Dive Brief:

• Indiana's state Board of Education will discuss the 2013-14 school year's stunning teacher evaluation scores — which saw less than 0.4% of the state's  58,000 teachers rated "ineffective" — in a Wednesday meeting.
• The high evaluations have faced some skepticism, and Indiana Department of Education spokesman Daniel Altman told CBS that the meeting will include a discussion on placing more emphasis on students' ISTEP+ test scores.
• In 2011, legislation was passed in the state mandating all districts conduct yearly reviews of teachers and administrators. Districts can decide how to conduct their evaluations as long as a “significant” percentage is based on standardized tests, to decrease any biases.

Dive Insight:

This is not the first time Indiana has had questions about glowing teacher evaluations. In April, when the 2012-13 scores were released, 88% of teachers and administrators in the state were ranked as effective or highly effective, only 2% needed improvement, and less than half a percent were deemed ineffective.

While the glowing results have been called “unrealistic” by some experts who are wary of the high saturation of positive scores, whether or not to include more emphasis on test scores is very much up for debate —​ especially as Indiana's own standards are in flux.

The results really raise questions about the best way to evaluate teachers and how to avoid bias while still getting the full picture. If school funding and rankings are based on teacher evaluations, and teachers are evaluated by their districts, there is likely to be some sort of bias. However, if teachers are evaluated by outsiders who are setting foot in their classroom for the first time that day, there is also likely a lack of context. Finding a balance that adequately measures teacher performance is clearly difficult.