Recommendations
Based on our extensive experience, TNTP recommends the following as evidence-based practices for this domain:
- Design evaluation systems that use multiple pieces of evidence to produce a full, precise picture of teacher effectiveness.
- Clearly communicate the vision for teacher evaluation at your school.
- Ensure evaluation tools and practices reflect the academic vision and instructional excellence.
- Support and norm evaluators to determine accurate ratings of teacher effectiveness.
- Review evaluation data regularly to ensure evaluators, norms, and ratings are free from bias (i.e., certain groups of teachers — by race, age, subject area, etc. — are not inaccurately over-represented in any performance categories).
- Share and discuss evaluation data and their rationale with teachers. Use evaluation data to inform individual teachers’ development plans and school-wide staff development decisions.
- Also use evaluation data to inform teacher retention and dismissal.
- Continue to adapt and improve your evaluation system and gather feedback from stakeholders like teachers and school leaders.
Resources
Browse Resources by Audience
Teachers
Resources for Teachers
TNTP Teaching Core Rubric: A tool for conducting Common Core-aligned classroom observations
Shortchanged: The Hidden Costs of Lockstep Teacher Pay: A report from TNTP on how lockstep teacher pay can undermine student learning, with examples of innovative compensation models that lead to better outcomes for both students and teachers
Texas’s Teacher Incentive Allotment: A case study on one state’s approach to teacher compensation
School Leadership
Resources for School Leadership
TNTP Teaching Core Rubric: A tool for conducting Common Core-aligned classroom observations