Evaluating Evaluations

When it comes to teacher evaluations, there are a lot of important factors to consider. Do we focus on things like state test scores and arbitrary meetings? Do we make it a surprise, or something the teacher can plan around? Where do the students and their growth play into all of this?

The sad thing is, for a long time, the student's growth meant hardly anything compared to the outcomes on tests. Despite vastly different start points and end points, not to mention the myriad ways that people, young and old, all are different and unique in their own ways, we relied quite heavily on a one-size-fits-all rubric, but many organizations are attempting to change that. For example, we have the Danielson Framework, which tries to set our a very comprehensive rubric for teachers focusing on four domains: Planning and Preparation, Classroom Environment, Instruction, and Professional Responsibilities. Each of these domains have smaller component parts, and those are all ranked from unsatisfactory to distinguished, letting teachers see precisely, in hard, clear terms, where they can improve and grow.

Similar to that is the Teaching as Leadership Rubric, which is used more to reflect on yourself as a teacher, keeping focuses much like the Danielson Framework, but also adding in areas for reflection in the teacher's mind. And then, of course, we have the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) which combines a look at the student test scores with factors measuring student growth and progress over their time at school.

Personally, while I haven't been evaluated myself, I would put a little more weight in the TVAAS, depending on how it was conducted. I would assume that teachers should have notification that classroom assessments are coming, with a meeting for pre-evaluation, but the assessment itself could happen randomly, so teachers can't try to make sure their "highly polished" work is on display rather than their best day-to-day work. After that, a cool down meeting with the people evaluating you would be good to see where improvements could be made and where explanations might clear up some misunderstandings on their part. Finally, I believe a self-reflection/assessment would not be amiss, along with student feedback and, finally, the test scores and growth indexes of the student. This is not to imply that the figures and numbers aren't important: unfortunately, we're a goal-oriented society, and an incredibly engaging teacher than never gets students to where they need to be is not as useful, in a public school setting, as a slightly more boring teacher than gets the job done well and gets those test scores high.

On my end, I believe the most effective evaluation would cover everything: in class viewing, student feedback, self reflection, peer feedback, student growth markers, and test scores compared to other students at the same level. This huge array of data STILL wouldn't get the comprehensive evaluation of all of a teacher's effectiveness, but it would do wonders for making sure that the people doing the evaluating know as much as they can and can make informed, logical decisions as they rank the teachers.

Teachers are already underpaid, under appreciated, and under-funded. The one thing they shouldn't be is under-represented when it comes time to make a case for or against one's performance.