I think we can whole-heartedly agree that having qualified teachers is essential to bridging the achievement gap in our country. This week, I read an interesting dialogue in the NYTimes Education spot titled “Getting Rid of Bad Teachers.” The editors in the article pose the question, “What is the most effective way to identify incompetent teachers and take steps to get rid of them? What would a fair and effective system consist of?” To me, this is a challenging question with many answers; like teacher certification, rating teacher quality and removing “incompetent” teachers from the classroom is subjective.
In our district of Baltimore City, we get rated on specific a performance-based evaluation system that consists of “professional domains,” where the four domains are the following:
Domain One: Planning and Preparation
Domain Two: The Learning Environment
Domain Three: Instruction/Instructional Support
Domain Four: Professional Responsibilities
In these domains, a teacher can be rated Proficient, Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory. It seems to me like these 3 ratings are arbitrarily assigned in our city schools. My principal, in fact, has not observed me once, and is thus required to rate me satisfactory on my evaluation. How many times over does this occur in other schools? Where overwhelmed administrators do not find the time to conduct formal observations, many of the “incompetent” teachers are continually rated as satisfactory (perhaps even proficient due to their years of experience in the system). Furthermore, I do not think that two “formal” observations over an entire school year can be indicative of a teacher’s quality. To be able to fire incompetent, or in our case “unsatisfactory,” we need to be able to create a uniform policy across the district as to what that entails. Additionally, many teachers who are rated unsatisfactory get Professional Improvement Plans (or PIP’s). Though these are designed to help teachers grow professionally, so that (for example) a teacher rated unsatisfactory in “Learning Environment” should be able to improve upon that before the next formal evaluation. However, at least in my school, PIPs are seen as a disciplinary measure used by principals to threaten teachers, rather than as something beneficial.
Along the same lines, how does one eliminate incompetent teachers from the school district when they have tenure? Does an entire district change the policy about tenure? Should there be a more lenient policy in getting rid of tenured teachers? For in a place like Baltimore City – and I’m sure other urban areas – luring teachers to remain in the positions is something of prime importance. Teachers here receive tenure after 3 short years in the classroom; and though it gives a sense of job security, what happens when that security is lost to many of these veteran teachers in the city? I completely agree that there needs to be some way of “eradicating” unqualified or incompetent teachers from the classrooms, where they can sometimes be doing more harm than good. However, to be able to do that, districts need to adopt a uniform policy on evaluating a teacher’s performance; while also establishing guidelines for eliminating those “incompetent” teachers.
1 comment:
In the business world, best-in-class practices mandate that the person closest to the decision point should be making the decision. In the case of teacher observation, it would mean that a department IST would be responsible for performing teacher observations rather than a principal, who is so far removed from both best instructional practices in teaching and the content matter itself. IBID for vice principals.
The question, though, may come down to whether or not teacher observation is a good way to evaluate overall performance. Observation as currently practiced (twice annually) is a snapshot of performance that may or may not be indicative of daily teaching practices. Many administrators tend to judge their own vision of "control in the classroom," which in reality does not necessarily result in better H.S.A. results.
Add to the mix that the person doing the observation may be light years away from the latest insights in curriculum instruction and ignorant of specific teaching practices in the content area; hence, the evaluation is biased.
While many teachers shudder at the suggestion to measure performance on student achievement, it could be a far more applicable gauge of effectiveness in the classroom.
Post a Comment