Aspen Institute’s Education & Society Program recently released a new report entitled, “Evaluating Evaluations: Using Teacher Surveys to Strengthen Implementation” by Ross Wiener of the Aspen Institute and Kasia Lundy of The Parthenon Group.
Apple and other high-performing companies use employee surveys to drive continuous improvement. The report asks why schools couldn’t also use surveys to evaluate educator evaluations? “Evaluating Evaluations” includes practical advice for system leaders who want to use teacher evaluation systems to improve instruction, elevate the teaching profession, and create a culture of continuous improvement.
While substantial progress has been made over the last several years in establishing meaningful teacher evaluation systems, Wiener and Lundy argue that the effort will have failed unless these more rigorous evaluations produce system-wide improvements in teacher effectiveness within the next five years. Surveys are a critical component of well-designed continuous improvement systems and are commonly used in high-performing organizations in education, business, and other sectors. Of course surveys aren’t a silver bullet, but surveys can generate direct feedback from teachers on what’s working and what’s not, in new evaluation systems.
“Evaluating Evaluations: Using Teacher Surveys to Strengthen Implementation” uses case studies from Aspire Public Schools and other school systems, as well as Apple and other private-sector companies, to make the case for teacher surveys and to establish guidelines for using surveys to improve results. In a relatively quick and cost-efficient way, surveys can build employee engagement, provide actionable data on implementation, and support reciprocal accountability between principals and teachers.
Following is a link to the report: http://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/evaluating-evaluations-using-teacher-surveys-strengthen-implementation
Following is a link to an op-ed by the authors in Education Week: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/04/27/30weiner.h32.html?tkn=XTPFv93QcVrcQNGUzxuFsLzV1Nz8K%2B%2FZsG2%2F&cmp=clp-edweek
