Politics of Teacher Evaluation
Gene V Glass
College of Education
Arizona State University
Barbara A. Martinez
California State University-Los Angeles
With interpolated commentary
[in brackets]by
Alison Griffith
York University
In this paper, we sketch the current practice of teacher
evaluation in the U.S. from our ordinary experience. [There are a
number of ways/models to evaluate teachers. You seem to be drawing
from the Nocam research and from other work , e.g., Glass, 1990. I
suggest that you be more specific or add references to make the global
claims more defensible.] We present a fragment of a case study that
reveals how teachers--elementary school (K-8) teachers in this
instance--view the experience of being evaluated, and how feelings of
illegitimacy flow from the experience. [Reference?] Finally, we
indicate certain considerations from political theory that bear on the
problems of improving teacher evaluation. [I think you need to say
here what the paper is about -- you state the parts but do not
emphasize the 'point' of the paper.]
The Current State of Things
Elementary school teachers are evaluated differently from how
secondary school teachers are evaluated; and secondary school teachers
are evaluated differently from college professors, who further
underline the differences between themselves and their public school
colleagues by not even wishing to be called teachers. [It may be that
college professors, such as myself, don't think that we are teachers
because we have not been trained as teachers -- we don't have a union
card. "not wishing" imputes motive where you don't have support for
the claim.] Nothing seems to account for these differences so clearly
as does what we might loosely refer to as the politics of evaluation.
We often learn something interesting about the organization and
politics of education when we contrast how it is pursued at its
different levels.
[Move to here the para that begins "Each level is distinguished..."]
College professors are usually evaluated by their peers and
superiors yearly for raises and less often for promotion; but in spite
of what might be claimed (by the president of the college when
addressing parents, for an instance), they are seldom evaluated qua
teachers. It is common today for students to fill out simple forms,
rating scales, at the end of a semester: "Instructor was organized,"
"Instructor knew the subject," "Instructor graded fairly." Typically,
these student ratings count for little. The better the university, the
less teaching is weighed in the balance that sways toward research and
publication; and most colleges aspire to be like the better
universities. Extraordinarily bad student ratings will be used to
terminate an untenured faculty member if that person's research is
poor; but the administration will swallow bad ratings when a strong
researcher receives them.
Secondary school teachers are evaluated sporadically. Peer
evaluation is non-existent [a strong statement. How do you know?] in
America's schools, and administrators seldom venture into a high-
school teacher's classroom. Their presence would be viewed with
suspicion by the teacher; the legitimacy of their place there would be
questioned (silently or behind closed doors if not publicly).
Administrators appear to concede that secondary school teaching
involves specialized knowledge (of chemistry or mathematics), and that
a specialist may be needed to recognize good teaching.
Elementary school teachers are treated substantially differently.
Principals visit their class once or more each year. Indeed,
principals regard these visits as a responsibility of their position.
Teaching is observed, occasionally a check-list is filled in; lesson
plans may be inspected. Much is written in school personnel manuals
about evaluating teachers on the basis of their students' achievement
test scores; but the threat is an empty one that nonetheless has the
power to shape instructional styles and choice of content (Glass,
1990). [Didn't MaryLee Smith do a study reported in Educational
Research that is relevant here?] The legitimacy of the elementary
school principal's presence in the classroom for the purpose of
evaluating the teacher is less likely to be questioned openly.
Everyone knows elementary school subject matter after all, and an
instructional leader is an expert in the general techniques of
effective instruction, or so it is widely believed.
[Three points:
1. There are peer coaching or cognitive coaching models that teachers
use in secondary school (see the work of Marylou Dantonio). These are
supported by the administration as ways for teachers to learn from
each other but they are not often used. According to the teachers I
know who are researching this area, the reasons for non-use include:
they don't 'count' for anything and they are a lot of work; the
process requires teachers working with teachers and thus admitting
someone who really knows what you are doing into your classroom; the
administration doesn't back its support of peer coaching with time off
or credit for doing it; the process requires an evaluation of teaching
and teachers are spooked about evaluation.
2.There is a politics of gender in this work that you have not
addressed. Elementary school teachers are more likely to be female
(80-90%?) and the administration is more likely to be male. The
'higher' the grade, the fewer women. The history of teaching has been
described as a process of feminization (see Apple and others who do
histories of teaching). Elementary school teachers, particularly
primary level teachers, are viewed within a 'maternal' framework --
they are the mother in the school who provides the transition for
students from the home to the school. Indeed, the elementary school
has been described by someone as a "harem" with a woman in each room
and the male principal at the center. So the politics of educational
evaluation are gendered. The Norcam data below is full of references
to "he"/the administrators.
