How should policy makers and administrators think about teacher evaluation?
Job performance evaluations are a part of every occupation. They can be ways to reward good performance and aid in improvement of skills.
The issue with teacher job performance evaluations is that too often the role of the students, parents and those things far out of the teacher’s control are not considered.
One of the downfalls is that, unlike the business world, teachers must meet standards imposed without consideration as to the students and the many issues that walk in the classroom door with them. The common core standards as they are being imposed in some states and districts require a lock step approach to the curriculum. This does not take into account the needs of the students and the outside factors that could hamper learning. Teachers are expected to have every student meet the day’s goals. This is not realistic.
It is once again non-educators or those who have been out of the classroom for awhile imposing unrealistic expectations. Students are not in lock step. They bring emotional and family issues with them that the teacher cannot ignore when they are present and that will impede learning. Good teachers manage instruction to meet the needs of the students; evaluations too often only look at test scores and how the teacher has met the rigors of the imposed curriculum pace.
What evaluation should include is not only how well the curriculum has been constructed and managed to meet educational goals, but how well the teacher works with the students in those many emotional and social areas that students deal with every day. Yes, teachers must teach the curriculum, but just as important is the way teachers help students grow in these other areas.
I always felt as a teacher that my job was not just to get through the curriculum, but to help students develop life skills that would serve them as they faced interpersonal relationships throughout their life. Those areas are not part of the curriculum imposed by the state standards, but are crucial to the growth of the student. Teachers are at times the only consistent adult in the student’s life and the student will look to the teacher to help with these concerns which must be faced if any learning is to be done. I could not move ahead with the curriculum if the students were dealing with interpersonal issues or parental issues or homelessness or hunger or any number of things not related to the day’s lesson.
BILL FLETCHNER • 45 years both in public schools teaching Language Arts, Journalism, Photography and advised the newspaper, yearbook and literary magazine, as well as teaching in a teacher education program at a local college in Oregon • JEA Board member, JEA mentor.