Every school I’ve worked at uses a teacher evaluation system where the primary goal is to determine if whether the teachers are doing a good job or not.
These systems typically look like goal-setting with an administrator or supervisor at the beginning of the school year, a few observations of the teacher during the year (potentially with or without feedback) and then a rubric applied to decide if the teacher needs additional support or not.
What these systems don’t normally do is connect to the professional growth of the teacher. They don’t even necessarily connect to the goals of the school. In fact, many schools don’t even have learning goals for their teachers.
In an ideal system, the learning goals of the educators are that which best support student learning, derived from a shared understanding as a community what the learning goals for students should be. Imagine a school where educators work with the community (including students) to decide on what the goals are for the school, and then decide what they will measure to see progress toward those goals, and then hold themselves and the community accountable towards reaching those goals.
Instead of a system designed to play “gotcha” and figure out who the bad teachers are, the system would be designed to benefit the learning of everyone.
Teachers could select professional development that connected directly to school improvement goals. They could then see why they are learning something because those goals would be transparent to them. They would know what to focus on during professional development and be much more likely to integrate it into their daily work. Supervisors and administrators could come observe classes and be able to know what to look for and what to focus on in terms of feedback. In fact, instead of being evaluators, these people could be learners alongside their teachers.
How might your school look different if everyone had a shared vision of where they were trying to go as a school and had the time to plan how to get there?