That the primary levels are primarily staffed by women and that
there is a 'maternal' framework through which their work is organized
means that primary level teachers are now able to do teaching that
doesn't quite fit the traditional model, eg. whole language and
developmentally appropriate curriculum. This is the work of women and
women are experts because of their maternal tendencies and so men
don't/can't know. An exaggeration, of course, but you get my drift.
3. Which brings me too early to a point that is really relevant later
but which follows from the above: The portrayal of the administrators
is pretty shallow. They are seen only through the eyes of the
teachers. But what if you see them as people who know the evaluation
process is flawed, incomplete, uncomfortable, necessary, "keeps them
on their toes" and so on. Most administrators were once teachers and
they know that evaluations are problematic. So why do they keep doing
them? One reason might be the power relation that is maintained --
teachers are evaluated by administrators. Another might be that
administrators have to do this as part of their jobs but don't take it
seriously except when there is a real problem and then it becomes part
of the documentation of poor teaching -- can they fire teachers who
are doing a bad job? A third might be that they can do a sloppy job
and be seen to be managing their teachers by the higher-up
administrators and the elected Boards -- maybe they don't take them
seriously but it keeps the higher-ups off their back?
While you are not interested in the administration's view of
teacher evaluations, you have to be careful, I think, not to write the
data as if how the teachers describe it is how it is. It may just be
that the data/case study section just needs some filling out. Or it
may be that you need to ask what would be going on that teachers would
describe the evaluative work of administrators in these ways.]
Each level is distinguished by a different balance of teachers'
professional autonomy on the one hand, and the exercise of
administrative authority in a democratic bureaucracy on the other. At
the elementary level, professional autonomy is difficult to discern
and administrators are seen fulfilling the dictates of the duly
elected school board to insure that teachers are competently
delivering instruction to the students. At the secondary school level,
teachers enjoy more autonomy to structure their classes and curriculum
as they judge appropriate; administrative authority is exercised
seldom and usually only in crises. College teachers enjoy autonomy
granted by a three hundred-year tradition of academic freedom; no
administrator dares to cross the threshold of the lecture hall. [What
about contract reviews, P&T reviews, etc. Are you only talking about
tenured faculty?]
Some have sought to reform teacher evaluation by attempting to
alter the balance between these two forces. [Its not clear what two
forces you are talking about.] Art Wise and Tamara Gendler (1990), in
The New Handbook of Teacher Evaluation, distinguished seven purposes
and separate functions of teacher evaluation: preservice, selection,
certification, "beginning," tenure, merit and school improvement.
There is much that can be said about the politics of each of these
separate phases of teacher evaluation (most of which would center on
the politics of higher education and of the labor movement). [What
does having the bracketed text do for your argument? I find it
confusing.] Wise, for example, focuses on licensure and recommends a
state board licensure system for teachers like that for physicians and
lawyers. Such licensing might confer prestige on the profession and
with prestige may come autonomy. But one might wonder whether medicine
is well served by doctors or justice by lawyers. [The issue is not
whether medicine or justice is served but rather what licensing will
do for teachers. Perhaps clarify your argument here.] John McNeil
(1981), in the Handbook of Teacher Evaluation, acknowledged the deep
conflicts that surround this phenomenon in the school, but recommended
new forms that scarcely differ from established practice and that fail
to separate incompatible purposes for evaluating teachers. Armiger
(1981), of the New Jersey Education Association, recommended
guidelines for teacher evaluation that would give teachers more power
within a system still "owned" by the bureaucracy. [For example?]
It is our contention that the problems with teacher evaluation do
not stem principally from the conflict between professional autonomy
and bureaucracy (although these forces are apparent, they can not be
changed without changing the political context), but from the
perceived illegitimacy of the democratic bureaucracy in which the
evaluation is embedded. [This last sentence is not clear.] Our
argument will benefit from a portrayal of how teacher evaluation is
experienced in the work lives of teachers.
Teacher Evaluation in Nocam
Nocam Elementary School is a K-8 school of 800 students located
in the heart of a city of over two million people. Its attendance area
is about a third Anglo and half Hispanic, with a smattering of
children of many different cultures. Nocam is one of three elementary
schools in the school district. It has a full-time principal and is
closely linked to the Superintendent's office through the efforts of a
curriculum specialist who has assisted Nocam is a major overhaul of
its language arts curriculum. "Whole language" teaching, cooperative
learning and non-graded organization have come to Nocam. In the course
of pursuing a larger study focused on school reform, the second author
conducted numerous interviews with Nocam teachers and administrators
and observed classes, board meetings and teachers meetings. On the
following pages, Nocam teachers speak of the way in which their work
is evaluated by their superiors. [Later, you talk about the K-3
Project: what is the relation of this project to the school? Are
these the teachers you talked to? If you talked to teachers from K-8,
I would expect that your data would show different curricular issues
-- eg. whole language as opposed to beginning algebra. But it seems
that all your quotes are from primary level teachers. You need to say
more clearly who you talked to and when your data was collected.]
[The kind of teacher talk reported below is typical. I understand
there have been many studies done of teachers and consistently they
talk about the illegitimate character of evaluations. You need to
make some reference to that literature and then tell us how what you
are going to show is different -- what does you data contribute to the
argument you are making.]
District policy mandated that all teachers be evaluated once a
year, despite the fact that there was no merit system of pay. [I'm not
clear why you would expect that evaluation and merit raises would be
linked.] Teacher evaluations were conducted by the district personnel
director, except in the case of "new" teachers. "New" teachers, those
who had been employed by the district for less than three years, were
evaluated by their immediate supervisor, the school principal. Both
new and veteran Nocam teachers viewed the evaluation process as "a
joke," regardless of who the evaluator was. As one teacher explained,
"...some man is going to come into my classroom, who has never
been in my classroom all year and evaluate me on how good a teacher I
am, by [observing] a twenty minute lesson [and]checking things off?
That's impossible. I couldn't evaluate my students that way."
Teachers generally shared this opinion,
"...it's a scheduled appointment, they will be in your room at
10:30 and you have to have the handbook and the detention notices and
the homework notices... they want to see homework,they want to see
discipline records and it has to all be clearly posted, your
discipline plan and everything...."
Few of the veteran teachers were intimidated by the evaluation
process; many, however, found the process coercive and demeaning. As
one teacher explained,
"I never see that personnel director except when he comes into
make an appointment to do the observation... and you can't talk to him
then. And then the next time that I see him is when he is handing me
back my evaluation. And the thing is so arbitrary...it's 'you're an A
teacher, you're a B teacher, you're a C teacher, and you fail.' I
don't need to know if I'm an A teacher or a B teacher, I don't care.
I care about whether or not I'm improving. They don't have enough
respect for me...the amount of work that I have done and the amount of
dollars that I have put in...to give me something that would actually
help me improve. Instead they give me something that makes me work
first of all to put something together for [the evaluator] to keep,
then they want to evaluate my classes."
Few teachers found the evaluation process informative or
instructive. Teachers complained that the process failed to provide
them with any insights as to how to improve their teaching.
Frustrated by the procedure, teachers did not feel that the exercise
was meant to help them improve their teaching,
"...it's not meant to improve [teaching] although that's the
letter of the law, that the teacher evaluation systems are to improve
teachers...to improve instruction. But it does not do that. In fact
if it does anything I think it doesn't improve my instruction because
I'm ticked for two days before I have to do it and I'm ticked for two
days after I have to do it."
"New" teachers were a bit more anxious about the process, perhaps
because they were evaluated by their principals.
Like the veteran teachers, however, new teachers found the
evaluation process much more burdensome than helpful. The evaluation
experience described by Ms. Clark, a "new" K-3 Project teacher, was
not unusual:
"[The principal] kept saying ahead of time 'don't worry, I
really need to see what's going on in your class'. I thought okey.
And it was a time when I thought it was a good lesson, except for one
kid, and this kid has been documented sexually abused, well he pooped
in his pants during the lesson. The principal got hysterical with me,
he was like 'I spent forty minutes in this room and I've seen nothing
of value happening',and he left. That was my first evaluation. ...
But I decided that I was going to talk to the principal [about my
evaluation] and I said [to him], 'I'm a first year teacher and you
can't just walk in my room and spend almost an hour and tell me
nothing of value is going on. I'm not leaving until you tell me what
good you saw. So he decided not to count that [evaluation] and to do
it again. So for the next one I prepared the kids...."
