A Better Teacher Evaluation System?

For eleven years, Montgomery County teachers have been evaluated using the unique Peer Assistance and Review system, in which a panel of senior teachers and principals evaluate, mentor, and, if necessary, discipline both new and veteran teachers. Nancy Grasmick, the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, has called the system an "excellent tool for professional development," and Montgomery County school officials have even traveled to Washington to explain how their system, which relies heavily on a positive professional culture, works.

Now, thanks to the new Race to the Top initiative that uses standardized test scores as its primary yardstick for teacher effectiveness, the PAR system is in jeopardy, much to the chagrin of the school officials who deride standardized tests as "unreliable" and criticize the Race to the Top Initiative for its "top-down" effect. In Montgomery County, where the PAR system has worked for eleven years, and eighty four percent of students go to college, the still-inchoate RTTT system poses a threat to teacher and administrative autonomy, razing the already-established and effective evaluation structures in favor of a government-imposed and as yet half-baked plan.

Perhaps instead of relying on test scores accrued over one week of testing, we should take a leaf from Montgomery County's book and use a comprehensive system of evaluation for teachers, implemented by veterans of the field, who take into account the multiple variables, components, and standards that go into effective teaching.
While effective implementation of this system requires an effective and united leadership, it seems to me far more sensible than a system that relies heavily on one standardized test score. My eighth graders had cycled through two English teachers by the time I came in mid-year; should the bulk of my evaluation be based on a test for which I had two months to prepare my students? Or should it instead be largely based on constant observation, peer evaluation, rapid implementation of professional advice, and--fluffy as it may sound--the quotidian setbacks and triumphs of teaching?