M6U4A3 - Teacher Evaluation

I’d like to contrast my current experience of teacher evaluations here in Asia with some the IMPACT system of teacher evaluations was introduced into the Washington D.C public school system a few years ago. I thought that because we are studying for a D.C license it would make sense to get an idea of what is going on in that state.

My first job in Asia was working at a big ESL academy for adults in Seoul, South Korea. We were evaluated once a week for the first month by the head teacher who sat in on a one hour class and then after that pretty much left to our own devices. The standards for the evaluation were never explained to us and the feedback was minimal – not surprising given that the head teacher wasn’t himself a qualified teacher. The aim seemed to be to make sure that we weren’t completely hopeless in the classroom. My second job was at another big ESL academy in Seoul, but this time was for kids. The classrooms all had CCTV and the head teacher would watch a couple of our classes each week and give feedback as they felt it was needed. The standards were again never disclosed and the whole evaluation system seemed to revolve around doing whatever it took to keep parents happy and bums on seats. My third job at a university in Seoul consisted of no observations of any sort, and we lived and died simply by our student evaluations. My current job at an international school in China is broadly similar – I have never been observed, and have no objective way of knowing if I am doing a good job or not. I am just not sure whether or not I am effective.

This problem of accurately identifying effective teachers was behind the changes to the evaluation system introduced to Washington D.C. The new IMPACT evaluations were designed to improve the performances of students in underprivileged areas by weeding out ineffective teachers and encouraging them to leave the profession. Borderline teachers were given extensive coaching to improve, and highly effective teachers were offered large bonuses in an effort to retain their services. All teachers were evaluated by five classroom observations which identified standards such as leading well-organized, objective-driven lessons; checking for student understanding; explaining content clearly; and maximizing instructional time (Dee & Wyckoff, 2017). Only the first observation was announced in advance, which would be quite nerve-wracking!

The results, though seem to indicate that the IMPACT evaluations have been a success. Research shows that teacher quality and student achievement in both math and reading increased substantially when low-performing teachers were weeded out. On average, an ineffective teacher leaving the system resulted in an increase in student achievement equivalent to four months of learning in math and reading (Camera, 2016).

I’m not sure that such high-stakes evaluations would be to the liking of every teacher, but I really welcome the next part of our course, which I hope will help pinpoint areas where I can be much more effective. I have read through the TeachNow evaluation rubric, and I am relieved that after my past experiences I will finally be aware of the evaluation standards, and hopefully will receive a lot of useful feedback. Let’s get started!


References: 
Camera, L. (2016). High-stakes teacher evaluations increased student achievement. Retrieved March 2, 2018, from https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/high-stakes-teacher-evaluation-system-increased-student-achievement

Dee, T., & Wyckoff, J. (2017). A lasting impact: high-stakes teacher evaluations drive student success in Washington, D.C. Retrieved March 02, 2018, from http://educationnext.org/a-lasting-impact-high-stakes-teacher-evaluations-student-success-washington-dc/