This week students in my Administration of School Personnel class (EDAD 590) have been exploring Kentucky's new proposed system of teacher evaluations. Kentucky's efforts are, in part, a response to the requirements of the federal Race to the Top grant, but also the Commonwealth's answer to the the 2009 report, The Widget Effect, which garnered national headlines for its research on the sad state of teacher evaluations in the U.S. The Widget Effect concluded that in the vast majority of school districts, teachers receive satisfactory performance evaluations regardless of their actual skill level or accomplishments. Administrators have failed to use existing evaluation systems to identify and remove poor performers or to recognize and reward high performers.
Kentucky's proposed system, which is in statewide pilot this year, and (if all goes as planned) will be fully implemented next year and count toward each school's overall accountability formula, tries to respond in a meaningful way to the criticisms described in The Widget Effect.
Many students found things to admire in the new system. Personally, I appreciate the fact that it is based on multiple measures of effectiveness (formal observations - the centerpiece of evaluation in the past - is but one component). I also think the new components like self-reflection, a more substantial professional growth plan, setting goals for student growth, and soliciting student and parent feedback, are vital to the effective evaluation of performance.
But others have also noted how lengthy and complex these forms are, and how unwieldy this seems to make the whole evaluation process. Mike Schmoker, author of Focus (the book I recommend more than any other to fellow educators), recently leveled his blistering, trademark-style of criticism against evaluation systems like Kentucky is considering, in the pages of Education Week (full text available for subscribers only, but email me if you'd like a copy: gary.houchens@wku.edu).
In brief, Schmoker's concerns echo many of the ideas he articulated in Focus. Schmoker believes that educators learned long ago the essential components of effective teaching and learning (he lays them out in the book), but we have simply failed to implement these components consistently and with fidelity. (For the record, those essentials are sound lesson and curriculum design - which he describes in the book - and rich literacy instruction across the curriculum). Instead, school leaders keep chasing the next shiny object (in the form of whatever the latest educational fad seems to be), piling new initiative upon new initiative so that teachers can never get really good at anything. He recommends that school leaders strip away everything but the essentials and relentlessly focus on getting them to the level of deep implementation in all classrooms (Doug Reeves defines "deep implementation" as 90 percent of teachers doing the targeted behavior 90 percent of the time).
Schmoker believes that teacher evaluation should be approached in the same way. Schools should simplify the evaluation process, not make it more complex, by focusing on the extent to which teachers implement those essential elements of effective teaching.
Done right, teacher evaluation could ensure precisely the kind of systematic action that would guarantee immediate improvement, i.e., by clarifying a minimal set of the most essential, widely known criteria for effective curriculum, such as rich content taught largely through literacy activities and sound instruction.
Once clarified, evaluation would then focus on only one or two elements at a time, with multiple opportunities for teachers to practice and receive feedback from their evaluators. Teachers' progress and performance on these criteria would be the basis for evaluation.
Here I'm hearing echoes of Robert Marzano's latest book, Effective Supervision, which I've discussed previously and which focuses on the five conditions essential for helping teachers improve their instructional expertise (the most important role of the principal, and the heart of instructional leadership, as I define it).
Schmoker also emphasizes the assessment of teacher performance on these essentials should mostly be done through unannounced classroom observation visits to avoid the inevitable dog-and-pony show, something that might become even more common with our new, more complex teacher evaluation systems.
Finally, Schmoker stresses that until schools are implementing the essentials described in Focus, meaningful teacher evaluation can't take place, since these are the things the evaluation should be based on to start with. So it actually starts with leadership that is focused on curriculum and instructional practices, and only then goes after teacher performance and delivery of those essentials.
For my part, I can't help but admire what Kentucky is trying to do in improving the evaluation process, but at the end of the day, I can't argue with Schmoker either. As I have emphasized before, evaluation is no substitute for visionary leadership. Schmoker reminds us of what the content of that vision should be, and how to pursue it.
Kentucky is on an inevitable path of making teacher evaluation more complex. Will it work? In some schools, yes, in others, no. The difference, I suspect, will be the extent to which each school actually focuses its practice on the essentials Schmoker describes, and not the addition of new, more complex tools for evaluation.
