For the last few weeks I have been working with a teacher new to the school, the district, and the state. She reached out following her first TKES walkthrough, after which her department chair told her: “It was just horrible. Horrible! So horrible that we’re not going to count it.” I made sure, several times, that those words were the ones that actually came out of the department chair’s mouth, & she assured me that they were.
I spoke with the assistant principal responsible for evaluating the teacher, & she mentioned some areas of instructional concern with the teacher. I later sat down with the teacher & we prepared a lesson for her second walkthrough.
The assistant principal indicated that the second walkthrough was better, but still lacked in rigor & instructional strategies - the teacher received two threes and two twos. This crushed her as she has started to feel that the TKES process will be used to document her out the door.
With that being said, and thinking back on when we discussed the cost of hiring new teachers, I began to seriously question whether or not evaluations are used as a means of truly helping teachers to improve versus creating a paper trail to send them on their merry ways. From the perspective of this particular teacher, the evaluation process is not being used to help her improve - there are no specific strategies or explanations as to what they are looking for. I’m left to question why this is, but I’m not sure if it is my place. I suggested that the teacher ask for that information when she met with the assistant principal and department head.
Is it just my school’s culture that treats evaluations as a means of cleaning house? Or is the prevailing opinion regarding evaluations one that depicts them as a means of tossing teachers a lifeline? If we are trying to make the most out of our tight budgets, shouldn’t be be using evaluations as tools to help teachers learn?
Josh,
ReplyDeleteI think TKES is being used for both. I think it was designed to be a tool to "coach" teachers, but if the evaluator is not sound in instructional strategies - as so many are not - then it is not a good tool for improvement. I appreciate the three years I have spent as a coach on top of my time as department chair, grade level chair and the like. My time as a coach has, in my opinion, really prepared me for a role in leadership.
The one lesson I learned a few years ago when working for a school that used Danielson's work is that teachers rarely ever reach a four. When I was asked to evaluate myself on Danielson's four domains, I rated myself a 4 in several areas. When I sat down with my principal to go over my self-evaluation and her evaluation, I was disappointed with her rankings. Then she showed me Danielson's rubric. Had I seen the rubric before I had evaluated myself, I would have scored myself very differently. Even with the TKES, teachers need to realize that to be scored a 4 they have to consistently work to help others achieve in the standard being assessed. A four is very difficult to achieve as it should be. TKES strives to push teachers to build their capacity as a leader. It is also imperative that school leaders provide opportunities for all teachers to lead others, not just a select few. So many principals have their "go to" people that they use for leadership. Everyone has something on which they can take the lead.
The impression I get from my county is that it is virtually impossible to get rid of a teacher. The paper trail has to be explicitly detailed and even then I'm not so sure there wouldn't be more that would need to be proved. At my school, 3s are in! 2s are rare, and 4s are what some teachers are willing to go the extra mile for though most are content with their 3s. It amazes me all the time that the most outgoing teachers will sing, dance, and stand on their heads in front of students, but ask them to share something with their peers and you can forget it. I get it. I was there once upon a time too. However, at least at my school, we try to take this evaluation system with a grain of salt. It's not perfect by any means and in the end our objective is to show growth, both with our students and ourselves. What bothers me most and what I'm finding common in leadership but also in the classroom, is that it is very easy to find what's wrong with someone/something. The challenge is to tell them how to fix it. Maybe more of a conversation took place between the teacher and the AP, but I truly believe that just telling someone their lesson was horrible is not enough. I would hope that the AP would sit down with the teacher and tell her how she can improve, since the AP was the actual observer, but it sounds like that was your job. Tell her to keep her chin up. She can improve with your help and guidance. She may have to do some extra work/research, but I don't think she should plan on getting her walking papers any time soon.
ReplyDelete