Report finds promising results from new teacher observation evaluation model

First with Race to the Top and then with Illinois Senate Bill 7, Illinois is reshaping how it evaluates teachers and rewards exceptional educators. “Rethinking Teacher Evaluation in Chicago; Lessons Learned from Classroom Observations, Principal-Teacher Conferences, and District Implementation,” a new report from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, is the first of its kind to provide evidence that new teacher observation tools combined with thoughtful evaluation and professional development can accurately measure a teacher’s effectiveness.

Supported by the Joyce Foundation, the report focuses on teacher evaluation in Chicago, but its findings are applicable to other school districts across the country. Documenting Chicago’s Excellence in Teaching Project, a two-year pilot to provide teachers with new evidence-based feedback using the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching, the report found that:

• Students showed the greatest growth in test scores in classrooms where teachers received the highest observation rankings, indicating that classroom observations are valid measures of teachers’ impact on student learning. This finding is especially relevant in determining teacher evaluation methods for non-tested subjects like art and gym.
• Principals and trained observers who watched the same lesson consistently gave the teacher the same ratings. Some rating inconsistencies show a need for better tools to identify low-performing teachers.
• Both principals and teachers agreed that conferences following the evaluation were more productive and had a greater focus on instructional practice and improvement. The report authors say there is room for improvement in this area, because many principals lacked instructional coaching training.
• More than half the principals involved in the pilot were highly engaged in the new evaluation system, and those principals who were less engaged cited the new system’s time demand.

“This study shows that we’re moving in the right direction with our redesign of educator evaluations in Illinois. It shows the observation methods we’re moving toward are valid and reliable measures of solid teaching practice and that they can be applied consistently,” State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch said. “The state is going to use the lessons learned in the Consortium study as we design the state’s training for principals which will be critical for the successful implementation of our new educator evaluation systems.”

Noting that evaluations can only start the conversation about instructional improvement, the report calls for additional research to address changes required to make the evaluation system more objective and to make conferences and development for teachers more meaningful for their work in the classroom.

Download the report.