The right way to evaluate teachers

Perhaps because it is legislative season in many states, how public school teachers should be evaluated has been in the news a lot lately. There is great tension between legislators (and one would assume much of the public they represent) who want standardized tests to be a factor in teacher evaluations and teachers who feel the use of test scores is unfair. 

I am undecided and confused about the issue. 5 years ago I defended the use of aggregated historical test performance as a criteria that I would use as a parent to choose a teacher from my child. I reasoned:

Now, my little boy Skunkie Jr is going into 4th grade and there are three possible 4th grade teachers that he might get. Might not I, as a parent, want to look at the track record of each teacher the Skunkster might get next year - as demonstrated by the percent of students that made or exceeded a year of growth in each of those teachers classes, over say, the past three years. The records indicate that an average of 75% of Mr. Chip's kids make a year of growth; 90% of Ms. Brodie's kids made a year's growth; but only 50% of Mr. Holland's got that year of progress. Might that not be a good thing to know - as a parent or an administrator or a staff development coordinator or as a taxpayer?

In the meantime, I read a very compelling editorial in the Washington Post written by Michele Kerr. As a classroom teacher, she asks for a "negotiated" set of conditions that must be met before she is to be evaluated based on test scores. These are:

(1) Teachers be assessed based on only those students with 90 percent or higher attendance.

(2) Teachers be allowed to remove disruptive students from their classroom on a day-to-day basis.

(3) Students who don't achieve "basic" proficiency in a state test be prohibited from moving forward to the next class in the progression.

 (4) That teachers be assessed on student improvement, not an absolute standard -- the so-called value-added assessment.

I can't believe any reasonable soul could argue that Ms Kerr's conditions aren't themselves reasonable. And as Ms Kerr laments, if all factors, not just "teacher quality" are not considered when looking at student performance, we may never get to the root of why some kids aren't successful in school. (As a geezer, I catch myself asking, "When did the primary responsibility for doing well on a test shift from student to teacher?")

Anyway, I do believe in evaluations of teachers - but test scores seem a very inadequate metric of effectiveness. In my experience as a teacher, a parent, and a student. Here are things I would like "measured":

1. Ability to develop student dispositions (like empathy, perseverance, love of learning, humor, critical thinking, etc.), not just basic skills.
2. Ability to personalize instruction for every student.
3. Ability to communicate and partner with parents.
4. Ability to understand a student's particular set of circumstances that might impact his/her school performance (home life, socio-economic levels, health issues, etc.)
5. Ability to simply inculcate and strengthen the joy of learning in my child. 

The primary thing I watched for in judging my own children's teachers was whether they said they "liked school." Test scores be damned if kids don't equate learning with happiness. If my kid wants to be in school, is excited about something being studied, and feels safe, valued, and important - you have my confidence as a teacher.

But how that is numerically assessed is beyond me...