Friday, January 22, 2010

My Perfect School: Teacher Evaluation

In today's posting I will address the subject of teacher evaluation at my perfect school.  This is in direct response to the article I posted earlier this week, when an incompetent CCSD teacher was not fired but moved to another school.  In my school district, as a post-probationary teacher, I am only evaluated once a year.  My supervisor only needs to observe me three times a year to make said evaluation.  Compared to several years ago when I was evaluated three times with over nine observations from my supervisor.  Here is my plan.

As stated in previous postings, my school would not have a central administration, with principles, deans and others.  There would be one person responsible for evaluating the teacher of that school.  That would be their job.  Using a predetermined rubric of standards the Evaluation Manager would observe teachers on a daily basis.  The goal would be for the Evaluation Manager to see each teacher AT LEAST once a grading period, but they would definately be observe them more than once.

The rubric used by the teacher would be something similar to this evaluation rubric (Click on the hypertext).  I found this several weeks ago and thought it was one of the most comprehensive evaluation rubric for teachers.  The only thing I would probably want to add to this rubric is an option for non-observed action or behavior.  not that they are deficient but this cannot be observed by the evaluator.  Here is the link if the hypertext does not work:
http://www.marshallmemo.com/articles/Kim%20Marshall%20Teacher%20Eval%20Rubrics%20May%2016,%2009.pdf

Now not everything on the evaluation rubric is observable in a classroom experience.  Prior to the end of the grading period, the Evaluation Manager and the teacher will sit down and have a discussion on the evaluation.  The goal would be for the manager to give the teacher all their notes, observations, and the rubrics prior to this final evaluation.  The teacher would then need to provide evidence of any areas lacking in the evaluation rubrics.  They would bring this to the meeting with the Evaluation Manager.

Also a part of the evaluation would include observations from other areas as well.  In my perfect school the Department Chair (DC) would be responsible for observing and evaluation each teacher within their department.  They would use the same rubric but included would be a section ability of the teacher on the course methods and content.  The DC is the best person to do this since they should know the material better than anyone else.  Teachers would also be observed and evaluated by a colleague.  They would be randomly assigned at the start of the year.  All of these observations and evaluations would also be given the the teacher so they could provide evidence of areas where they may be deficient or there was no observable evidence.  These would be included in the final evaluation reports.

Lastly two groups of would also be allowed to observe and evaluate the teacher: parents and students.  Too often schools do not listen to their parents and students about the teachers they hire.  I would make it a prioroity to get an evaluation of the teacher from both students and parents as a part of the teacher's evaluation.  Who knows the teacher's better than the students?  They should have a voice in their evaluation.  They observe them everyday, so their opinion should be consulted.  Parents complain the most about teacher; they may not know them as well as their students, but they have insight to them as well.  The school might send this out the last week or so of the grading period.  It could be completely anonymous with student ID as the only identifier.  The results could then be tabulated for that teacher.

All of these observations and evaluation, in the end the result would be a clearer picture of who this teacher is in the classroom.  This evaluation method will apply to hiring, firing and pay increases.  Though, I will leave those for postings for another day.  Thanks for listening.  Feel free to comment.  If the comment link is not available her go over to my facebook page to comment on this posting. 

Also, I may be abandoning this site for blogging.  Facebook has a blogging app that seems to be just as good as blogger.  Please email me your thoughts and comments on my moving my blog.  Have a nice day.

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