The Measures of Effective Teaching Project, the collective work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Harvard University’s Center For Education Policy Research, has recently released a detailed report on three years of research on 3,000 teachers in seven school districts that conclusively finds that “the quality of teachers directly affects test score results regardless of a student’s past performance.”
The seven school districts involved in the study include Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Dallas Independent Schools, Denver Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis Public Schools, New York City Public Schools, and Pittsburgh Public Schools.
According to the report, three key measures should be used collectively for teacher evaluation: observations of teachers, student surveys, and student test scores. The MET Project explains them as follows:
- Classroom observation instruments, including both subject-specific and cross-subject tools, define discrete teaching competencies and describe different levels of performance for each.
- Student perception surveys assess key characteristics of the classroom environment, including supportiveness, challenge, and order.
- Student achievement gains on state tests and on more cognitively challenging assessments.
The formal title of the final report of the MET study is, “Ensuring Fair and Reliable Measures of Effective Teaching: Culminating Findings from the MET Project’s Three-Year Study.” The MET Project has released four previous preliminary reports, all along similar lines, which have addressed the issue of how effective teaching can effectively be evaluated. In the initial report in 2010 (Learning about Teaching), researchers found that a well-designed student perception survey can provide reliable feedback on aspects of teaching practice that are predictive of student learning. In 2012 (Gathering Feedback for Teaching), they presented similar results for classroom observations and found that an accurate observation rating requires two or more lessons, each scored by a different certified observer.
This final report of the MET Project has reached three main conclusions:
- Effective teaching can be measured. The data show that we can identify groups of teachers who are more effective in helping students learn. Moreover, the magnitude of the achievement gains that teachers generated was consistent with expectations.
- Balanced weights for multiple evaluation measures indicate multiple aspects of effective teaching. A composite with weights between 33 percent and 50 percent assigned to state test scores demonstrated the best mix of low volatility from year to year and ability to predict student gains on multiple assessments. Multiple measures produce more consistent ratings than student achievement measures alone.
- Adding a second observer increases reliability significantly more than having the same observer score an additional lesson. These additional observations may be for shorter periods.
To read the report, see http://www.metproject.org/downloads/MET_Ensuring_Fair_and_Reliable_Measures_Practitioner_Brief.pdf
For more in-depth analysis of the report, please visit the following links:
