Evaluating Teachers

here is a raging debate in the States on teacher evaluation that has really captured my attention and is often the topic of staffroom discussions.
Effective (good) teaching and its effect on student achievement is the focus of the documentary “Waiting for Superman” which I really enjoyed.  It really does boggle my mind that rubber rooms in New York existed to hold chronically ineffective teachers who were able to draw a full salary to sit in a room and do nothing.  I am glad to see that the public embarrassment of these rooms is forcing them to be shut down (NY Times article), but the underlying problem of not being able to dismiss ineffective teachers is not isolated to New York.  Most people do not argue with the need to clear out some of the teachers that harm our credibility as a profession, but it is how we define ineffective/effective teachers that is the basis of much of the debate: on what criteria (observations? Standardized test results?), by whom (administrators? outside ‘experts’?), what factors are taken into account (school population, ability, socio-economic make-up of the students, etc), and what happens once someone is discovered to be ineffective (PD?, support? firing?).  How to capture ‘good’ teaching and evaluate whether it is happening in a classroom is certainly a ‘delicate conversation’ as this Washington Post article points out.
This year I have spent a lot of time thinking about teacher observation and evaluation as we are building it into our New Teacher Program at WQSB and currently I have had the privilege of observing half of our new teachers in their classrooms along with my director and their school administrator.  What an amazing experience- what incredible teachers!  Certainly, observing/evaluating new teachers is a totally different ball game than going into the classrooms of tenured and experienced teachers.  Observations and evaluations are part of the teacher college experience so many of the new teachers to our board are used to the experience and have really been positive in their feedback.  As well, it is not our intention to evaluate the teachers.  This is the job of the administrator in the building.  We are using these snapshots of classroom teaching (and they really are 20 minute snapshots and we appreciate that things can happen in a classroom to change that 20 minutes monumentally- I’ve been there!) as a means to actually see the realities of each new teacher, to get to know them a little better as individuals (instead as a big group in a PD session), to find out how the New Teacher Program is going (and suggestions to improve) and to test out an observation/evaluation tool that we are developing for the board.   The tool is based on the 12 teacher competencies developed by the MELS (Quebec Ministry), but has been adapted to provide us with observables for classroom visits and is a work in progress as we make changes with each administrator we work with.  Part of the process is that we have a debriefing session with each teacher and they are given an opportunity to share what they think went well (What Went Well- WWW) and what they would like to improve (Even Better If-EBI) from the observed lesson.  We also highlight our positive observations and supply one EBI. One of the best things about doing these observations is the pedagogical discussions that happen when the observers get together to discuss the lesson.  It is great to see how we are all starting to speak the same language with respect to teaching- unsatisfactory to outstanding and all the levels in between.  So far, the observation process has been a positive one for me and I am hoping that the new teachers feel the same way.  I know I would have been very nervous, but would have loved to have had more feedback when I was in the classroom- not only as a new teacher!  Even now, I love getting feedback to improve workshops and training sessions even if they sometimes make me question my competence.  Ultimately, the success of this type of tool really will depend on its delivery and the person observed’s desire to improve their craft.  I find myself moving further away from my initial view of anti-external evaluation and have firmly planted myself on the side of teacher evaluations and classroom observations as I really feel we need to examine our profession and make ourselves more accountable as educators.