Eric Luedtke recalls clearly his first evaluation as a student teacher. The only comments from the instructors who observed him were “Good job!” and “You did everything right.”
“But I knew I had a lot to learn and a lot I could improve on,” said Luedtke, who now teaches middle school social studies at the A. Mario Loiederman Middle School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Silver Spring, Md.
As accountability pressures on schools increase, teacher evaluation and supervision have come under new scrutiny, a growing body of research indicates that teacher quality has more impact on student achievement than any other factor. Given high turnover in the profession and the numbers of novice teachers streaming into the classroom, the challenge of ensuring high-quality instruction has taken on new urgency.
But the tools administrators are given for teacher evaluation are often antiquated or inadequate. Many principals still rely on an annual classroom observation, during which they match the teacher’s behavior against a standard checklist. Was the assignment written on the board? Is student work displayed on the walls? Are students participating in structured activities? Many evaluation systems are not connected to clear standards of teacher performance, nor do they take into account how much students are actually learning. Moreover, many principals are expected to evaluate all their teachers every year—a Herculean task that does not recognize differences in needs and expectations for novice and veteran teachers. Perhaps most important, as Luedtke discovered, evaluation may not offer significant guidance in how to become a better teacher.
“Teacher evaluation in this country is generally abysmal,” notes Julia Koppich, an educational consultant specializing in teacher quality and labor relations. “There is no time for principals to do proper evaluation, and many principals aren’t trained to do evaluation well.” Most evaluation systems, she adds, reflect a view of teaching as a set of codifiable skills or procedures. In this view, which originated in the “process-product” research of the 1970s, uniform methods are presumed to yield uniform results, regardless of the characteristics of student learners. As a result, evaluation rubrics emphasized teacher behavior, rather than student outcomes, and offered little opportunity for dialogue or problem-solving.
But at least one district has found a way to convert evaluation into a conversation about teaching and learning. Koppich points to the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools’ teacher evaluation system as an example of an approach that incorporates many of the key elements associated with effective teacher evaluation. Perhaps the most far-reaching overhaul of teacher assessment in the country, the Montgomery County model, known as the Professional Growth System, puts evaluation under the umbrella of staff development and uses it to continually increase teacher capacity. The system sets clear standards for quality teaching. Instead of using checklists, evaluators draw on a variety of sources, including written narratives, teacher portfolios, and student achievement results, to determine whether teachers are meeting those standards. It also establishes a two-tiered process for evaluation, depending on a teacher’s level of experience and past evaluations. Overall, the Montgomery County approach to teacher evaluation resembles the standards-based, data-driven methods many districts now use to assess and boost student learning.
“I have not come across another district that’s done something as intense and comprehensive as Montgomery County,” says Koppich, who conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the Montgomery County Professional Growth System in 2004. “This is the best I’ve seen.”
The “Silver Bullet”
The district changed its approach to teacher evaluation and education in 1999 with the arrival of Superintendent Jerry D. Weast, who argued that building staff capacity was the “silver bullet” for improving student outcomes. At the time, the district used a checklist for evaluation, a system that had been in place since the 1970s, according to Darlene Merry, associate superintendent in the Office of Organizational Development, which was established to coordinate the Professional Growth System. Under the guidance of Jon Saphier, president of Research for Better Teaching, an Acton, Mass.-based educational consulting firm, the administration and teachers union began to develop an evaluation system embedded in professional development.
To improve teacher evaluation, the district first adopted six performance standards based on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (see sidebar “Setting Standards for Teachers”). These standards were incorporated into a two-tiered system for teacher assessment. New or struggling teachers face evaluation annually, while more experienced teachers are reviewed every three to five years. Each group has access to different resources and strategies for professional development to help them meet or exceed the standards. Merry likens this approach to a teacher’s using differentiated instruction to accommodate students’ varying needs. The district offers courses developed by RBT to establish a common framework for understanding skillful teaching and to train evaluators in observing and analyzing instruction.
Teacher evaluations include an examination of student results. But state and standardized tests are not the only measure of student learning. Formative assessments, such as assignments, classroom tests, or post-lesson questioning, are also part of the mix.
Novice teachers and teachers who fall short of meeting performance standards work with a Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) system modeled on one pioneered in the 1970s in Toledo, Ohio. A seasoned colleague serves as a consulting teacher in charge of several novice or struggling teachers. She acts as both an evaluator and a conduit for professional development, providing tips, support, model lessons, and other in- and out-of-class support.
The Power of Peer Review
Social studies teacher Luedtke, who is now in his second year of teaching, is grateful for his year of peer review. His consulting teacher observed him five or six times during his first year and suggested several areas where he could improve. Once he’d chosen an area to focus on, she would give him “specific tips, not generalized things that aren’t that applicable,” he recalls.
