Yesterday Becky wrote about how New Jersey’s governor is pushing to reform how the state’s teachers are evaluated. However, such a push is not just coming from political leaders. As a matter of fact, Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union, has also pushed to improve how teachers are evaluated. She even highlighted the weakness of most current evaluation systems in a statement last week where she said:

“As important as evaluation is to assessing teacher performance, what passes for teacher evaluation in many districts frankly isn’t up to this important task. Way too often, teacher evaluations are superficial. They’re subjective. They miss a prime opportunity to improve teacher practice and, thereby, increase student learning. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t agree more. Most current evaluation systems are worthless, to put it lightly. Of course agreeing that current evaluation systems are lacking is the easy part. What a quality and effective evaluation system should look like and what decisions should be based on the results is where the real tension lies.

That is why the Center has been putting together a new report on creating better teacher evaluation systems. The report cuts through the rhetoric about the strengths and weaknesses of certain tools to evaluate teachers, particularly value-added models, to give policymakers, teachers, and the public a true picture of what an effective teacher evaluation should include. By providing a clear explanation of the strengths and weaknesses of various ways to evaluate teachers, we hope to limit the debate down to how to use the tools currently available to make the best decisions possible about the actual effectiveness of teachers.

As you will see in the report that will be released in the coming weeks, improving how are teachers are evaluated can have a dramatic effect not only on our students and but on our overall economy as well. So stay tuned. – Jim Hull