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Posted: 01/06/2012 2:30 pm EST  Updated: 01/06/2012 4:03 pm EST

Gates Foundation Report On Measuring TeacherEffectiveness Suggests ThreePronged Approach

As teacher evaluations are becoming moreprevalent in schools across the country

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/17/teacherevaluationsmore_n_1100352.html) amid a growing debate on how best to grade teachers, a new reportout today adds to the growing number of studies concluding that student test scoresshould be one of several determinants in measuring student effectiveness(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/floridateacherevaluatio_n_1079758.html).

Instead, teachers should be assessed based on a combination of classroomobservations, student feedback and valueadded student achievement gains,according to the Measures of Effective Teaching project's paper, "Gathering Feedbackfor Teaching."(http://metproject.org/downloads/MET_Gathering_Feedback_Practioner_Brief.pdf)Educators should be observed by certified raters through multiple, highqualityobservations with clear standards.

Valueadded analysis calculates a teacher's effectiveness in improving studentperformance on standardized tests  based on past test scores. The forecasted figureis compared to the student's actual scores, and the difference is considered the "valueadded," or subtracted, by the teachers.

The report is the second in a series of four on effective teachers, and is authored byThomas J. Kane, deputy director of research and data at the Bill & Melinda GatesFoundation and professor of education and economics at the Harvard GraduateSchool of Education, and Douglas O. Staiger, professor of economics at DartmouthCollege.

The authors provide the following six suggestions for minimum requirements inquality classroom observations:

Choose an observation instrument that sets clear expectationsRequire observers to demonstrate accuracy before they rate teacher practiceRequire multiple observations prior to highstakes decisionsTrack systemlevel reliability by doublescoring some teachers with impartialobserversCombine observations with student achievement gains and student feedbackRegularly verify that teachers with stronger observation scores also have stronger

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student achievement gains on average

School districts, however, may face a challenging balance of creating acomprehensive, detailed evaluation system that isn't so complicated that it becomestoo convoluted for evaluators to effectively and accurately rate educators, the authorsnote.

"No measure is perfect. But if every personnel decision carries consequences  forteachers and students  then school systems should learn which measures are betteraligned to the outcomes they value," the report reads. "We should refine these toolsand continue to develop better ways to provide feedback to teachers. In the meantime,it makes sense to compare measures based on the criteria of predictive power,reliability and diagnostic usefulness."

In a statement Friday, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten,however, points out that the study fails to offer suggestions on how to use thatevaluation process to improve teacher practice.

"The findings illuminate what we have learned in our work in school districts acrossthe country," Weingarten said. "Until we make a commitment to develop evaluationsystems that are first and foremost about continuous improvement and professionalgrowth, we will continue to struggle in our efforts to provide every child with a highquality education."

The Bill & Melinda Gates report is just one of many that offer recommendations forbest practices in teacher evaluations, and Weingarten's statement reiterates acontinuing hurdle districts, lawmakers and educators must overcome. The debateacknowledges that current systems are flawed, but few have been able to come to aconsensus on how best to fix them. A November report questions whether valueadded teacher ratings should be adjusted for poverty to account for challenges thatteachers face in highpoverty schools(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/valueaddedteacherratin_n_1107983.html).

And despite heightened focus on teacher evaluations, a report out the same monthshowed that there are few professional development methods that have proven toeffectively promote student learning(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/teacherqualityquestioncenterforamericanprogressreports_n_1119490.html). Robert Pianta, the study's author,notes that evaluations should be used to assess and target areas that teachers canimprove and bolster their skillsets, rather than for the current common practice offiring ineffective teachers said to be dragging student performance.

"It is a travesty that despite districts spending thousands of dollars per teacher eachyear on professional development, these dollars are most often spent on models thatare known to be ineffective," Pianta wrote in the paper, "Teaching Children Well: NewEvidenceBased Approaches to Teacher Professional Development and Training."(http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/11/teaching_children_well.html)

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