News Brief

01/02/13

Advice, Caution From Early Adopters of New Teacher Evaluations

Center for Investigative Reporting (01/02/13) Garland, Sarah

About 67 percent of states are in the process of implementing teacher evaluations to improve public education, and many of those evaluations will include student achievement -- generally measured by standardized tests -- and classroom observation. It is unclear whether the new evaluations will have the effect experts expect on student achievement and education quality as there is not enough data on their impact, even in states where the systems have been in place for a few years. However, early adopters have found out which parts of the evaluations are the most useful. In Washington, D.C., teachers are measured during classroom observation on 18 indicators rather than 22, and the number of categories of effectiveness were increased to five from four -- ranging from "ineffective" to "highly effective" -- to prevent ratings inflation. Another change in the D.C. evaluations is a reduction in how much value-added measures count toward teacher's ratings. In Tennessee, Department of Education Assistant Commissioner Sara Heyburn said they had to move quickly to train more people and that they had to combine some observations as principals felt overwhelmed by the observation workload. Some states are creating more standardized tests to better gauge student performance, while others are creating student learning objectives that can include portfolios of artwork or improvements in skills like playing musical instruments. Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist warned that the state's pilot teacher evaluation program found that "the quality of our student learning objectives was not where we ultimately want them to be. There's no way to make it be entirely objective ever." Education officials say to make the most effective evaluation systems, districts and states must involve teachers early on in the design process and remember that the systems should be flexible and will evolve over time.

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