growth for every staff member,
teachers stay focused on their
own growth, as well as their
students’ growth. When district
leaders neglect performance
assessment and professional
learning, some teachers will
likely improve on their own,
but mediocre and poor teachers
will continue to underteach our
children.
Keeping teacher improvement
central to the district’s mission
is difficult for leaders. Other
priorities continually crowd in.
Every decision or word from dis
trict leaders that says, “We value
superb teaching” tells teachers,
administrators, and the public
that they mean it.
Strong district leaders champion
the performance assessment
system. They do not cut funding
for professional development
and peer coaching. They back
a principal’s decision to place a
teacher on a program of improvement or
to dismiss a teacher. They believe that “all
teachers can learn” until, on a caseby
case basis, some teachers prove unable
or unwilling to do so.
© FUSE/GETTY IMAGES
District leaders who make teacher
improvement a high priority push
beyond old, combative relationships
between unions and management.
Unions exist to defend teachers’
employment rights; over the years,
they have learned to play hardball.
Frankly, this has intimidated some
administrators, giving them a conve
nient excuse for not pushing hard on
teacher performance assessment. In the
present climate, unions are publicly
supportive of efforts to raise teacher
quality. The National Education Asso
ciation (2010) and the American Fed
eration of Teachers (Weingarten, 2010)
have published their own wellreasoned
frameworks for teacher assessment and
growth.
seven times to clarify misunder
standings, and two students
shared personal stories with you.
This shows they are comfortable
with you and see you as an ally in
their learning. Overall, your inter
actions with students are friendly
and supportive while also focused
on learning goals.
Step 4: Build time for teacher
evaluation into principals’
workloads.
The process of effective perfor
mance review and improvement
is timeconsuming and often
intense work. It requires careful
consideration of observational
and other data and discussion
about alternative strategies, fol
lowed up by more observation.
It can no longer be viewed as a
fringe activity for administrators
and coaches. Gone are the days
when principals can be assigned
50 teachers to evaluate on top of
all the other duties of running a
school. In business, it has long
been commonplace to assign super
visors 15 supervisees. In schools, super
visors’ loads are often much higher,
leading many principals to report that
they are unable to devote adequate time
to evaluating teachers (see, for example,
Peterson, 2004).
School systems that are serious about
teacher quality do not follow these old
patterns. They engage peer coaches and
differentiate the kind of supervision
teachers receive on the basis of their
performance needs. Principals typically
work directly and intensively with
probationary teachers to ensure sound
contractual decisions. Continuing
contract teachers whose competence is
well established work almost exclusively
with peer coaches. Teachers whose
performance has raised serious ques
tions are supervised primarily by
administrators, particularly if the dis
trict has assigned them a “program of
improvement.” Ongoing training and
support need to differentiate between
peer coaches and administrators, par
ticularly when legal contractual proce
dures become paramount in cases of
possible nonrenewal.
Step 5: Make instructional
improvement a district priority.
None of these conditions can be sus
tained without strong district leadership
that makes improving teaching a way of
life in every school. When the central
office and the school board clearly and
persistently pursue assessment and
