biases is low: I doubt this will work. Still, it's possible that a culture of criticism would help a bit. It's also possible that a comparison of failing schools in general against successful schools in general would fail to confirm Wiggins' work here....and yet, and yet, it really does fit my biases. Perhaps I'm just ineffective at judging the effectiveness of effectiveness-judgement.