Evaluating Differently

Toward Useful and Realistic Evaluation of Teachers in Public Schools

March 10, 2010, 9:00am - 11:00am

The inadequacy of teacher evaluation systems has received a great deal of recent attention. Many districts have systems that don't give teachers useful feedback, don't differentiate among teachers, and give very few teachers unsatisfactory ratings. States and districts also fail to use the information from teacher evaluation systems to make important decisions about teachers’ careers, such as whether to award tenure, how to compensate teachers, and what career advancement opportunities are appropriate.

A number of states and districts are rethinking their evaluation practices, prompted in part by the Obama administration's focus on teacher effectiveness within a number of federal education programs. Join our expert panelists for a dynamic conversation about what a new generation of systems could look like and how state and local policy might support their development.