School Chancellor Michelle Rhee just announced that a new assessment system for teachers will be unveiled in the fall to evaluate teachers on their personal, as well as on their school’s, overall success with students. This comprehensive system will focus on growth and progress from year to year as opposed to just on test results. According to the Washington Post,  ratings will come from a combination of standardized test scores, classroom observation by expert “external peer evaluators,” measurements of student growth during the year, and on building-wide goals that teachers set for their own schools. Rhee claims that the teachers she and her staff consulted with “believe it’s fair and transparent and a huge improvement over the current tool.”

I suppose it’s hard to really judge the merits of this new system until it’s actually unveiled, yet I can’t help but wonder what teachers in DC will think. Since President Obama has clearly set his sights on a major overhaul of our public education system, my impression is that many public school teachers feel like they are being judged unfairly. For example, here is what one elementary school teacher wrote in response to one of my earlier posts:

“Teachers are mothers, fathers, nurses, doctors, counselors, spiritual leaders, etc. We bite the bullet when ever tough times arise. I am a supporter of Obama, however, I do not support the reforms for education that he is proposing upon teachers. The children I facilitate comes to school famished because they haven’t eaten since lunch the day before. How will merit pay be determined? Will the students learning be measured before entering the teacher’s class, during the year, and after? How will this growth be measured? Just because a student doesn’t perform on grade level, doesn’t mean the teacher didn’t produce. Any student who is determined to learn and accepts responsibility in becoming successful will show some growth. Many of the students I teach are below grade level before I get them. Teachers always get the short end of the stick.”

It sounds like Rhee’s new assessment tool will address some of these concerns in that it will take into account student progress and not just the level they attain at the end of the year. It will also give teachers a chance to set some of the goals themselves. I still wonder about the impact this new tool will have on the day to day teaching and learning going on in schools. How will the data it yields be used? To penalize teachers? To reward teachers? Will results be used constructively to inform and improve future practice? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

takepart and learn more about the Washington Teachers’ Union and about School Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

(Photo: angela n.’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)