Ms. Anderson was coached by her fellow teachers as to what this
principal liked to see, the curriculum he preferred, and the practices
he approved of. With this information in mind both she and her
students practiced what they would do for the next evaluation:
"...we practiced, we rehearsed what we would do when [the
principal] walked in and I told the kids if we did it right, we got a
surprise. And [other teachers] took the worst kids [to their classes
that day] so that it wouldn't be bad.
"It was awful...like the kids did these little work-sheets and
they sat there and we had practiced what the work-sheets would look
like, so they sat there and did them without talking. It was so
awful...it was really hollow...we played the game. [The principal]
told me I did a good job and I thought [to myself] 'you don't know
anything.' I've learned part of the principal's game. I can do it
when I have to, I've done it."
Stories about "putting on a show" for both evaluators and
administrators were common among Nocam teachers:
"The kids know how to act for the administrators. We bribe them
[to act a certain way] when administrators are there. Then [the
administrators] leave and we go back to our real way of working and of
teaching."
"...when the district people come into our class, I have to act
a certain way, to put on a show.... I train the kids to act the way
the administrators expect them to act...even if the way they act [and
the things we do] are not developmentally appropriate."
The administrators' ability to evaluate accurately teacher's
performance was questioned by many teachers. Nocam teachers were of
the opinion that their administrators did not really understand the
pedagogical techniques nor the theoretical underpinnings of the
techniques which were the basis of the K-3 Project,
"I don't think they have any idea what [whole language or
developmentally appropriate practice] look like. They think they are
very supportive of whole language, but it's only as long as kids are
sitting at their desks being really quiet."
"...they don't understand how children learn and they come in and
what can you tell them when you talk [with them] in the classroom for
five minutes. Of course it looks like chaos...but learning is going
on...you have to be there for a while to really get a grip on what is
happening with the children...they don't understand [developmentally
appropriate practice]. [The principal] evaluates you at a desk, a
file cabinet between you and the reading group, he's not listening to
the kinds of questions I'm asking the children or, you, know the
communication skills going on. He's watching the behavior problems,
and you are always going to have some. He's counting how many crayons
the kids have on the floor."
"They are not very supportive in the teaching methodology way,
but more picky, and you have to do this and you have to teach from
this book and you have to cover so much and you try to slip your own
things in between without getting caught... You understand that
[administrators] don't know much about [teaching] and you try to take
it with a grain of salt."
"...there are all kinds of politics on why we are getting raked
over the coals for this and that, but if a principal does not
understand what you are doing in the classroom before the evaluation
starts, or if they don't agree with what you are doing, how can they
evaluate you fairly..."?
In addition to their not being very well grounded in the
nontraditional models used by the K-3 Project teachers, many Nocam
teachers were of the opinion that administrators didn't spend enough
time in classrooms to accurately assess their teaching ability:
"...they come in and what can you tell them when you talk [with
them] in the classroom for five minutes...you have to be there for a
while to really get a grip on what is happening with the children...."
"...I don't really think he has a perfect understanding of what
it is...of what exactly it is, because he doesn't come in our
classrooms and hang out for an hour or two for a few days a year."
Nocam teachers also had concerns about the evaluators' ability,
or lack thereof, to provide them with practical guidance and relevant
assistance:
"[The administrators] can't sit and discuss whole language theory
with you... if they can't discuss the concepts with you how can they
tell if what you are doing is right or wrong, and how can they help
you improve upon it?"
"...sometimes the things that they ask us to do don't
particularly correspond with what we are trying to accomplish [in
terms of teaching]."
"...they don't understand how children learn....they don't
understand developmentally appropriate practice...I can't get much
guidance from them...."
"[The principal] says 'what can I do to help you', but I feel
that there is nothing he can do to help me because he doesn't have any
knowledge to give me...."
"I know they are busy [but] they need to spend more time in the
classrooms with us. They come in once in a while, they make me nervous
because they don't come in often enough for me to feel like they are
friends, like I can ask them for help...I don't even know if they know
what I'm doing in here."
"...They might be supportive when you are explaining [the
methodology] to them, the cooperative learning and the learning
centers, but then they come into our rooms and see the movement and
it's 'wait a minute, you didn't say kids were going to be talking to
each other and moving around the classroom, you said "cooperative
learning"'."
Nocam teachers lacked guidance and direction. Even their direct
supervisors -- the school principals -- lacked the appropriate
pedagogical theory, and therefore were not a source of assistance or
guidance. As one teachers explained:
"I've really had to depend just on myself with all this. It's
like I've been left out on this island, all alone... no guidance, no
support, no validation... it's been pretty much a sink or swim
situation...I still don't know which I'm doing...."
