Teacher Evaluation

This morning I was cleaning out my Google Reader. I often leave my education postings to the weekend, not wanting to burn myself out on education during the week (between 7am-5pm, and twitter postings, it can be a bit much). One post I found today (from Dan Meyer) was a link to a Washington Post article on teacher evaluation. Teacher evaluation is a huge topic of discussion, particularly because of the documentary Waiting for Superman. In a nutshell, the discussion post-WFS has dealt with "bad teachers" and how to get rid of them. That doesn't even go into where "good teachers" come from, or where the line of teachers to replace the bad teachers is. Alas I digress.

The Washington Post article was difficult to read. I cringed a few times as I was reading, particularly as the evaluation wrapped up. The teacher had adjusted to meet the needs of his kids, but it appeared from the article that his lesson was flawed from the get-go. There are many blanks, largely because it is a reporter, the evaluator, and the teacher. Evaluation is objective, which is what scares people. If you don't get along with someone then they might be prejudiced in their evaluation of the teacher. The article showed that the teacher cared about his kids, but didn't clearly show if his planning set him up for effective instruction. I wonder a little bit why he moved from showing the commutative process to place value. Wouldn't you already have an idea about place value issues through some pre-assessment? It seemed a little curious to me.

The article made me think about teacher evaluation in my district. Administrators have a pre and post evaluation meeting with you to accompany your observation. This goes along with a summative meeting at the end of the year. Administrators gather where your lesson fits in your instructional plan, why you are doing it, and how you'll instruct to meet the needs of your kids. If you alter your instruction you can discuss why you made that change, and what signalled why that change should be made. Is there a chance that bias or prejudice comes the process? Sure, we are human beings. Do I know if it happens? I can only speak for my own experience, which I judge to have been very fair thus far (so no, it has not happened to me or someone I know of). I also operate under the premise that I am going to be judged fairly, not worrying about the emotion tied to evaluation. There isn't an expectation that you are perfect, but you definitely need to know what you are doing. You need to be thinking about the evidence that will speak to the effectiveness of you instruction. But shouldn't you already be doing that?

We are in an objective profession. We aren't perfect.