A Guide to Impactful Teacher Evaluations

Book excerpt: What if everything we thought we knew about effective teacher evaluations was wrong? A Guide to Impactful Teacher Evaluations walks educators through an important shift in thinking about how to evaluate teachers: from systems focused on individuals and results to solutions focused on collectives and processes. Disregarding older, ineffective models that rely on faulty assumptions, this book embraces new approaches for measuring teacher competency that achieve valid assessment of effective teaching, teacher professional growth, and student learning. Chapters explore teacher evaluation systems based on professional learning community principles, confront the current system of teacher evaluation that has led to frustration, criticism, and disrespect, provide strategies for delivering new skills and supporting teachers’ growth, and include "Tips and Talking Points" for schools and districts. Outlining best practice and sharing actionable tools grounded in collaboration and teamwork, this book helps K-12 school leaders explore teacher evaluation that has a real and lasting impact on the profession and student learning.