Teacher Evaluation ... Training the Referees

Imagine watching this football game:

The score is tied at 0-0, even though the game is half over.
You soon realize that the reason the score is still 0-0 is because every time the offense gets close to the end zone, the quarterback throws the ball through the uprights.  The referees award 0 points and give the ball to the opposing team, which promptly does the same thing at the other end of the field. This is repeated over and over, up and down the field - until one player finally kicks the ball through the uprights out of frustration, at which point the referees award his team 3 points.
Everyone wonders: "Why didn't the referees tell us that was how to score points?"

Why in the world would we only train the referees in the rules of a game and make the players figure it out for themselves?  Makes no sense at all, right?  But that is exactly what many have done with teacher evaluation systems in recent years.

The impact of NCLB and Race to the Top funding caused states to focus on educator effectiveness in a very systematic fashion.  Many states now mandate the use of a particular framework.  In order to establish validity and reliability, administrators went through extensive training on the chosen framework and needed to pass tests to ensure inter-rater reliability. But nothing mandated that the teachers become educated on the framework, and the "trickle-down" varies on a school-by-school basis.  In the push for teacher accountability and effectiveness, we continue to train the referees and expect the score of the "game" to increase.

And we're not talking about a game here - we're talking about the real lives of children and the future of a nation!

I advocate that every teacher be trained in the same way administrators are trained, in regard to the use and understanding of teacher frameworks.  Level the playing field so that the teams on the field - the teachers - have the greatest chance of success for students.  Make sure the referees, coaches, and players share a common language for how the game is played.   Make sure the referees, coaches, and players have a common vision of how to succeed together.   Make sure everyone know what expertise looks like in order to maximize impact.

Principals must take it upon themselves to delve into teacher frameworks with staff.  Create conditions for rich discussion about what those frameworks contain.  Create cognitive dissonance in the minds of teachers who recognize current practice vs. expertise.  Create a shared language to talk about high-quality instruction.  The various teacher frameworks (Danielson, Stronge, Marzano, etc.) are rich with possibilities, and Frontier & Mielke in their new book Making Teachers Better, Not Bitter say "We've seen tremendous professional growth among teachers who have used frameworks as the starting point for a comprehensive self-assessment process" and that frameworks "clarify how [teachers] should invest their efforts" (19).

So - stop exclusively training the referees.  We need the referees and coaches to provide direction and create conditions for success.  But at some point, the players need to know the rules if everyone is going to achieve success together.

More Than Just Evaluation

Your principal walks into the room while you are teaching.
Here are some of the possibilities that go through your head while you continue to teach:
• Does she need one of the students for something?
• Does she need me for something?
• Is this just a quick 1-minute pop-in visit?
• Is this one of those 20-minute long "informal observations" that is actually formal ... because there are going to be forms involved?
• What am I supposed to be teaching right now?

I recently finished Tony Frontier & Paul Mielke's new book Making Teachers Better, Not Bitter (ASCD, 2016).  The title speaks for itself: are you developing processes that grow teacher expertise, or are you just developing processes?

The authors contend that evaluation, supervision, and reflection are three sides of a triangle that build teacher expertise.  All three are necessary if growth is your expected outcome, but pull on one side of the triangle too hard, and the entire system gets out of balance.  This is what happens when we put all our eggs in the "evaluation" basket - we end up with bitterness instead of betterment.

Frontier & Mielke clearly define their three components and offer protocols that can be implemented to improve practice in each area.  Evaluation is what you'd expect it to be - valid and reliable rating of performance - which is what teachers hopefully do with student work at the end of a term.  The problem is that most teachers (and principals?) do not know when the administrator is functioning as an "evaluator" and when he/she is functioning in a different capacity.  Was that walk-through part of an evaluation or something else?  Was that quick hallway conversation about what was seen in your room an evaluatory or a coaching conversation?  Trust is built upon transparency.

System out of balance

Supervision means the way a supervisor "creates conditions for teachers to uncover and close the gap between their current performance and the next level of performance" (72).  The authors make an analogy between evaluation and supervision this way:
   • Evaluation is the state accountability assessment
   • Supervision is the curriculum that students engage in order to do well on the state assessment
What conditions does the principal create between evaluation cycles in order that growth might occur and expertise develop?  This takes trust, feedback, and deep knowledge of the chosen teaching framework (Danielson, Stronge, Marzano, etc.) by both the supervisor and the teacher.

Reflection seems self-explanatory, but the bigger question the authors offer is this: "When everyone reflects in a different way, how do you leverage reflection for school-wide improvement?" Reflection is about creating an internal dialog that drives your own improvement, and it is perhaps the biggest motivator of continuous improvement towards expertise.

The question we must ask ourselves as educators and leaders is this:
Are we trying to measure effectiveness or are we trying to improve effectiveness (160)?
There is a time and a place for measuring effectiveness - that's what evaluation seeks to do.
But if we are trying to improve effectiveness, we need the other two sides of the triangle - supervision and reflection - to create conditions that will drive true growth.