Teacher evaluation: Research versus practice

Summary From the data one can conclude that the majority of the study's districts over-whelmingly continue to opt for the quick, easy, ambiguous, and traditional Trait/Scale Model of evaluation. It also appears that teachers, although they assert that this approach is ineffective and demeaning to them professionally, continue to sign contracts authorizing this mode of evaluation. The one bright light in this picture is that while the traditional Trait/Scale combination is used in 202 districts (see figure 5), the data also show that the districts in the study's sample used the Trait/Scale Model with one or more of the other models available (see figure 5). The model was used with the Performance Objectives Model in 123 districts and with the Teacher Concern Model in 69 districts. This would imply that in the districts responding there was an awareness that the Trait/Scale Model alone was not the answer to effective evaluation, and that there was a need to develop a system which would better acknowledge and nurture the teacher's sense of professionalism and would provide real assistance. Perhaps as the demand for professionalism is internalized and the concommitant demand for accountability grows, there may actually come a time when districts completely relinquish their attachment to the last vestiges of an evaluation model that answers neither demand.