Today I don’t feel like doin’ anything. Isn’t the reason why we have developed such stringent evaluation policies for teachers? Much of today’s media coverage is devoted to depicting teachers as unprofessional, lazy, and ineffective. Now, in an effort to protect our students from lazy and ineffective teachers, Florida, among other states, will begin to tie each teacher’s salary to their students’ FCAT scores and administrative evaluations. Teachers who do not meet the predetermined standards are subject to loss of wages and tenure (regardless of whether they elected to participate in the new evaluation system). Sounds like a good plan, right? Not, so fast.
The true difficulty lies in creating a system that supports teachers as professionals while simultaneously being accurate and valid. Currently, most school districts rely on administrators to evaluate their teachers once per year and make a recommendation based on a single, formal classroom visit. This snapshot tends to be grossly unreliable, as the students, teacher, and administrator are all aware of the consequences of a poorly evaluated lesson (Marshall, 2005). Additionally, teachers tend to devalue the importance of the evaluation because of the small time investment on the part of the administrator. I have met with many Hillsborough County teachers who feel trapped within the overly specific evaluation instrument and feel it limits their ability to be instructionally creative or to differentiate appropriately based on the needs of their students.
To make an accurate determination about the effectiveness of potential concerns for administrators, the next phase of my research will focus on the history of teacher evaluation- where it began and how it evolved to what it is today. If anyone knows of a comprehensive literature review or book related to this topic, please feel free to share!
Marshall, K. (2005). It's time to rethink teacher supervision and evaluation. Phi Delta Kappan, June, 727-735.
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