How Can Art and Music Teachers Demonstrate Their Contributions?

In this Education Week article, Erik Robelen reports on how some Tennessee arts educators are measuring their impact on student learning as part of the state’s teacher-evaluation process. In curriculum areas where no test scores are available, this voluntary program (called the Tennessee Fine Arts Growth Measures System) uses before-and-after classroom portfolios containing (for example) video footage of students sight-reading a musical score, a video of students reciting a speech from Julius Caesar, digital photos of students’ self-portraits, and samples of student-written research papers. 

Last year, 435 teachers electronically submitted five batches of student work samples from different points in the year, along with a self-rating for each. At least two of the evidence collections had to demonstrate differentiated instruction for students at different skill levels. Trained peer reviewers scored them, focusing on four domains from the state’s art standards: performance, creativity, responsiveness, and connection. If an evaluator’s score differed significantly from the teacher’s self-assessment, a second evaluator was called in. 

“Teachers want to demonstrate their effectiveness, they really do,” says Dru Davison of the Shelby County schools. “But they want it to be based on what they actually do in the classroom and the value they bring to their kids. They want to feel empowered and to be honored for the professionals that they are. If we have accountability systems that go against those principles, then we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.”

There was some skepticism among teachers at first, but many were won over by the degree of teacher control over what was submitted and the fact that subject-area educators were doing the evaluating. “It is a true measurement of a teacher’s teaching ability,” said Jackie Norman, a Memphis visual-arts teacher. Jeffrey Chipman, a music teacher, agreed: “To be able to say, ‘This is where they were and this is how I helped them get here’ is powerful. We’re in an age of accountability and quantifying just about everything that you can quantify, so providing teachers with a way to actually show what they’re doing in class is very different from a bubble-in test.” 

“Teacher-Review Tool: Classroom Portfolios” by Erik Robelen in Education Week, Sept. 18, 2013 (Vol. 33, #4, p. 1, 20), www.edweek.org 

From the Marshall Memo #503