Introduction
In order to accomplish this activity, I experienced my own end-of-year evaluation as a classrom teacher and observed two others, each run by different Principals. This allowed me to see the school’s evaluation process be applied by three different administrators and, after each session, I interviewed both the teacher and administrator involved seperately.
Observations
The school’s evaluation process is detailed and well-organized. All of the participants believe it to be fair and, while opinions differ on how judgements of individual performance, the general consensus is that the system works
From a teacher’s perspective, here’s how it works. First, several months before the evaluation, an administrator makes a series of short visits to my classroom. Each visit lasts somewhere between ten and thirty minutes and no notes are taken. In my case, only two visits occured and one was cut short when the administrator was called away to deal with an emergent issue.
Following the visitation period, evaluation rubrics are distributed to faculty for self-evaluation. They are lengthy and measure a variety of skills, including preparation, classroom management, lesson-design, communication and so forth. Each rubric asks the teacher to score themselves on a four-point scale ona number of specific criteria and the modal average of each sheet is recorded at the bottom of the page.
During the formal evaluation meeting, my principal asked me to walk him through the rubric and explain my scores on each criterion. He and I discussed any discrepencies between my score and his evaluation and the resulting scores were recorded onto a new evaluation which we both signed. My experience was that I was a harsher critic of myself than my principal, though he told me that, in most cases, the evaluation meeting took longer and he found himself disagreeing with teachers who thought more of their own abilities and performance than he did.
In my own case, that concluded the process. We both signed the completed form and that was that. However, one of the sessions I observed was much more contentous.
In this session, the principal, TB, felt that the teacher in question, AM, was too informal in his classroom, too “chummy” with his students. When TB presented his concern, AM got defensive and quite a bit of time was spent arguing about the merits of generating close relationships with students versus the dangers of not maintaining sufficient professional distance. This certainly bogged down the evaluation and was, I believe, an outgrowth of the process itself. While it is important for the teacher to feel that his insight into his own performance is valueable, it must remain clear at all times that the role of the administrator is to observe, evaluate and provide feedback.
Reflections
While I think that the evaluation process we use at my school is effective, it leaves much to be desired and can be improved in a number of significant ways.
First, the process is too sudden. In my case, a single adminsitrator visited my classroom on only two occasions and spent a total of less than thirty minutes there. This is simply not enough time to get a sense of how I run my classroom. And, even worse, my research revealed that many teachers saw even less evaluation time due to the busy schedule of administators. Similarly, I was observed and evaluated by only one principal. Opening the process up to multiple observers would gererate more varied and dynamic feedback, as well as protect the integrity of the process and shield individuals from charges of unfair evaluation.
Second, whle the existing process does provide feedback, it is entirely reactive in nature and, for the most part, occurs far too late in the school year to be of any use to the teachers. It is obvious that the process is designed to aid in the hire/no hire decision that must be made before contracts are offered each April for the coming school year. However, this is of little use to teachers; if they only find out in the spring that they’re doing sub-par teaching, there is no time to learn or improve their work. The process could be improved significanlty by inviting more experienced members of the faculty into the process. These “master teachers” could serve as first-round evaluators and coaches for teachers who need instruction or reminders as to best practices and methodologies.
Conclusions
As with many parts of my school’s systems, the teacher evaluation process feels good but not great. It was obviously designed to serve the needs of the administration rather than the faculty and room for improvement exists.