Understanding the ‘why’ behind teacher evaluations is critical to their success

11-28-2011

Opinion by Judy Burton/Thoughts on Public Education

Judy Burton is president and CEO of the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a non-profit charter management organization operating 14 high schools and 6 middle schools in low-income areas of Los Angeles.

A poll released last week by USC and the LA Times tells us that the public approves of measuring teacher effectiveness through a combination of indicators including the academic growth of their students. The U.S. Department of Education has made measuring and improving teaching effectiveness a fundamental component of its reform efforts and requires it for many of its grant recipients. In California, Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes has introduced AB 5, legislation requiring school districts to use multiple measures to determine teaching effectiveness, and a group of education reform advocates is suing LAUSD to require the district to develop meaningful evaluations of teacher effectiveness. The College-Ready Promise (TCRP), a coalition of four of California’s highest performing charter schools (Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and Partnership to Uplift Communities), has spent 18 months designing California’s largest teacher development system that incorporates multiple measures of effectiveness, including student growth data. (more...)

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