From the day President Obama gave his first major “education speech” last March, the current administration made it perfectly clear that tying teacher evaluations to student performance will be a priority in the national reform agenda. In fact, application guidelines for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top funds dictate that states will be eliminated from competition if they prohibit linking student achievement data to teacher and principal evaluations.

As I mentioned in previous posts, using student data to evaluate, reward and penalize teachers is a complex issue that generates heated debate and valid arguments from both sides.

On the one hand, the current practice of treating teachers like interchangeable widgets just doesn’t make sense. There has to be some way of evaluating performance, so that the best teachers can be supported and retained, the worst teachers (who should never have chosen the profession in the first place) can be dismissed, and the majority of teachers who show up to classrooms each day wanting to do their best can be coached and inspired to do even better. And it’s hard to imagine evaluating teachers with little or no regard for the impact their work has on student progress. (That’s like evaluating the performance of sales people by looking at their sales presentations only—without considering the number of people who actually buy the product.) Have you ever heard of an “excellent” teacher whose students hardly make any progress during the year and begin the following grade level totally underprepared? It just makes no sense.

On the other hand, teaching (especially effective teaching) is arguably just as much an art as it is a science. In fact, Bill and Melinda Gates are currently spending oodles of money (half a billion dollars in the next five years) on a research study to figure out exactly what qualities make teachers effective and how to measure those qualities in a classroom, because apparently no one’s been able to pinpoint that yet. Couple the complexity of teaching with the complexity of learning, and the fact that the true extent of a child’s comprehension and skill does not show up on standardized tests (not to mention the fact that teachers in certain schools and classrooms have more challenging students than others) and one begins to understand why the nuts and bolts of evaluating teachers, especially by looking at student performance, is a lot easier in theory than it is in practice.

So when I first read that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was in the process of developing a new teacher evaluation system, I was pretty eager to see just how it would turn out. And thanks to a Washington Post article, I just got my first clues.

IMPACT takes a “value added” approach to teacher evaluations, meaning that students’ actual standardized test scores don’t matter—what matters most is how much they improve since the year before. But this measure only accounts for half the evaluation. The rest is based on how well teachers follow the new 200-plus-page “teaching and learning framework” that Rhee introduced at the start of the school year. To that end, teachers will undergo five classroom observations during which they will be scored in 22 areas across nine categories. (Criteria include: classroom presence, clarity in defining a lesson’s objective, checking for student understanding of the material, tailoring instruction to at least three different learning styles, keeping students’ attention, and instilling in students a belief that hard work leads to success.)

To protect teachers against biased or inexpert evaluations, a group of third-party “master educators” with backgrounds in the teachers’ subjects will conduct two of the evaluations. Teachers will receive a “growth plan” after their first evaluations which will outline their strengths and weaknesses, and any plans for professional development if deemed necessary. By June, teachers will receive a final score ranging from 100 to 400. Those whose score falls below 175 will be subject to dismissal. (And Rhee is definitely not afraid to dismiss teachers who don’t make the grade, as proven by yesterday’s layoffs.)

Proponents of the new system praise IMPACT for its comprehensiveness and respect for the complexities of teaching. Critics say it has too many criteria, forcing teachers to jump through hoops rather than focus on actually educating students. Some teachers are concerned that their scores will be at the mercy of students who act out during evaluations. And teachers with smaller classes risk having statistically unreliable results. AFT president Randi Weingarten says IMPACT assumes that student progress is solely the responsibility of an individual teacher, and doesn’t consider other school wide support the teacher may or may not have received.

I must admit I’m pretty impressed by the scope of the new system, and by what appears to be Rhee’s genuine desire to help teachers hone their craft. And I think there does have to be some comprehensive way of evaluating teachers that takes student progress into account. But I also agree with the critics—the IMPACT system seems overly complex and has many flaws. I wonder if common sense observations of teachers’ effectiveness with students would yield similar results (i.e. if the teachers identified as failing will really be those deserving of dismissal, and if those rewarded for “excellence” will truly deserve their rewards.) What impact will IMPACT have on the quality of teaching and learning that goes on in D.C. schools? Under this model, will teachers who perfect the art of “drill and kill” test prep earn high scores, while others who emphasize the teaching of more complex and enriched coursework get penalized? Is there no better tool to assess student progress in learning than a standardized test?

I guess only time will tell, but I imagine this system may inspire other districts to improve upon their own evaluation systems, and possibly even result in the creation of more streamlined and effective models.