Given recent sea changes to teacher-evaluation-policy—thirty-two states have updated policies in the last three years with much of this movement occurring in 2011—the National Council on Teacher Quality offers up this teaser to its annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook. It offers a comprehensive appraisal of each state’s teacher-evaluation policies, and also explains what eighteen states with the most ambitious evaluation plans (some Race to the Top winners, others not) are up to, ranking each against NCTQ’s ten elements of comprehensive teacher policy. What’s most interesting about the paper are the early lessons it draws from these states’ initiatives. As the authors explain, “teacher effectiveness measures don’t have to be perfect to be useful.” They should, however, include classroom observations, entail third-party evaluations, and incorporate student-growth measures for non-tested subjects. And they don’t need to be the same for teachers of all grades and all subjects. Two words: Read it.
National Council on Teacher Quality. “State of the States: Trends and Early Lessons on Teacher Evaluation and Effectiveness Policies” (Washington, D.C.: National Council on Teacher Quality, October 2011).
