Teachers RISE to the occasion
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Danielle Harris, a reading coach at Pittsburgh Classical Academy, helps students Brooklynne Smith, left, and Elissa Edmunds with work in Mike Nolf's eighth-grade communications class.
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As Pittsburgh Public Schools goes about putting performance pay into practice, it must face the challenge of crafting a fair way to evaluate teachers that will shutter the sense of a "gotcha culture" that long has pitted teachers against administrators.
Now the district is ready to roll out a teacher evaluation system this fall after initially testing it in 24 of the 66 city schools since May.
Currently, teachers are evaluated at the end of each year if they are tenured -- a status reached after three years of teaching. Nontenured teachers are evaluated once every semester, said Jody Spolar, the district's chief performance officer.
Part of the reason for the new model, Ms. Spolar said, was that the district's plan for teacher observations was inconsistent. Based on transparency, clear definitions of good and bad teaching and evidence-based evaluations, the new system is part of a larger series of initiatives backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve teacher effectiveness.
"In the past, our teacher evaluation was a binary system that simply rated teachers satisfactory or unsatisfactory," said Cindi Muehlbauer, a longtime principal in the city schools, who is now on special assignment to help shepherd the model at district headquarters.
The new model -- known as the Research-Based Inclusive System of Evaluation -- includes a series of teacher-principal meetings interspersed with observation of a teacher's lesson. The teacher and principal meet at least three times to discuss teaching style, lesson plans and the overall objective -- to make the classroom a sanctuary of learning.
In the end, the principal grades the teacher as unsatisfactory, basic, proficient or distinguished. But in a key difference under this system, the teacher has substantial input in the final report.
Even though there may be variations in how teachers assess themselves compared with their principals' final reports, at least both sides now will have a detailed conversation about improving the quality of teaching. That, school administrators said, is a significant step beyond the status quo.
First Published March 21, 2010 1:10 am
