Still widgets, five years on

Over the last five years, in the wake of TNTP's The Widget Effect, Tim Daly writes that many states and districts have designed new teacher-evaluation systems, but fewer have fully implemented them, or implemented them well. A higher number of classroom observations per year doesn't ensure principals are actually giving teachers accurate, useful feedback. A certain percentage of evaluations from student-learning measures doesn't solve the matter of measuring teachers in non-tested grades and subjects. And establishing more rigorous expectations for teachers doesn't magically eliminate rating inflation. Daly says the consensus around evaluating with multiple measures should be celebrated. Yet in most schools, principals and other observers still fail to evaluate accurately and with rigor. Even observation rubrics specifically designed to better distinguish teacher performance have produced the same old results, rating every teacher "good" or "great." Daly urges rubrics be shrunk to four or five components, all focused squarely on how students respond to instruction. These can capture differences in teacher performance as well as longer rubrics, minus the confusion. He also says state and district leaders must persist through the anxiety and resistance that comes along with any big change, and carry out the process of revising the culture. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.