As part of their job evaluations, Wyoming teachers may have to submit portfolios showing goals, student work, lesson plans and reflections on what worked and what didn’t.

On Wednesday morning, a majority of the members on a statewide committee that’s advising the Wyoming Legislature on improving accountability in public schools believed portfolios, or “data folders,” would help teachers improve.

“We want them to get into the habit of comparing teaching to learning, cause and effect,” said Scott Marion of the Dover, N.H., Center for Assessment, a consulting firm that is helping the committee. “That’s all it is.”

When a teacher is evaluated, he or she would bring the portfolio with them. But the portfolio might not be included in the teacher’s overall evaluation score.

“We could talk about it as a way to score, but that’s always corruptible,” Marion said. “If you do that, people set low goals.”

The advisory committee is comprised mostly of teachers, principals and superintendents. Although they were concerned that too much time and energy would be spent on activities outside the classroom, they embraced the opportunity for reflection.

Jack Patrick, an English teacher in Carbon County School District 2, said he would support the portfolios “as long as we’re not piling up the work we have to do on the side.”

The advisory committee, which reports to the Legislature's Select Committee on Statewide Education Accountability, has been meeting since June 2011. It is tasked with recommending systems of teacher and principal evaluations. It also will develop methods the public and education officials can use to evaluate entire schools and districts.

The teacher evaluations are ultimately designed to help students learn and succeed, members said.

“If we’re just trying to design systems to fire people, we don’t have to go through this trouble,” Marion said.