Research has made a compelling argument that the key to significantly improved student outcomes is raising the level of teacher quality. The question is how.
On the national level, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the most conspicuous attempt to improve teacher quality by requiring that teachers have the right credentials for their assignments. Researchers contend that experience is another key component of teacher quality and stress the need to retain veteran teachers. But any school HR administrator will tell you that the right credentials and classroom experience don’t always equal effective teaching.
There’s another seldom-mentioned tool that could be a factor in raising teacher quality, one that administrators already have at their disposal: teacher evaluation. Credible evaluation systems focus on the quality of teaching and serve as catalysts for teacher and school improvement, according to Thomas Toch, codirector of Education Sector, a Washington, D.C., based think tank.
Toch outlines his argument for improved evaluation systems in the article, “Fixing Teacher Evaluation” 
in the October 2008 issue of Educational Leadership published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) .
Toch maintains that teacher evaluation is largely ignored in the teacher quality debate because most school districts have “superficial and capricious” evaluation systems that fail to address the quality of instruction, much less student learning. He calls the typical evaluation of a public school teacher “the traditional drive-by” and describes it this way:
It’s easy for teachers to earn high marks under such a system because the system itself isn’t designed to tease out the areas where a teacher needs to improve. As a result, teachers get little to no feedback on how to better the quality of their instruction. Even the least engaging teachers seldom rate “unsatisfactory” with a drive-by system; they can easily put together a lesson that will earn them “satisfactory” ratings, if only for a day. Worse yet, some administrators don’t bother meeting with teachers to discuss the results. Evaluation is a perfunctory exercise for all involved.
Some big players in the teacher quality debate have given evaluation its due, using it as a tool to allow teachers to reflect on and improve their performance.
The Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) operated by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching has made intensive teacher evaluations central to its efforts to strengthen teaching. Under TAP, the key role of evaluations is to identify teachers’ weaknesses to allow a mentor to work with them and help them improve. At least 10 Texas school districts participate in TAP, some at the district level and some at individual schools.
TAP’s teacher evaluation standards have three main categories: designing and planning instruction, the learning environment, and instruction. Nineteen subgroups target such areas as the frequency and quality of classroom questions and whether students are able to draw conclusions using higher-level thinking skills.
To combat the subjective nature of an evaluation from a single evaluator, TAP teachers are evaluated at least three times a year by multiple evaluators that come from teams of master and mentor teachers trained in the organization’s evaluation system. To become an evaluator, a teacher must show he or she can accurately rate videotaped teacher lessons into one of three categories: unsatisfactory, proficient, and exemplary.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards employs a two-part evaluation as part of its unique national certification process to get a more complete picture of a teacher’s performance.
First, teachers seeking national board certification produce a portfolio of lesson plans, instructional materials, student work, videotapes of classroom lessons, teachers’ written reflections on the lessons, and evidence of collaboration with other teachers and parents. Teachers show what they know in the second part of the evaluation, where they write a series of online essays to allow evaluators to gauge their subject-matter expertise.
Connecticut offers BEST, a statewide program that provides mentors and training for new teachers with the goal of strengthening the teaching force. In their second year, teachers submit a portfolio chronicling a unit of instruction (at least five hours of teaching). Three state-trained teacher evaluators who teach the same subject score the portfolio. As with TAP, evaluators must be trained and show their ability to score portfolios accurately before they can take part.
The Toledo, Ohio, school system worked with the local teachers’ union to put a program in place to allow experienced teachers to perform evaluations. “Consulting teachers” leave their classrooms for a three-year period to mentor and evaluate first-year teachers through frequent, informal classroom observations and up to six (usually unannounced) evaluations each semester. The evaluations focus on teachers’ knowledge of their subjects, teaching skills, classroom management skills, and professionalism. Principals provide information on the attendance and comportment of teachers under review but aren’t directly involved in the evaluation process.
The common thread with all of the evaluation systems listed above is that they’re designed to help teachers improve, not just to meet a state or local requirement or weed out bad teachers. For example, when a TAP evaluator has identified a teacher’s weaknesses, a mentor will coach that teacher for the next six weeks to help him or her improve before the next evaluation. After the second evaluation, teachers know whether they’re on the right track.
Teacher opinions on TAP’s merits vary. Many TAP teachers applaud the program’s push for improvement and believe it elevates teaching to the level of other professions. Others are irritated by the additional time, effort, and accountability the program brings.
Education reformers and performance-pay advocates argue that teachers should be evaluated based on student achievement since the main goal of teaching is helping students learn.
That may sound reasonable, but standardized test scores are the only large-scale measure of student achievement, and even they fall short: only about 50 percent of teachers teach a tested subject or teach at a grade level that’s tested. Moreover, districts would face the challenge of separating out a teacher’s effect on his or her students’ learning based on reading or math scores from all the other factors that influence student achievement. Finally, standardized tests tend to measure low-level skills such as fact recall. Students of the best teachers learn high-level skills such as analysis, a skill a standardized test won’t pick up.
As a result, Toch concludes that test scores should play a supporting role in teacher evaluations. Districts that want to use them should consider schoolwide scores rather than individual teacher results to encourage educators to collaborate, not compete.
