New Teacher Evaluations for 2009-2010

The school district is implementing a new framework for end-of-year evaluations to reduce variation in evaluators' approaches and to make the reports into more useful tools for teachers.

"It led to a lot of contention at the end about what things were being looked for," he said.

The framework being adopted was developed by Charlotte Danielson, a Princeton-based educational consultant and former classroom teacher who created a schema for evaluations in four domains: planning and preparation; classroom environment, which includes discipline and organizing space; instruction; and professional responsibilities, which includes maintaining records and communicating with families. (Different rubrics have been developed for school nurses, guidance counselors, and other staff.)

Teachers will be evaluated on items in each domain on a scale from unsatisfactory to basic to proficient to distinguished—a high mark to reach.

"Distinguished is a place you visit, not a place where you live," said Jim Memoli, assistant superintendent for human resources, who worked to develop the new evaluations, recalling a point by Danielson.

While a less subjective evaluation process will be useful in determining whether to renew contracts or grant tenure, Osborne also contends that they'll lead to productive conversations between tenured teachers and their evaluators and help them focus on ways to improve their job performance.

"We need to use the opportunity to create a more robust conversation about what teaching and learning really are," he said.

The district's 550 teachers have all been introduced to the new evaluations by their supervisors at this point. Teacher observations—three per year for non-tenured staff and one per year for tenured faculty—will not undergo a change, since the forms used were already more detailed and specific than the end-of-year evaluations, according to Memoli. However, care has been taken to ensure that observation forms align with the Danielson framework.