Teacher Evaluations
Education news, analysis, and opinion about how teachers’ job performance is reviewed
Teacher Evaluation: An Issue Overview
This overview covers teacher evaluation and includes information on evaluation models, controversies, research, and reform trends.
Teaching Profession
Teachers of Color Get Lower Evaluation Scores Than Their White Peers, Study Finds
The study also found that male teachers receive low ratings more often than female teachers.
Teaching Profession
Ex-Obama Adviser Who Championed Teacher Evaluations to Seek Senate Seat
Can a Democrat with a record of tying test scores to teacher evaluations win a U.S. Senate seat in Colorado? Mike Johnston, a former Obama campaign adviser, wants to find out.
Teaching Profession
New York Takes Final Step to Separate State Test Scores From Teacher Evaluations
The New York state legislature passed a bill that would make the use of state test scores in these evaluations optional, leaving the decision up to districts and making it subject to collective bargaining.
Teaching Profession
Teacher Evaluations Have Dramatically Changed the Principal's Job
More-rigorous evaluations have made principals better instructional leaders, new research shows, but they've created major time-management challenges.
School & District Management
Should Student Behavior Be Factored Into Teacher Evaluations? Study Says Yes
Teachers' impact on non-cognitive, or social-emotional, skills is more predictive of students' long-term success than their impact on test scores, the study found.
Teaching Profession
These Six Teacher-Evaluation Systems Have Gotten Results, Analysis Says
Teacher-evaluation reforms in places like New Mexico, Tennessee, Denver, and the District of Columbia have paid off, says the National Council on Teacher Quality.
Assessment
Tennessee Teachers Have Warmed to Evaluation System, But Not State Tests
Tennessee improved its teacher evaluation and training systems by integrating data and teacher voice, according to a new report. But value-added measures that evaluate teachers based on student test scores remain controversial.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
The Particular Agony of Teacher Observations
Teacher observations can be stressful and feel deeply personal. Justin Minkel advises how teachers can best prepare for an observer’s visit.
Teaching
Opinion
No, Teachers Shouldn't Put Students in the Driver's Seat
Student-centered learning may be in vogue, but it doesn’t support academic growth, writes this veteran educator. Schools should stick with teacher-led instruction.
School & District Management
Most Teachers Say Feedback Has Improved Their Instruction, Survey Finds
A new national survey by the RAND Corporation sheds some light on how teachers value feedback and classroom observations in evaluation systems.
Teacher Preparation
'An Expensive Experiment': Gates Teacher-Effectiveness Program Shows No Gains for Students
An evaluation of a multi-year effort by the Gates Foundation to improve teaching, which cost $575 million, found no evidence the program improved student outcomes or gave low-income and minority students greater access to effective teachers.
Education Funding
Opinion
Teacher Evaluation Is Stuck in the Past
Race to the Top is over, but the initiative is still driving teacher-evaluation policies and priorities, write two professors.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Students' Perceptions of Teacher Quality
John R. Jones and Misty Henry report: "Today, schools are under tremendous pressure to improve student achievement and sometimes at the expense of failing to help teachers get better at instruction. It seems the emphasis is placed on lack of student achievement and not on its remedy."
Teaching Profession
The Teachers Are Winning. What Does It Mean for the Profession?
The extraordinary wave of teacher strikes highlights the fact that teachers, who make up the largest profession, have the power to demand and win funding changes when working collectively.