Since 1998, all but a few Texas school districts have used the state’s teacher evaluation model, the Professional Development and Appraisal System (PDAS), to evaluate teachers.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) uses Region XIII as the statewide resource for PDAS training and appraiser certification. Lauralee Pankonien, Region XIII’s senior certification coordinator, says that PDAS’s greatest strength is that administrators who evaluate teachers can use it to help teachers grow and improve. “It’s intended to be used as a developmental tool,” Pankonien said. “When administered as designed, we would expect that teachers benefit from the information that is exchanged and have a chance to improve.”
Pankonien says that when Texas teachers think of PDAS, they focus on the system’s one, 45-minute observation period. But when administered correctly, PDAS offers more value than a “drive-by” evaluation system. It differs from those systems in the following ways:
When it comes to determining how beneficial PDAS is in terms of improving teacher quality, one thing is certain: the diligence of the appraiser is critical. While PDAS doesn’t require multiple formal evaluations by different evaluators, it does allow an appraiser to conduct additional walk-throughs and observations at his or her discretion.
Communication is another area where the appraiser’s effort makes a critical difference. Teachers receive written summaries of evaluations and walk-throughs, but face-to-face conferences can be waived. Pankonien hears stories of appraisers who use the PDAS process as intended, communicating with teachers throughout the process face-to-face and in writing about how they’re doing and what they can do to improve. She also occassionally hears comments from teachers who get minimal feedback or simply find their evaluation summary report in their mailbox—end of discussion.
Pankonien believes PDAS would be a stronger system if it had more requirements regarding communication with teachers. “It’s designed to create the avenue for communication, but it can be implemented without that intent without breaking any rules,” Pankonien said. She indicated that TEA might make minor changes to PDAS in the future, but has no plans to replace PDAS with another teacher evaluation system.
While there’s been no formal survey, informal inquiries have turned up about 20 Texas districts that use appraisal systems other than PDAS. Pankonien said few districts go to the trouble of developing alternate systems because commissioner’s rules dictate that districts use PDAS-like criteria to win approval. “The criteria required are so similar to PDAS that most districts stick with PDAS,” Pankonien said. One district, Round Rock ISD, is a noteworthy exception, using an alternative appraisal system that it developed more than 15 years ago.
Round Rock ISD views its alternative evaluation system, Appraisal by Collaboration (ABC), as a catalyst for teacher improvement. ABC is offered districtwide, but campus administrators can also use PDAS in conjunction with or instead of ABC.
ABC allows teachers to set their own professional development goals in concert with campus and district goals as part of the evaluation process. Participation in ABC is described by the district as “a yearlong process of self-discovery, research, and reflection” for teachers. According to the district’s ABC manual, “ABC is a process, not a product.”
Teachers that participate in ABC start the process by identifying a student need they want to research that school year. Based on that need, they develop a question to guide them through the process. For example, “How can I use current events to improve my students’ reading skills?” From that question, the teacher develops a plan and begins collecting data. The teacher’s plan may include engaging in discussions with colleagues, observing colleagues, researching the topic in professional journals, and attending professional development sessions.
During the first semester, teachers meet with their appraiser to discuss their question and possibly narrow or redirect the focus to ensure that it addresses student achievement and aligns with campus and district goals. Teachers then begin to collect evidence including data and reflections to allow them to evaluate the results of their action research.
The collaboration part of ABC takes place during the year, as teachers participate in four small-group meetings with their peers to discuss their questions, talk about their research, share observations, and reflect on their results. Teachers ask neutral, probing questions to help each other clarify events, actions, and thoughts, with the end-goal of furthering each other’s research. For the final group meeting, teachers assemble a professional development portfolio and present its contents to the group. The group discusses and celebrates their results.
After that meeting comes the appraisal. Teachers meet with their campus administrators for their summative conference. The summative conference includes a list of job performance standards—the same as those used in PDAS—that the appraiser completes. Teachers complete their own reflective assessment on their research, identifying how it affected student achievement and their teaching practice. Together they discuss the ABC process, the results of the teachers’ research, and make plans for future research projects.
Round Rock administrators believe the benefit of ABC is that it establishes a common focus for teachers and administrators: student achievement, best practices, and curriculum. According to the ABC manual, “The reward is the creation of a learning community that provides continuous support, consistent feedback, and collegiality. Further, the ABC process models teachers learning about teaching and demonstrates professional commitment to lifetime learning about best practices.”
Lisa Napper, director of staffing for Round Rock’s HR department and a former principal in the district, said that in her experience, teachers prefer the action research aspect of ABC to PDAS appraisals, which they see as more formulaic. Teachers told her that they had known teachers who could “throw together” or recycle an old PDAS appraisal lesson in short order, with much less engagement than ABC requires. “They felt that the data and results of their ABC project gave them better feedback and insight into their professional practice than did the PDAS indicators and the feedback they were receiving,” Napper said.
Evaluation systems that accomplish more also cost districts more money and time. Sometimes much more. That said, districts that employ alternative evaluation systems see them as an investment, not an expense.
And districts that push for improvement make teaching a more attractive profession, one more likely to keep and attract talented people.
