Learning Forward

Classroom-Focused Conversations Education Post Education Post is a nonpartisan communications organization dedicated to building support for student-focused improvements in public education from preschool to high school. Its website offers “a different conversation about public education and what our children need — an honest and civil conversation of many voices, united by […]

Teachers are in the spotlight. More than ever, people know how important teaching quality is to a student’s learning experience. Not surprisingly, the conversation about teachers isn’t all necessarily productive or supportive. Recently, Time magazine stirred up quite a furor with its cover of an apple about to be smashed […]

Stewart Thorson, principal of New Century Technology High School in Huntsville, Alabama, develops plans for his school’s professional learning in an environment restricted by state regulations. In Alabama’s Title I and low socioeconomic status schools and through initiatives such as Blue Ribbon Schools and the State Department of Education’s Plan […]

What is — or should be — the purpose of a teacher evaluation system? To compare teachers? To inform the public? To help teachers improve? Legislators might say that a teacher evaluation system’s purpose is to remove bad teachers. Administrators might say that it is to assist them in matching […]

Policymakers have turned to teacher evaluation as one way to ensure accountability for school reform. In most evaluation systems, the emphasis focuses on the external: test scores, observations of classroom practices, rubric-based assessments, student feedback, evaluation, and student work. While these activities have a place in professional development, they distract […]

Tiffany Baldwin, 1st-grade teacher in the Alhambra Elementary School District in Phoenix, Arizona, stood in front of her class ready to begin a language arts lesson that would assist her students in understanding the word “adventure” by comparing and contrasting characters within a story. She felt fully prepared. She had […]

On your first day of teaching, did each student listen to your every word? Did their work show mastery of the learning goals you’d set? Or did you, like me, glance through papers thinking, How could my instruction possibly have prompted these essays? Then again, perhaps the work quality wasn’t […]

Implementing teacher evaluation systems across the United States has created both challenges and opportunities to improving teacher quality. Lessons learned at the state level illustrate a wide range of challenges with system implementation, including value-added growth scores, implementation timetables, and human capital demands (McGuinn, 2012), but what are we learning […]

In My View: This Is Our Educator Evaluation System Today For each statement below, mark how you would assess your school, district, or organization’s educator evaluation system. always sometimes never 1 Our evaluation system supports the ongoing development of educators. 2 Our evaluation system gives educators valuable feedback to support […]