Title: Evaluations That Help Teachers Learn - Educational Leadership
Headings: Evaluations That Help Teachers Learn
Evaluations That Help Teachers Learn
The Problem
Why Do We Evaluate Teachers?
To Ensure Teacher Quality
Figure 1. Levels of Performance in Questioning and Discussion Techniques
To Promote Professional Development
Two in One
Getting from Here to There
Seeing Benefits in Chicago
Two Challenges
The Need for Trained Evaluators
Finding Time for Professional Conversations
A Thoughtful Approach
Endnote
KEYWORDS
Requesting Permission

Content: a teacher might be rated at the highest level by one administrator and much lower by another. This makes it much easier to attain tenure in some schools than in others, a violation of a fundamental principle of equity. One-way, top-down communication. Evaluation is a process that's "done to" teachers, and it often feels punitive, like a "gotcha." Why Do We Evaluate Teachers? We can remedy these problematic characteristics by attending to some basic principles of assessment and teacher learning. First, it helps to be clear about why we even have teacher evaluation. Laws, of course, require it. But why are there laws? The first and most fundamental reason is because public schools are public institutions;