There was a national movement to redesign how teachers were evaluated in the classroom.  Chicago Public Schools launched a pilot program to address this concern of feedback on their performance. Leaders, in our evaluation systems were failing to give meaningful feedback on instructional practices and struggled to provide the next steps or what was expected from teachers in the classroom. 

The second struggle for leaders in the evaluation format was that the traditional methods did not differentiate between the best teacher, good teacher, or a teacher that needed more support. Two years ago, the trend nationally is to evaluate teachers based on the improvements their students make on standardized tests, I sure hope has gone out the door. Even the idea of evaluating teachers in the next 10 years seems like a stretch due to the teacher shortage and the Covid19 pandemic. These are scary times, but I know this topic will again resurface and when it does I think schools will be ready to justify reasons to transform the teacher evaluating system in its current context.

Districts Struggle To Find The Right Fit: There Are Many Limitations

Yes, there are limitations associated with value-added modeling for teacher rating. First, the teacher may not be teaching the grade or subject that is being evaluated. Second, some of the standard assessments given to students we're not designed to measure student growth. Other limitations result from school districts using team teaching to improve student scores. This flexible teaching method makes it difficult to assess which teacher is improving student learning. Validation of the analysis uses raw ratings that are assigned by principles rather than statistically adjusted ratings as this is how teacher evaluation is implemented.

There is a Relationship between classroom observation and student learning

If there is a relationship between classroom observation ratings and student learning, then classroom observation ratings are an indication of teacher quality for untested grades. The expectation is teachers with the highest classroom observation ratings are the same teachers with the highest value-added indicators. Students of teachers with low ratings had the least growth while students with teachers with high ratings showed significant growth.

Here are the levels of performance or ratings of teachers:

➢     Unsatisfactory: Teaching is below the standard of “Do no harm,” which requires immediate intervention.

➢     Basic: The teacher understands the basics of teaching but the delivery is sporadic.

➢     Proficient: The teacher has mastered the art of teaching.

➢     Distinguished: The teacher has created a community of learners who are assuming responsibility for their own learning.

As teacher rating improves so does their value-added measures indicating higher ratings result in higher student improvement. This signifies a direct relationship between the two: The higher the teacher’s rating the higher the students learning ratio. The results for math are comparable to the results for reading across all ten components. This suggests the Framework ratings are a valid measure of teacher classroom practices. So I ask you; how has your school transformed in the last 5 years? Let’s brainstorm on ways to support teachers grow!

Sources

Authors: Lauren Sartain, Sara Ray Stoelinga, and Eric R. Brown; with: Stuart Luppescu, Kavita Kapadia Matsko, Frances K. Miller, Claire E. Durwood, Jennie Y. Jiang, and Danielle Glazer. November 2011. Rethinking Teacher Evaluation In Chicago. Lessons learned from classroom observation Principal-Teacher conferences and District implementation. Consortium On Chicago School Research At The University Of Chicago Urban Education Institute.

Charlotte Danielson. 2013. The framework for Teaching Evaluation Instrument.

Value-added remodeling. (n.d.). Retrieved March 25, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/special-report/2013/03/16/value-added-remodelling