Current Teacher Evaluations & How Teachers Should Be Judged

Teacher Evaluation in Nevada

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, that was published on January 18, 2018 the State Board of Education in Nevada is about to vote on how they should score teachers on their evaluations. They are deciding if they should "leave the cut scores unchanged for the next school year. Even if it maintains the status quo, the underlying formula on which educators will be rated will again be altered next year" (Delaney, 2018). 

For 2017-2018 80% of the score is based on supervisor observation. This is a subjective measure because each evaluator will always be graded slightly different. 

The remaining 20% is based on student achievement. The student achievement is measured on a goal that was set by the teacher and the supervisor. 

Currently teachers can be placed in 4 different categories: (Lowest to Highest)

1. Ineffective
2. Developing
3. Effective
4. Highly Effective

In order for teachers to be rated as highly-effective only be achieved when a teacher reaches the top two tiers. In order to reach the top two tiers of the state's guidelines the teacher must be effective in both the supervision observation and student achievement. If a teacher is highly-effective in the supervisor observation but not the student achievement they cannot be considered highly-effective. 

Teacher Evaluation in Hawaii

According to the Hawaii State Department of Education, they use the Educator Effectiveness System (EES). The Educator Effectiveness System (EES) is a comprehensive evaluation system that sets clear expectations for effective teaching, provides educators with quality feedback and support to improve their effectiveness with students, and informs professional development (Educator Effectiveness System, n.d). 

EES is centered on two different categories: 

1. Teacher Practice
2. Student Learning and Growth

This is evaluated by:

• Classroom Observations or Working Portfolios
• Core Professionalism
• Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) / School-System Improvement Objectives (SSIO)

Based on scoring teachers can be placed in any of the four groups:

1. Highly Effective
2. Effective
3. Marginal
4. Unsatisfactory

The incentive for reaching high rating is a pay increase for the following year.

In my opinion...elements that should be judged:

• Challenging students to succeed
• Students should be challenged in the classroom so that they are prepared to continuously learn at higher levels. When students move on to the next grade they should be ready to be challenged and not just give up because it is "too hard," which is commonly stated by students.

• Providing different ways of learning so that teachers are reaching all types of learning styles
• ex) Hands-on learning, Auditory learners, etc.

I think that it is always difficult to rate a teacher based on student achievement because sometimes not all factors to the student's achievement scores are in the hands of the teacher. There may be lots of teachers that do not have control of how well the students will achieve, no matter how hard they work to help students. It may also result in a teacher making tests easier so that students may achieve and the teacher will receive a great score.

References

Delaney, M. (2018, January 14). Teacher evaluation process evolving in Nevada. Retrieved February 01, 2018, from https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/education/teacher-evaluation-process-evolving-in-nevada/

(n.d.). Retrieved February 01, 2018, from http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/TeachingAndLearning/EducatorEffectiveness/EducatorEffectivenessSystem/Pages/home.aspx