New teacher evaluations: Search and destroy missions rather than efforts to improve instruction?
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W. James Popham, a UCLA Emeritus Professor, is the author of "Evaluating America’s Teachers: Mission Possible?"
He sent this column to the AJC.
By W. James Popham
In almost all 50 states including Georgia, teachers will soon be subjected to annual, high-stakes evaluations of their instructional competence. Unlike previous teacher evaluations that were aimed at improving teachers’ instructional skills, these new teacher evaluations are much more likely to lead to a teacher’s dismissal.
America’s teachers are, with good reason, concerned.
The trouble is that state officials have swung from one extreme to the other. Stung by criticisms about the subjectivity of previous teacher-evaluation systems, they have instituted what they claim are wholly objective evaluations based on quantitative data.
Such by-the-numbers, supposedly scientific teacher evaluations, however, are destined to fail for two reasons.
One of those reasons is the enormous diversity in different teachers’ instructional situations. Teachers differ in what they teach, who they teach, the effectiveness of their students’ previous instruction, and a host of other salient educational variables. To quantitatively evaluate a state’s teachers as though they were functioning in identical instructional settings is flat-out foolish. Yet, many of today’s judgment-free teacher evaluations attempt to do precisely that.
The second obstacle faced by teacher evaluators is the variety and quality of the evidence being used to arrive at an evaluation of a teacher’s quality. The most common kinds of evidence New teacher evaluations: Search and destroy missions rather... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:
