How can we evaluate our teachers?

How can the tax paying public be sure that teachers are doing their job well?

Well, this is the big question isn't it? I believe that teachers should have performance evaluations, which are conducted by other teachers and educational professionals. I believe these evaluations should look at a number of factors such as student work, the controversial test scores, and adherence to department curriculum. Properly evaluating teachers is obviously a very difficult task and I look forward to gaining a better understanding of how this is possible as I continue my education and professional experience.

The idea that teachers should be evaluated by other teachers seems very obvious to me and it seems to be lacking in many situations. Many school boards are made up entirely of individuals who have no experience working in schools, and end up making key decisions about teaching, a job they never had. There needs to be a balance of people with experience getting done in government, and people who have experience with teaching. This can also happen when outside committees come in to schools to evaluation them as they implement new technique's during times of transition. I believe that teachers should be a larger part of developing evaluations as well as conducting them. However, this would certainly take a lot of time and effort on the part of teacher's who already feel overworked as so much of our nation's schools are constantly changing. Negotiating this with unions and schools board would not be an easy task. There is also the obvious problem of scheduling. How can teachers observe each other when they should be teaching? Despite these obstacles, I believe this is the direction our schools should be headed in.

If I were one of these teachers involved in developing evaluations, I believe the place to start is a properly developed curriculum. If departments develop semester and year long plans that work with the common core, teacher's should be evaluated on how well they implement that curriculum. I would like classrooms to have open door policies where administration and peers can come in at any time. I believe that with faculty who trust each other and work together for success, there could be many of these stakes observations. Curriculum should also be geared toward authentic assessment. Student portfolios or presentations can be more telling than the high stakes testing that tends to dominate how we talk about school achievement. While I don't believe these scores should hold the weight they currently do, I don't think it is reasonable to disregard them either. Maybe years down the line, these scores won't impact funding and public perception they way they do now. However, they have real world implications for our schools and students will face standardized testing at several times during their education. So, let's weight them closer to 20% than 51% of a teachers evaluations.