COMMENTARY

Getting Serious About Teacher Evaluation

A fresh look at peer assistance and review

It’s an assumption that makes perfect prima facie sense, but as our research shows, the assumption is wrong.

Good teacher evaluation is critical, and evaluation programs should be rigorous and comprehensive. Truly effective evaluation programs combine accountability and support.

We just completed a study of two district programs of peer assistance and review, or PAR, in California—one in Poway, in San Diego County, and the other in San Juan, near Sacramento. These districts and their teachers’ unions gave us unprecedented access, and the study provides eye-opening lessons about teacher evaluation.

—Jonathan Bouw

Peer assistance and review is a relatively simple proposition. Carefully selected experienced teachers, called consulting teachers, step away from their own classrooms for their PAR terms to give a year of intensive support to beginning teachers and to underperforming veterans and, in most cases, conduct their summative evaluations. (The consulting teachers are paid a stipend for their services in addition to their salaries.)

PAR is overseen by a joint labor-management governing board whose members are selected by the district and the local union. The board has primary authority for reviewing consulting teachers’ reports and making recommendations to the superintendent and school board about the employment status of the teachers in PAR.

Our study revolved around three foundational questions: (1) What does the work of consulting teachers look like? (2) What makes the PAR governing board tick? and, (3) What kind of labor-management relations underlie PAR?

We focused first on the work of consulting teachers. We interviewed many of them and ...

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