Weekly Supervision and Coaching of Teachers in Newark, NJ

(Originally titled “Beyond the Scorecard”)

In this important Educational Leadership article, New Jersey educator/author Paul Bambrick-Santoyo questions the efficacy of using rubrics for classroom observations. Why? First, most rubrics have so many criteria that it’s difficult for a teacher to absorb and implement the feedback. Second, rubric-based evaluations are usually based on one or two lessons a year – lessons that often aren’t representative of a teacher’s daily work. And third, evaluations usually take place toward the end of the school year – too late for teachers to make important changes. 

Bambrick-Santoyo calls this the “scoreboard” approach to evaluation. In the real world of classrooms, he says, using a “theoretically complete framework of effective performance” is not what drives improved performance. In the nine high-performing Newark schools he manages, principals focus on skillful coaching of their teachers. Here are the key elements:

• Frequent, short classroom visits. Teachers in North Star Academy schools get weekly, unannounced 15-minute visits, followed every time by a face-to-face feedback conversation. When administrators are in classrooms, they don’t use a long checklist; instead, they jot notes on one or two “change levers” that will help each teacher become a little more effective with students. 

Are weekly classroom visits feasible? Bambrick-Santoyo says they are if administrators divide up the faculty so no one supervises more than 15 teachers, visit classrooms physically close to one another in blocks (for example, four in an hour), and lock in a schedule of weekly check-in meetings with teachers. “Routine coaching using this approach still takes significant time,” he says. “But if your goal is to coach and drive teacher development, this time must be spent.” 

• Focus and practice. In feedback conversations, North Star administrators zero in on one or two specific, bite-size, attainable goals – for example, how an elementary teacher might get every single student participating in choral responses – and then role-play with the teacher to hone the skill. “This focus on key action steps cuts through the confusion that an elaborate rubric might have created and provides a clear path,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. “Feedback and evaluation won’t change real classrooms unless teachers build the skills needed to make a change.” 

• Coach for growth, not for scores. Instead of rubric scores, teachers walk away from each meeting with a specific goal, knowing the administrator will be back soon to see how it’s going. 

• Use rubrics for summative evaluations. North Star principals pull together their impressions from the weekly visits and conversations and evaluate each teacher twice a year using a detailed rubric. Teachers self-assess and compare their ratings with the administrator’s, agreeing on final scores and goals for the remainder of the year or the next year.

“To improve the team, you don’t study the scoreboard; you go out and practice,” concludes Bambrick-Santoyo. “When teachers see the concrete steps they must take to improve their practice, and when they can continually practice skills connected to those steps, transformational success comes within reach.”

“Beyond the Scorecard” by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo in Educational Leadership, November 2012 (Vol. 70, #3, p. 26-30), http://www.ascd.org; the author can be reached at

pbambrick@uncommonschools.org. 

From the Marshall Memo #459