Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Classroom observations may hurt teachers more than they help, study says

Classroom observations — one of the most widely-used forms of teacher evaluation — might be setting teachers up to fail

Teachers might be at a disadvantage during classroom observation of their instructional practice, which is one of the most widely-used tools for high-stakes job performance evaluations. And whether or not students have a history of high classroom achievement could be the reason why.

Research from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) indicates that evaluations based on observing teachers in the classroom often fail to meaningfully assess teacher performance.

The study, published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, adds to the ongoing policy debate over when and how teachers should be evaluated.…Read More

Education Department tries to ease testing worries

Education Sec. Duncan: States can delay the use of high-stakes exams in their teacher evaluation systems

education-testingEducation Secretary Arne Duncan on Aug. 21 said that states can apply for extra time before they use student test scores to judge teachers’ performance.

Duncan’s decision is an acknowledgement of the concerns by teachers’ unions and others that it’s too early to make teacher personnel decisions based on how well students do on new assessments developed under the Common Core standards that will be used in much of the country this school year.

The move affects the more than 40 states and the District of Columbia that have a waiver around stringent parts of the No Left Behind education law. One condition the Obama administration put on obtaining a waiver was the development of a meaningful teacher evaluation system.…Read More

10 facts about teacher evaluation policies

New report says states making “unprecedented” teacher evaluation changes

teacher-evaluation New teacher evaluation policies are being developed across states, but states still have a long way to go in connecting the data from these evaluations to action—specifically when it comes to either rewarding or disciplining teachers, and developing professional development programs, according to a new report.

Spurred partly by federal Race to the Top program funds, as well as by federal conditions to be followed by states pursuing waivers of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), “the widespread adoption of more rigorous teacher evaluation policies represents a seismic shift rarely seen in education policy in general or state teacher policy specifically,” according to the report.

The report, “Connecting the Dots: Using Evaluations of Teacher Effectiveness to Inform Policy and Practice,” by Kathryn Doherty and Sandi Jacobs, was released by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)—a non-partisan research and policy organization.…Read More

Teacher evaluation in PreK: Using student data is risky

According to a new report, many states will soon measure student learning in the “untested grades,” meaning teacher evaluation will use data from students in prekindergarten through third grade. The report explores the risks associated with this and its potential impact on teachers?

The brief, “An Ocean of Unknowns: Risks and Opportunities in Using Student Achievement Data to Evaluate PreK-3rd Grade Teachers,” funded through grants from the Foundation for Child Development and the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, reports that as of 2012, 20 states and Washington, D.C. require evidence of student learning to play a role in evaluating teacher performance. As a result, better information on student learning is in high demand, and no grade level is immune.

Historically, most states have required standardized testing only in grades three through eight. But now those 21, with likely more to follow, must devise comparable ways to measure student learning in the “untested grades,” as well, including preK, kindergarten, and grades one and two. And even with testing in grade three, a lack of baseline data has implications for those teachers, too.…Read More

Figuring out how to give teachers useful feedback

When Texas lawmakers rolled out a framework for evaluating public schoolteachers more than 15 years ago, they intended to identify ways to strengthen the state’s teaching corps, The New York Times reports. But the regular result of the largely subjective evaluations since then has been: no improvement needed. Less than 3 percent of educators receive scores below the “proficient” level, and the variation in scores from year to year has been so small that state officials stopped collecting the data from school districts after the 2010-11 academic year…

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Six steps to effective teacher development and evaluation

‘Both of us have become increasingly concerned that states and districts are doing evaluation quickly instead of doing it right, which could have serious adverse effects,’ the authors write.

(Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The New Republic. It’s reprinted here with permission from the American Federation of Teachers.)

Some see us as education’s odd couple—one, the president of a democratic teachers’ union; the other, a director at the world’s largest philanthropy.

While we don’t agree on everything, we firmly believe that students have a right to effective instruction and that teachers want to do their very best. We believe that one of the most effective ways to strengthen both teaching and learning is to put in place evaluation systems that are not just a stamp of approval or disapproval but a means of improvement. We also agree that in too many places, teacher evaluation procedures are broken—unconstructive, superficial, or otherwise inadequate. And so, for the past four years, we have worked together to help states and districts implement effective teacher development and evaluation systems carefully designed to improve teacher practice and, ultimately, student learning.…Read More

A teacher evaluation session out of ‘Star Wars’

Think “Star Wars.” That’s how award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York frames her newest post on Year Two of New York’s controversial educator evaluation system, the Washington Post reports. Burris has for more than a year chronicled on this blog (here and here and here, for example) the implementation of the system, which ignores research by using student standardized test scores to assess teachers and which has already started to negatively impact young people. Burris, named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State, is the co-author of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student test scores. It has been signed by more than 1,535 New York principals and more than 6,500 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens. You can read the letter by clicking here. In this post Burris writes about a surreal training session where principals were taught how to evaluate teachers…

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Gates Foundation: Test scores not enough for teacher evaluation

The most reliable systems for measuring teacher effectiveness include a balanced mix of evaluation methods, researchers said—including student test scores, lesson observation, and student surveys.

After three years of research on measuring teacher effectiveness, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Jan. 8 that it takes multiple measures to most accurately evaluate teachers.

The Seattle foundation concluded in its final report on its Measures of Effective Teaching research that test scores or principal evaluations are not enough on their own. The findings mirror what teachers unions have been saying.

Through incentives grants (such as Race to the Top) and waivers to No Child Left Behind rules, the federal government has been pushing states to update their teacher evaluation systems because it felt existing systems were inadequate.…Read More

Comparing the leading classroom observation tools

Different observation tools are available to suit various needs.

Policy makers in states from coast to coast are demanding more rigorous teacher evaluations that lead to real improvements in instruction—and school systems are changing their practices as a result.

Central to this effort are software tools that help school leaders record their observations during classroom walkthoughs and share this information with teachers to foster their professional growth.

Many programs include free apps for conducting walkthroughs using a mobile device—though not all solutions can be used both online and offline. Other features to compare include the software’s flexibility (can it be customized to meet each school’s evaluation needs?) and what sharing and reporting capabilities it includes.…Read More