Dive Brief:
- As states and school districts consider revisions to their teacher evaluation procedures under the Every Student Succeeds Act, they would do well to keep in mind three ripple effects of bad policy.
- Administrator, author and educator Ben Johnson writes for Edutopia that incorporating student growth into teacher evaluations runs the risk of ignoring all of the external factors that impact learning, and that data could be better used by professional learning communities.
- Having administrators play the key role in determining teacher effectiveness sidelines colleagues and teacher leaders from contributing insights to the process, and the reality is that administrators just don’t have time to conduct high-quality, formative assessments for every teacher in addition to their other duties.
Dive Insight:
Teachers have been shown to have a tremendous impact on student outcomes, with high-quality teachers getting recognition for keeping students on track, helping them believe in themselves and persevere, and getting them to master tough concepts. Some of these can be measured by test scores and grades, but some cannot. Yet the nation’s obsession with data has encouraged the use of standardized test results and other metrics in complicated formulas to determine a “value-added” score for teachers. This has contributed to a demoralization of the teaching ranks and a scapegoating of the profession.
Still, administrators must find ways to assess their staffs. Johnson’s suggestion to have teacher leaders contribute to the evaluation process is one that could help connect assessments of teacher quality to professional learning more directly. The CLASS model, or Creative Leadership Achieves Student Success, has had an impact in Oregon, and it includes meaningful performance evaluations as one of four key focus areas.