Purpose of Evaluation

There is a longstanding debate about the purpose of teacher evaluation. Is the purpose to improve teacher practice through reflective conversation and expert advice? Is it to measure teacher competence? Or is it somewhere between those two, reflecting elements of both? An article last year in Educational Leadership addressed the question by asking practitioners what they thought to be the purpose of teacher evaluation. The vast majority of respondents said that evaluation was both improvement of practice and measurement, with an emphasis on improving practice.

As I begin my first formal teacher observations of the year, I couldn't agree more. It is critical to have standards of professional practice, and a clear understanding of what those standards look like. In my district, we have expectations about the types of instruction that will take place, the need for a variety of engagement strategies, requirements on ELD support, and a vision of what classroom environment should include. Those are the items we use to measure teacher competence. But it is the informal and formal observations that happen at least a couple of times a month, and the short reflective conversations those observations provoke, that drive teacher improvement. As I visit classrooms, I focus on one or two areas, looking for evidence of proficiency. Often I find it. Part of the conversation I have with teachers afterwards asks how or why they made the choices they did, and reinforcing that their decision-making was sound. Sometimes I don't find the evidence I'm looking for. So the conversation starts with whether I just missed the evidence, as I ask them to describe what that practice or strategy looks like in their classroom. 

At this point in the year (and in my site administrative career), I'm trying to be careful with directives. It seems to me that a first step for teachers who have gaps in their proficiency is to make sure they are exposed to best practices, so having them observe a strategy in a team-member's classroom is a good fit. I can then talk with the teachers as they identify what steps they will take, and the mandate comes from themselves. Later in the year I may need to provide more explicit directives, but for now I think the best intervention is one they pick for themselves. 

I believe that my role as a teacher evaluator is to help teachers realize their best student-focused, research-driven, multi-faceted selves. As I do evaluations this year, I need to keep in mind what success in the process looks like from my end - I am doing my job well if teachers are more closely aligned to the expected competencies and are more reflective practitioners by the end of the year.