Getting Evaluation Right

The verdict is in … traditional approaches to teacher evaluation aren’t working. See the recent Rand report assessing the multi-year, multimillion dollar Gates effort, that found: “the initiative did not achieve its goals for student achievement or graduation, particularly for LIM students. ”

In Here’s How Not to Improve Public Schools, Cathy O’Neill argues that the Gates initiative did more than “not achieve its goals” … it actually “unfairly ruined careers, driving teachers out of the profession amid a nationwide shortage. And its flawed use of metrics has undermined science.”

And in a recent opinion piece in Forbes by Peter Greene, he simply states: “Creating a teacher evaluation system is hard—really hard.”

But there is a way to get evaluation right … for the past several years I have been working with schools who are intentionally designing systems that build collective efficacy. Join me at the IB Conference in Vienna this October to learn how to get evaluation right, or contact me at Tigris Solutions.

Why are Teachers Leaving?

“Welcome to the U.S. teaching force, where the “I’m outta here” rate is an estimated 8 percent a year — twice that of high-performing countries like Finland or Singapore. And that 8 percent is a lot higher than other professions.

The teaching force is “a leaky bucket, losing hundreds of thousands of teachers each year — the majority of them before retirement age,” says a recent report from the Learning Policy Institute.

…overall, teachers and researchers say, educators want a bigger voice in school policies and plans. Many feel left out of key discussions.”

Sounds a lot like we need to make sure there are leadership opportunities for teachers other than becoming administrators. Read the nprEd article here.

ECET2 – Saturday Sept 24!

ECET2 = Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers. It was born out of a desire to provide a forum for exceptional teachers to learn from one another and to celebrate the teaching profession. The convening experience is designed to inform and inspire colleagues, develop attendees’ leadership potential, and hone their craft.

The ECET2NJPA 2016 theme is: The Strength is in the Room. The focus is on using the combined power of each invitee to collectively strengthen individual pedagogy, knowledge, relationships, and trust. Every person in each classroom working together makes the entire population better. When educators share openly, vulnerably, in a trusting environment, where the focus is on supporting the profession as a whole, students and their families prosper.

FIT Teaching … the book!

FITT_Cover(Warning: shameless self-promotion ahead )

Very excited that the book I’ve co-authored with Doug Fisher (@DFISHERSDSU) and Nancy Frey (@NancyFrey) is available here!

FIT Teaching is a field-tested and experience-honed process that captures the essentials of the best educational environments and empowers teachers to adapt the most effective planning, instructional, and assessment practices to their particular context. We highlight teachers as leaders who work collaboratively to support their students.

Reflections on Teacher Leadership Summit

Spent the weekend at the Teacher Leadership summit in NJ … intensive and thought-provoking sessions filled with meaningful conversation.

My reflections:

  • teacher leadership is a worthy goal that has potential to positively impact student learning experiences
  • it will be challenging to cultivate teacher leaders without significant collegial collaboration

My concerns:

  • leadership is a mindset, not a job description
  • law, regulations, and policy do not cultivate the necessary mindset

Follow TeachLeadNJ progress here.

Rethinking Teacher Leadership

Just finished the first night at the NJ Teacher Leadership Summit. Setting the right tone immediately: to reimagine the role of teacher leadership, we must be willing to depart from traditional approaches. Tomorrow we’ll spend the day hosting conversations that matter in that middle ground between chaos and order and see what emerges. Follow along on the TeachLeadNJ blog.
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