Teacher Evaluation Systems: Opportunities and Challenges

Educator evaluation systems offer two important goals: accountability and instructional improvement. To meet these goals, the process of developing educator evaluation systems provides both opportunities and challenges. In this February 2013 presentation for the Missouri Department of Education, Laura Goe, Ph.D., indicates the opportunities of educator evaluation, including aligning teacher and principal preparation, evaluation, and development as well as the opportunity to help teachers grow professionally by using evaluation results. She also discusses some of the greatest challenges in meeting those opportunities, such as measuring teachers’ contributions to student learning growth in nontested grades and subjects and getting classroom observation right.