The Missing Elements of the Teacher Evaluation Debate

                The Chicago teachers strike has brought the debate on teacher evaluations to the public.  While the teacher evaluation debate appeared to be discussed only among those in the educational realm (teachers, administrators, educational advocates and some politicians); the rest of the country did not seem to care about the evaluations of teachers given the current state of the economy. 

            Many are wondering why there is such upheaval over how teachers are evaluated.  The primary reason is that states are receiving pressure from educational advocates and politicians to have a section of teacher evaluations on the standardized test scores of their students.  Teachers are not in favor of student test scores being a part of their evaluation due to the socio-economic factors that affect learning.  Teachers do not feel it is fair for them to be evaluated on the test scores of their students when some students lack school readiness, have poor attendance, reading and other academic deficits, and lack parent participation to increase academic achievement.  Additionally, teachers do not feel it is fair to be held accountable for the ineffective instruction of a students’ previous teachers.

            The teachers have a strong argument against having part of their evaluations include the test scores of their students.  However, there needs to be an effective evaluation system that is fair to teachers and is able to isolate ineffective instruction to support struggling teachers or to terminate them if necessary.  While teachers agree to improving the teacher evaluation system, their ideas don’t offer the necessary change required to develop an effective evaluation system.  The current evaluation system where the principal conducts classroom observations is no longer adequate.  In order to effectively evaluate teachers, states will have to look at alternative ways to determine teacher effectiveness.  Instead of evaluating teachers based on test scores, states should consider these alternatives: 1) evaluation of lesson plans and 2) evaluations from parents and students perspective. 

            The evaluation of lesson plans is an effective way to evaluate a teacher.  Lesson plans are written by the teacher and demonstrate the level of content knowledge and instructional practice.  Additionally, lesson plans also demonstrate if the teacher provides instruction to the various learning styles (auditory, visual, etc) and if he/she is utilizing specifically designed instruction (SDI) for students with disabilities.  Finally, since many lesson plans are due weekly or monthly to the principal, a principal is able to assess over time the quality of instruction students are receiving.

            The final alternative, parent and student evaluations will likely be the most controversial and contested.  The purpose for suggesting they are part of the evaluation of teachers is that parents and students are an underutilized and ignored knowledge resource in education.  For those who care about improving the teaching and instruction of our children, they need to hear what parents and students have to say about their experiences with the individuals responsible for grading, assessing, and promotion of children.  There will be some who will claim that having parents and students evaluate them is unfair because parents and/or students may give them a poor evaluation due to receiving poor grades, being disciplined or suspended.  As with any evaluation whenever you are evaluated by your subordinates, there will honest evaluations and evaluations based on retribution.  However, only a small weight percentage is assigned to the overall evaluation and a majority of the time the positive and negative balance evaluations balance out to provide an informative representation of a teachers’ strengths and areas of improvement.

            If the goal is to develop a new teacher evaluation system that is fair and accurately assesses a teachers’ strengths and areas of improvement, adding lesson plans and parent and student perspective into the evaluation process will be vital to obtaining the data needed to improve teacher effectiveness.