Teacher Evaluations
In my 31 years of teaching, I have seen teacher evaluation programs come and go. In my opinion, none have been effective. The problem is, how do you evaluate teacher effectiveness without reducing the evaluation to a series of check boxes?
My first year of teaching, 1986, the state of Georgia was just starting to use the TPAI, the Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument. As a new teacher, I had to pass the TPAI before I got full pay. I think I got something like 75-80% pay until I passed it. I could attempt it up to 6 times, but had to wait 6 months between tries, which means I had 3 years to pass, or else my teaching license would be revoked. I remember doing a practice one during my student teaching, but didn't fully understand the process. Evidently, this was only for new teachers.
In my opinion, it was a pretty good measure, but the execution was lacking. The process was that I had to develop 10 consecutive days of lesson plans, of which three would be observed, one each by a teacher, a principal, and someone from outside the system. I remember one of the requirements was that I had to have a bulletin board. Fortunately, I had Jackie to help me with that, as she is much more creative than I am.
I failed the first assessment, as I should have, because I still didn't quite understand what was required. Six months later, I tried again, and this time, I failed because my introduction was a narrative, and one of the evaluators (the outside one) thought it should be a chart instead. Since I couldn't just re-do the introduction, I had to wait another six months before I could try again. This cost me an extra 6 months of pay. Finally, on my third attempt, I passed. The state decided that this was not a fair way to evaluate new teachers, and scrapped the program soon after. To make up for this, they paid every teacher who went through the process as if they had an extra 2 years of experience the rest of our careers, at least until we reached the top of the pay scale, which is 20 years (18 for us).
For some reason, politicians are convinced that schools are rampant with inadequate teachers. While I am sure there are some, my experience is that most teachers truly care about their students and want them to do well. Of course, there are "bad apples" out there who seem to put in minimal effort.
The last few years, there has been a push to evaluate teachers using test scores. This would be a great idea if every teacher taught the same students the same subject. But they don't. And kids have learned, very quickly, how to game the system. In band, the test was called Student Learning Objectives, or SLO. Basically, we would give a test at the beginning of the school year, and then give the same test at the end of the school year, and both the student and the teacher would be measured on the student's growth. Simple, right? The problem is, the students figured out almost instantly that if they did poorly on the pre-test, like a 4 or a 20, then they could just make a 50 or 60 on the post-test and be counted as exemplary growth. So they would "Christmas tree" the pre-test, and put effort into the post-test. So, basically, nothing was valid. Fortunately, the state has done away with these, too.
So how do we evaluate teachers? The better question is, "Why are we evaluating teachers?" Is it to get rid of the bad teachers? Or is it to institute merit pay? Until that question is answered, we can't come up with a fair and equitable system.
I believe merit pay is a bad idea, simply because it is so difficult to compare teachers. How do you decide if a chorus teacher is better or worse than a math teacher? It's comparing apples to oranges, and there is no fair way to do that.
I believe that the object of teacher evaluations is to weed out bad teachers. To that end, I believe that principals pretty much ensure this. A principal will find a way to get rid of teachers they don't want, and I can't think of any principal that wants to keep ineffective teachers on their staff. If so, then the principal needs to be replaced. I like the idea of principals and assistant principals, as well as fellow teachers, observing classrooms and giving feedback to a teacher, and these don't need to be announced. Personally, I never changed anything just because I was going to be observed. I felt they wanted to see an authentic lesson, not a dog-and-pony show.
It just makes sense that there should be more than one person making the decision on whether a teacher stays or goes. I can count on one hand the number of fellow teachers who observed one of my classes, and taught at several schools where the principal never saw me teach. That should never happen. Teachers should have time, outside of their planning time, to observe other teachers within their school, and within their county, and even outside their county, especially if it is in their subject area. Savannah-Chatham allowed me a half day to observe another elementary music teacher in her classroom, and to talk with her before and after her classes- all-in-all a valuable experience. More counties should allow that.
Until next time, may your day and your loved ones be blessed!
My first year of teaching, 1986, the state of Georgia was just starting to use the TPAI, the Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument. As a new teacher, I had to pass the TPAI before I got full pay. I think I got something like 75-80% pay until I passed it. I could attempt it up to 6 times, but had to wait 6 months between tries, which means I had 3 years to pass, or else my teaching license would be revoked. I remember doing a practice one during my student teaching, but didn't fully understand the process. Evidently, this was only for new teachers.
In my opinion, it was a pretty good measure, but the execution was lacking. The process was that I had to develop 10 consecutive days of lesson plans, of which three would be observed, one each by a teacher, a principal, and someone from outside the system. I remember one of the requirements was that I had to have a bulletin board. Fortunately, I had Jackie to help me with that, as she is much more creative than I am.
I failed the first assessment, as I should have, because I still didn't quite understand what was required. Six months later, I tried again, and this time, I failed because my introduction was a narrative, and one of the evaluators (the outside one) thought it should be a chart instead. Since I couldn't just re-do the introduction, I had to wait another six months before I could try again. This cost me an extra 6 months of pay. Finally, on my third attempt, I passed. The state decided that this was not a fair way to evaluate new teachers, and scrapped the program soon after. To make up for this, they paid every teacher who went through the process as if they had an extra 2 years of experience the rest of our careers, at least until we reached the top of the pay scale, which is 20 years (18 for us).
For some reason, politicians are convinced that schools are rampant with inadequate teachers. While I am sure there are some, my experience is that most teachers truly care about their students and want them to do well. Of course, there are "bad apples" out there who seem to put in minimal effort.
The last few years, there has been a push to evaluate teachers using test scores. This would be a great idea if every teacher taught the same students the same subject. But they don't. And kids have learned, very quickly, how to game the system. In band, the test was called Student Learning Objectives, or SLO. Basically, we would give a test at the beginning of the school year, and then give the same test at the end of the school year, and both the student and the teacher would be measured on the student's growth. Simple, right? The problem is, the students figured out almost instantly that if they did poorly on the pre-test, like a 4 or a 20, then they could just make a 50 or 60 on the post-test and be counted as exemplary growth. So they would "Christmas tree" the pre-test, and put effort into the post-test. So, basically, nothing was valid. Fortunately, the state has done away with these, too.
So how do we evaluate teachers? The better question is, "Why are we evaluating teachers?" Is it to get rid of the bad teachers? Or is it to institute merit pay? Until that question is answered, we can't come up with a fair and equitable system.
I believe merit pay is a bad idea, simply because it is so difficult to compare teachers. How do you decide if a chorus teacher is better or worse than a math teacher? It's comparing apples to oranges, and there is no fair way to do that.
I believe that the object of teacher evaluations is to weed out bad teachers. To that end, I believe that principals pretty much ensure this. A principal will find a way to get rid of teachers they don't want, and I can't think of any principal that wants to keep ineffective teachers on their staff. If so, then the principal needs to be replaced. I like the idea of principals and assistant principals, as well as fellow teachers, observing classrooms and giving feedback to a teacher, and these don't need to be announced. Personally, I never changed anything just because I was going to be observed. I felt they wanted to see an authentic lesson, not a dog-and-pony show.
It just makes sense that there should be more than one person making the decision on whether a teacher stays or goes. I can count on one hand the number of fellow teachers who observed one of my classes, and taught at several schools where the principal never saw me teach. That should never happen. Teachers should have time, outside of their planning time, to observe other teachers within their school, and within their county, and even outside their county, especially if it is in their subject area. Savannah-Chatham allowed me a half day to observe another elementary music teacher in her classroom, and to talk with her before and after her classes- all-in-all a valuable experience. More counties should allow that.
Until next time, may your day and your loved ones be blessed!
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