“A first-year teacher can feel alone in the classroom,” Luedtke says. “To have a person come and give good advice helps alleviate that loneliness. And there’s so much to learn! I don’t know where I’d be without that support.”
At the end of a novice teacher’s first year, a PAR panel of teachers and administrators reviews the consulting teacher’s recommendations and decides on retention. In the second year, the building principal evaluates the teacher. If the novice passes both evaluations, he or she is granted tenure.
For experienced or tenured teachers, the PAR process is triggered when a principal formally evaluates the teacher’s performance as below standard. A consulting teacher will review the teacher’s skills and determine whether the instructional problems identified are severe enough to warrant the teacher’s inclusion in the PAR program. Underperforming teachers who are accepted into the program are then assigned a consulting teacher, who plans and implements an intensive year-long program of intervention and support. At year’s end, the consulting teacher also provides an independent evaluation, alongside the principal’s formal evaluation, based on multiple observations and analysis of student results. The panel then makes a decision on retention.
Montgomery County Education Association head Bonnie Cullison sees peer review as a way to reinforce the value of teaching as a highly skilled vocation.
“For the last 18 years, progressive union leadership has said to our members, if we care about the profession, we can’t say everyone can do it well,” she says. “We need to help those who aren’t being successful.”
Merry notes that in the first four years of the peer-evaluation program, 163 new and veteran teachers were dismissed, were not renewed, or resigned, as opposed to one in the prior five years (out of about 10,000 teachers in the system). Nonetheless, over half of the teachers identified as struggling were able to improve their performance and get back on track.
Helping Skilled Teachers Improve
Veteran teachers who meet or exceed the teaching standards are formally evaluated every three, four, or five years, depending on their experience. Instead of completing a checklist, principals write a narrative documenting a teacher’s success or failure in meeting the district’s teaching standards, based on their observations and on student performance.
Beth Daniels has taught science at Einstein High School in Montgomery County for the last nine years. In the days when her annual evaluation was based on a checklist, observers “would check off what they thought they saw, but didn’t have to justify it,” she says. “It really didn’t tell me anything.” The Professional Growth System “takes away the subjective parts,” she says. “This is much more detailed, it’s research-based, and based on student success. It’s made us more reflective about what we’ve been doing.”
Some principals experience the Montgomery County evaluation system as a logistical challenge. Writing up a single post-observation report can take anywhere from one to three hours. Daniel Shea, principal of Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, Md., says that he is evaluating about a quarter of his staff—43 teachers—this year. “I have always worried about the capacity of administrators to do this as required,” he says. “Can we do it within the limited number of hours there are in a day?” He says, however, that the evaluations and related professional development have meant a dramatic improvement in teaching.
Veteran teachers are also expected to set goals for a three-, four-, or five-year professional growth cycle, which they establish in conjunction with a school-based professional development teacher. The goals need to be aligned with both the school improvement plan and the teacher’s own interests, and should be stated clearly enough that a principal can evaluate them, including targets for improving outcomes for student learning. Teachers, with guidance from administrators, also identify colleagues who can provide assistance and feedback.
“When [a plan] is more specific, we can help tailor resources to help with it,” Shea notes. “We can also pair people who do something well with others who need [better] strategies.”
Toward a Culture of Evaluation
Both teachers and administrators have found the MCPS teacher evaluation system helpful. In her 2004 evaluation report, Koppich found that large majorities of teachers at all grade levels found the system “highly effective,” while 75 percent of administrators agreed that it “enabled me to be a better administrator.” Koppich also cited more general results, including the use of multiple sources to assess student learning; increased use of data to drive instruction; and more frequent use of teaching strategies that research has shown to be effective. The school district’s statisticians have documented increases in AP and SAT participation rates and above-average statewide test scores across racial and ethnic groups, which Merry cites as evidence of the success of the MCPS’s efforts to improve teacher capacity. She notes that these changes occurred at a time when the student population in the district has become increasingly diverse, particularly in terms of class and language.
The next step in MCPS’s efforts to link evaluation and improvement is to extend the process to principals, incorporating several of the same elements as the Professional Growth System. District administrators have developed six standards, based on the Interstate School Licensure Consortium, and created seven online lessons for principals and other administrators. RBT has trained about 30 staff members responsible for evaluating principals, and a review panel—a version of the Peer Assistance and Review for principals—has been formed. As with the teacher evaluations, student assessment results will be a critical part of the evaluation of principals’ performance.
Andreae Downs is a freelance writer living in Massachusetts.
