EWA Teacher Evaluation Seminar
Saturday, November 12, 2011

Evaluating Teachers: Beyond the Rhetoric

Few education issues are as fraught with controversy as teacher evaluation. Fierce debates are playing out at the local, state, and national levels, as efforts accelerate to revamp systems widely seen as ineffective at meaningfully distinguishing among teachers or helping them improve.

But behind the headline-grabbing battles in Congress, state capitals, and local school boards, people are rolling up their sleeves and getting down to work. Rather than pondering the pros and cons of tying student test scores to individual teachers, they are wrestling with how to put such data to responsible use. Instead of asking whether teachers’ job assessments should be linked to student performance, they are tackling hard, practical questions about how that should be done.

Our goal for our Nov. 12 seminar, “Evaluating Teachers: Beyond the Rhetoric,” was to get beyond the sound bites and offer genuine insights into the rapid changes taking place in how the nation’s teachers are held accountable for performance and what those changes mean for the nation’s education system as a whole.

The seminar reverberated with a few persistent themes from our speakers. First, teacher evaluations should not be punitive but should help educators improve their practice. Secondly, teachers want better evaluation systems that help them do just that.

You can catch up with the seminar at The Educated Reporter, view video highlights and listen to full podcasts of each session.

Here are some links to coverage drawn from the seminar:

• Tough Questions on Changing Teacher Evaluations, Rebecca Vevea, Chicago News Cooperative, Nov. 12, 2011
• 10 Things to Think About as Michigan and Other States Overhaul Teacher Evaluation, Julie Mack, Kalamazoo Gazette, Nov. 13, 2011
• Evaluation System Required to Apply for No Child Waiver, Marquita Brown, Clarion-Ledger, Nov. 13, 2011
• Teacher Evaluations: Publicly Tying Names to Scores Hinders Education Reform, Report Says, Huffington Post, Nov. 14, 2011
• Are Ed Colleges Cartels Standing in the Way of Education Reform? Dave Murray, Grand Rapids Press, Nov. 14, 2011
• Teachers Unions Say Teacher Evaluations Should be About Improving, Not 'Sorting and Firing,' Dave Murray, Grand Rapids Press, Nov. 14
• Teacher Evaluation Pilot Shows Promise, Sarah Karp, Catalyst Chicago, Nov. 15, 2011 
• Can We Evaluate Teachers Before Knowing Exactly What Makes Them Great?, Dave Murray, Grand Rapids Press, Nov. 16, 2011
• Williamson County Snubs Student Teaching Because Teachers Fear Effect on Evaluations, Julie Hubbard, The Tennessean, Nov. 16, 2011
• Student Progress to Figure in States’ Teacher and Principal Evaluations, Rosalind Rossi, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 18, 2011
• Michigan Schools Part of a Nationwide Movement to Overhaul Teacher Evaluations, Julie Mack, Kalamazoo Gazette, Nov. 20, 2011
• City Won’t Strike Evaluation Deal Just to Get Federal Funds, Rachel Cromidas, GothamSchools, Nov. 21, 2011
• Teacher Evaluations: The Questions Journalists Face, Christine Jessel, Southern Education Desk, Nov. 23, 2011
• Georgia to Roll Out Teacher Evaluations in Schools, Dorie Turner, Associated Press, Nov. 27, 2011
• Measuring a Teacher's Worth, Nichole Dobo, The News-Journal (Wilmington, Del.), Jan. 15, 2012

This seminar was hosted by The University of Chicago Urban Education Institute and made possible in part by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation.