Teacher Evaluation: Myth vs. Fact

Making continued progress. It’s what all teachers hope for as they work toward proficiency for their students. Developing a clear and meaningful teacher evaluation system will help work toward the goal of helping each child succeed. The process of developing a system that works for both teachers and students can be difficult and confusing. Below are some common misconceptions and easy answers to help you understand the evaluation process and what it should look like.

Myth #1:

You can be held accountable for students not in your class and those students’ standardized test scores and other student growth measures can impact your evaluation.

Fact:

You have to be considered a “teacher of record” for a student whose test score and performance is used in your evaluation.

A d v o c a c y

In order to be considered a “teacher of record” and be able to have that student’s scores reflected in the teacher’s evaluation, the student must be in the teacher’s class and instructed by that teacher for at least 80% of the scheduled instructional time for the course. In addition, the student must have taken both the pre and post-test designed to measure achievement in that course.

Myth #2:

Your peers and students must have input on your final evaluation rating.

Fact: Peer input is only used for formative assessment (informal feedback). Student input is not required.

The inclusion of peer and student input in an evaluation is not mandatory in the teacher evaluation rules. However, the local group creating the evaluation system can include the student input as part of the formal summative assessment process where a teacher receives his/her effectiveness rating. Peer input only can be included in the summative effectiveness rating if the teacher chooses.

Myth #3:

A portion of your evaluation rating will be based on the district’s on-time graduation rate.

Fact:

Collective evaluation measures are optional; the teacher evaluated decides if a collective measure is used.

An evaluation can use a collective measure, i.e. building or district-wide measure to evaluate a teacher but only if agreed to by the teacher to whom it will be applied. A collective measure, whether it’s student test scores for the whole building or graduation rates, for example, cannot be more than ¼ of the agreed upon percentage of the entire student growth component of an evaluation.

Myth #4: Student growth must be at least 50% of the score for a teacher’s evaluation.

Fact: Student growth can and should be limited to 20%.

The Department of Education has a default evaluation model if any district does not come up with its own evaluation model. In the DOE’s default model it sets student growth at 20%. In addition, student growth is not based solely on test scores. The DOE rules surrounding student growth state that multiple measures must be used and standardized test scores cannot be the sole type of measurement used to evaluate a teacher.