Sunday, September 20, 2009

Evaluating the Evaluators

Once again, there is much buzz about evaluating teachers based on test scores. The people who advocate this approach believe that teaching is a skill that can be judged objectively with the right objective tool. However, anyone who is actually in a classroom knows this is institutional speak and not the best approach. Tests can be one measure, but certainly not the only measure. Perhaps even more important, this test-accountability issue underscores the small-minded approach to evaluation that prevails in public schools.

The first day of the semester I gave the members of my department a teacher self-evaluation form. I tend to think that when one examines one’s practice closely, instead of perfunctorily, our students will be in better or at least more conscious hands (that said, I am willing to bet that the self-evaluation forms I distributed ended up in the trash). Using the approach outlined in the excellent 20 Principles for Teaching Excellence by M. Walker Buckalew, here is a version of the evaluation I distributed:

EVALUATION:
Please rate each of the 12 teaching characteristics listed below on a scale of 1-9 (9 being the highest level of importance). Then rate your current approach to each characteristic and your three-year goal with respect to each characteristic. In addition, you are to rate your colleagues: assess how they would rate themselves in these areas and assess their range of approaches to each characteristic.
1. Knowledge and expertise which is readily perceived by students  _____
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____

2. A drive to stay “current” in relevant fields   _____
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____

3. Repeatedly articulated (to students) high standards and expectations for performance and conduct                 _____
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____

4. A “results” orientation (overt teaching in planned progression throughout the school year, emphasis on active not passive learning and rigor)                            ______
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____

5. A “vision” of the process and the end product (and the ability and willingness to describe that vision to students often and well)                                         _______
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____

6. A facility for infusing routine activities with meaning     _______
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____

7. A passion for preparation                                                  _______
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____


8.Flexibility, especially in design and evaluation              _________
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____


9. Humaneness, as perceived by students  (“individual equity” as distinct from “justice and fairness”)                                                                         _________
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____


10. A knack for confronting-without-demeaning  (emphasis on “community building”)   _______
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____

11. The ability to teach (not merely assign) “responsibility”            _______
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____


12. Constant attention to reinforcement principles (feedback)           ______
Your current approach _____ 
Your three-year goal _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “average ratings” _____
Your estimate of our faculty’s “range of approaches” _____
                                        

What I am hoping stands out in this evaluation is the picture of excellent teaching provided by these characteristics, but just in case forms are not your forte, here is another way to see what is being asked of teachers here:

• Is a teacher knowledgeable and can the students see evidence of the teacher’s expertise in his or her field? 
• Is the teacher still taking courses relevant in some way to his or her subject--is the teacher a learner too? 
• Does the teacher teach a rigorous course that demands critical thinking (and in many instances critical reading and writing too)? 
• Does the teacher take the students through logical relevant steps to achieve class objectives?
• Does the teacher provide and see the results of rigorous teaching in the student’s culminating work? 
• Does the teacher provide meaningful work and assessments rather than busy work? 
• Is the teacher able to adjust his or her methods and plans to meet the students’ needs and to more helpfully provide feedback? 
• Can the teacher see his or her students as individuals with individual needs in order to teach everyone in the class? 
• Does the teacher give meaningful, helpful, constructive feedback often and in a timely manner? • Is the classroom a safe place for students to succeed and to fail? 
• Does the teacher inspire student accountability?

As I see it, this evaluation seems to base all other characteristics on the teacher’s knowledge of his or her subject because without that knowledge the rest of these characteristics are impossible.  One cannot adjust methods; respond to and provide for differing levels of ability; establish rigorous goals and clear, meaningful steps to reach those goals; or give meaningful feedback if one does not really have a comprehensive grasp of the subject.
Yet most public school evaluations usually ask perfunctory questions like these: 
1. Are the students “on task” ?
2. Are the students aware of the specific standards they are being taught? Has the teacher posted  that standard on the board or indicated it in another way? (It it is presumed by those in charge that if a student knows the standard, then the student will learn that standard. This notion clearly ignores the fact that several standards are often interwoven into class activities and assignments, and knowing the standard does not mean students’ gain mastery as much as it adds to their experiencing tedium!)
3. Does the teacher perform bureaucratic duties (grading, attending meetings, taking video tests on child abuse and blood pathogens, to name a few) in a timely fashion?
4. Does the teacher sign in (which seems to be the only method for determining whether we show up to school on time)?
5. Is the teacher collegial? 
6. Does the teacher show evidence of teaching strategies like “scaffolding” and “backwards planning” and “vertical teaming” ? (How’s that for institutional thinking?)

In the Sunday, September 20th, 2009, LATIMES, a journalist quotes a local high-school principal (and let us not forget administrators are people who opted out of the classroom), who says his school has “made gains” despite what most of us still in the classroom would call untenable class sizes (40 or more students to one teacher), a problem he ignores:  

“ [Mr. __] said [his school] has made gains by focusing on what he described as fundamentals, including training teachers more about the ‘how’ of teaching than the ‘what’ of course content. He said he has also introduced ideas about how the brain works and how students learn.” 


This principal (think about that word, which means PRINCIPAL teacher) seems to believe the “how” and the “what” are separate and distinct elements of teaching, and to add insult to injury, he believes the "HOW" is MORE important.  He must have earned all A’s in his education classes!  Naturally, the writer of the article did not ask a single teacher at that school what he or she thought about this principal's "philosophy." 

No wonder the powers that be include teacher meeting participation and attendance as a key part of the teacher evaluation. Any competent teacher, struggling to impart information to students while engaging them in the rigors of a lively, thinking classroom, would immediately see Mr.___’s confident boast of making gains by focusing on training teachers more in the HOW of teaching as shortsighted nonsense, to say nothing of how low it sets the bar! 

Let’s not forget the people who have risen to the top of the institution, in most cases because they have successfully internalized this kind of institutional thinking (I know that there are always some exceptions to this rule), are the people who evaluate teachers. 

Does anyone else see a problem here?

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