What a great morning! To be more specific, I just participated in a great meeting (yes, you can have great meetings!) with a great group of educators. A few weeks ago I was at a meeting with the President and Vice-President of the Teachers Association. The discussion turned to teacher evaluation. I asked them what they thought about convening a group of teachers to discuss teacher evaluation. They thought it was a good idea. I then asked them to give me names of teachers that would be willing to participate. They did, and today was our first meeting. There has been a lot of talk across the State and Nation lately about teacher evaluation. It seems that everyone has an opinion about the how, what and when of teacher evaluation. As I listen to all of the differing opinions, I am struck by one thing that is often missing…what do teachers think? The meeting this morning was a response to that missing link.
First of all, some background about the meeting and why it was convened. Currently all teacher are evaluated every year. There are some misconceptions out in the public that teachers are not evaluated; rest assured they are evaluated. The next thing to keep in mind is that the Pennsylvania Department of Education is creating a form that they want all school districts in the State to use to evaluate teachers. I am sure the form the State is creating is outstanding, but I want our evaluation of teachers to reflect Penn-Trafford’s interests, values and goals. I also want the evaluation to be meaningful. I have contacted PDE and there is a process in place (and I have used it before in other school districts) where a school district can get approval of a local evaluation tool. Thus, our goal is to create our own teacher evaluation within the next few months.
As we approach the project there are two non-negotiable items that the State is requiring.
1. The model must be based on the work of Charlotte Danielson. I am very familiar with her work and I believe her framework for teacher evaluation is meaningful and useful for teachers and administrators
2. There must be some way that student and school test scores are reflected in the evaluation tool.
Beyond these requirements, the teachers in this group want the evaluation to center on great instruction, student learning and professionalism. After all, teachers are professionals and they want an evaluation tool that reflects their professionalism.
For the activity today, the teachers read the book Enhancing Professional Practice: A framework for teaching by Charlotte Danielson. Since there were almost 20 teachers and administrators involved in the process, we broke into smaller groups with each smaller group reviewing a different part of the book and then teaching that part of the book to the entire group. After discussing the book the group then reviewed two teacher evaluation models from other school districts that base their evaluation on the Danielson model. Again, the smaller groups shared with the larger group the “Big Ideas” from each evaluation tool.
The group worked hard and the conversations that were started focused on how to make a great evaluation tool that will support teacher development and lead to great student learning. I just want to say how proud I am of this group. They worked hard and exhibited professionalism. For example, as we were preparing the agenda for the next meeting I shared with them that I was running into a roadblock about how to proceed. I should not have worried. I told the group that I was struggling with the “next steps” and everyone contributed ideas for our next meeting. The result is that we will meet in one month and we will Skype in teachers from a school district that is using the Danielson model. That will give the teachers and administrators on the evaluation team a chance to ask questions of people using a similar evaluation tool. We also decided that a homework assignment involving a detailed overview of the two plans is in order. I will keep you posted on the progress of the teacher evaluation team. I know they will develop an outstanding tool that will be meaningful and reflect what is important about schools…student learning.
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