This kind of minimal observation—analogous to car inspections—would be less taxing but still yield useful information
The problem with observations is they have been too minimal. One of the key differences to high performing charters when compared to their urban peers has been the amount of observation and coaching involved in the classroom.
classrooms under control and are teaching in a responsible way.
This is what happens when economists speak of teaching. They see it as merely controlling students and ensuring that they are all in their seats like good little cattle. Don't forget all of these VAM models came from agriculture. My students aren't cattle.
This is spending a lot of money to find that nearly all teachers are effective and to generate teacher feedback that does not improve student learning
Could we not make the same argument about the test scores? If NAEP and TIMMS growth have been stagnant for the last 25 years doesn't that mean accountability based reform are a waste of money?
The idea that any employee should go through the year and not have an observation and be evaluated by their supervisor seems silly,
The finding is saying observations and test scores are measuring different things.
We needed a study for this.They are uncorrelated because they are different measures. That being said we do not pay enough attention to capacity of evaluators nor do we use teacher observations in growth models.
Using test scores to evaluate teachers has been controversial, to put it mildly
Just because we should doesn't mean we can. I just do not think enough unique variance year over year can be teased out from teacher effects
But what principals observe is whether teachers are teaching. The crucial question is whether students are learning.
A good observation report should make the connection to student learning. Too often evaluators do not focus on the learning.
A principal (or district administrator) comes into a teacher’s classroom with a measurement tool in hand (now more often on a laptop), and checks off whether he or she observes various things in the classroom.
Actually a good teacher observation model is much more than a checklist approach. It is not a dichotomous measure as the author suggests