In Anchorage, District Sets Out To Involve Parents in Evaluation

By Jessica L. Sandham

Anchorage, Alaska

When Alaska legislators asked all 53 school districts in their state to incorporate parent feedback into their teacher evaluations, the largest district took the message to heart.

Even as most smaller districts chose simpler approaches--taking out newspaper ads inviting parent reactions or putting comment forms in school offices, for instance--Anchorage opted to mail surveys to the parents of all 50,000 of its students.

Last year, officials here spent countless hours and almost $70,000 to shape and mail the forms to parents in the system's first such districtwide initiative. For their efforts, they were rewarded with an average of just three or four survey responses per classroom--not nearly enough to give principals a...