The Principals’ Corner:

Evaluation of teacher performance is one of the most talked about, read about, and debated about issues in the education sector.  In the early 70’s districts across Canada and the United Stated were all charged with the development and implementation of district-based processes, documents and in-service for principals on this controversial topic – and much good work was done by individual districts in this regard.  By the time the 80’s and 90’s rolled around and the age of accountability had come to education, the work done by individual districts was superseded by provincial and state mandates which saw teacher evaluation as the purview of the provincial or state authorities.  In their propensity to equate quality with standardization, districts were handed state and provincial evaluation forms and attendant materials on how to implement the new document.

As a practising principal and superintendent during this time of change, I believed then (and still do) that the government’s departments or ministries can distribute the form in any guise.  The form itself makes little difference in terms of improving teacher performance.  It is simply the tip of an iceberg, the bottom of which is far more important; the top of which meets legal requirements.  The real work of evaluating teachers is done in the work up to completing the form, not in the completion itself.

That work up, as we have termed it, refers to a process involving the following stages:

• Determining what constitutes effective teaching
• Developing your own definition of what “teacher assessment” means
• Completing some preliminary research on the topic
• Reviewing the formal requirements of the document that needs to be completed
• Reviewing with your staff those requirements and the process you are going to use to implement an effective in-school program in this crucial area
• Selecting the process for information-gathering
• Reviewing the data from above
• Writing the final report
• Communicating the results to the teacher

As one can see, this is much more than watching a teacher teach a single lesson, writing a report and having a teacher “sign off” once the report is reviewed with that teacher.  In this series, we are going to review each of these steps in some detail.

Bendel Services places a high premium on the use of multiple data sources and the triangulation of the information those data sources yield.  But it also has a different definition of the concept of teaching and makes a conscious effort to avoid classroom performance as a synonym for teaching.  As we all know, there is much work that is done before a teacher faces a class and a good deal more after the so-called “teaching” is over. This will be the topic for next week in this series.

The other tenet that lies below Bendel’s pronouncements is the notion that the evaluation of a teacher, in the best sense of the word, must be a cooperative endeavor involving constant dialogue between the principal and the teacher at every stage.  That does not necessarily mean that they are co-equal partners.  The principal should always have the final say in appraisal but that “say” will certainly be made more palatable by the full knowledge and understanding of the teacher surrounding three key questions:

1. Upon what specifically am I being evaluated?
2. How will information be gathered on my performance?
3. What happens to the final report once it is completed – and who has access to it?

So, let’s begin next week on Bendel’s definition of teaching. To quote from Lewis Carrol:  “The time has come, the Walrus said, To talk of many things:  Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.”        

See you next week.

Dr. Dan

Check out our Education Services under Individual Coaching and Contracted Services.  There’s a wide range of Teacher Appraisal topics including:  Writing Effective Performance Appraisals; Conducting Effective Evaluation Conferences with Teachers; Having Hard Conversations; and more.