Nocam principals viewed their role primarily as that of
"facilitator." Although these administrators encouraged their
kindergarten through third grade faculty to "use whole language,
cooperative learning, and developmentally appropriate practices,"
neither they nor the district superintendent provided teachers with
concrete suggestions for implementing the techniques or improving
their teaching. This task, according to the principals, was "left to
the experts," who were brought in to provide in-service training
throughout the school year.
The K-3 Project teachers managed to convince the district
administration that it was unfair for teachers to be evaluated on
their use of traditional teaching techniques when the K-3 Project
relied so heavily on the use of nontraditional approaches. After three
years of requesting, and largely in response to the requests of the K-
3 Project coordinator, Nocam teachers were given a choice of being
evaluated based on the standards of the "traditional teacher
evaluation" instrument or based on the standards of a "whole language
evaluation" instrument, recently developed by the district
administration.
Both instruments assessed the same general categories of
performance: classroom management, communication skills, instructional
capabilities and materials, planning and organizational skills,
compliance with school policies, and professional qualities. The
whole language instrument, however, was much more extensive than the
traditional instrument. The traditional evaluation instrument
contained a total of five criteria per category which teachers could
"exceed," "meet," or against which they could be judged "average" or
"failed to meet." The whole language instrument contained twenty
different criteria per category, which teachers could "exceed,"
"meet," or with respect to which they could be found "adequate" or
"inadequate."
Technically, teachers had a choice in the evaluation matter;
practically they did not. Neither the district evaluator nor the
principals were adept in using the nontraditional instrument. As a
result, though a fair number of teachers requested that the new
instrument be used, only one teacher was actually assessed with it.
The process was described by the teacher as "a disaster."
According to this teacher, the district evaluator did not have
the new forms in his evaluation package when he came to evaluate her,
nor did he know what was on the forms. The teacher had to supply the
evaluator with the new forms. The evaluator didn't understand the
stated criteria; he had the teacher explain to him how the new
criteria related to the old, so he would know what to look for during
the evaluation session. The teacher described thus:
"It was just a disaster.... [The district evaluator] couldn't sit
and discuss whole language theory with me.... he doesn't know a
thing about developmentally appropriate practice...and cooperative
learning... forget it.... he [kept] looking for my assertive
discipline program. That's not my priority.... I had to explain the
entire process to him, what to look for, what was appropriate and why.
I'm sure he learned a lot, if he paid any attention, but for him to
evaluate me, what a joke."
Whether they knew how to use the nontraditional evaluation
instrument or not, the district principals avoided using it. The
principal at one of the other two elementary schools in the district
went as far as to tell his teachers that it was his choice which
instrument was used, not theirs. And he chose to use only the
traditional instrument.
One teacher decided to "check this out with the district." She
was informed that the teachers did indeed have the right to choose.
When she shared this information with her principal he "got upset at
me for questioning his authority and he told me that he was going to
talk with the district people himself. In the meantime, he used the
traditional instrument to evaluate me."
The Nocam district superintendent maintained that the district
allowed teachers "the freedom to use what they think is appropriate"
in teaching their classes. He also believed that someone needed "to
make sure that what they feel is appropriate is in line with ... our
curriculum philosophy... [that it is] highly matched to what we expect
kids to be tested on." A number of tools were developed to assist
Nocam administrators in monitoring curriculum and instruction.
The Nocam case makes one thing clear. Even at the elementary
school level where it might be expected that administrative evaluation
is most defensible, it is viewed by teachers as illegitimate.
Principals are seen as uninformed about curriculum and unable to spend
the time to understand the circumstances of the class in such a way
that they could help improve it. Bureaucratic evaluation of teaching
at the secondary and college levels is seen as an affront to
professional autonomy and as being even less legitimate than
elementary school teacher evaluation.
It can not be argued that what was seen in Nocam is somehow an
outgrowth of the special circumstances of poverty or ethnic minority
culture. Similar experiences are widely spread in the American
educational system and, perhaps, elsewhere. (Beery, 1992)
[General comments on this section:
1. The interviews reported here are interesting but need to be
treated more analytically and less descriptively. In other words, you
have to tell the reader what is important about what you have selected
from the full interviews you did with teachers. You do this to some
extent, but the section needs more developing. In some places, the
quotations are too long or there are too many. There is more in the
quotations than you treat analytically.
2. I wondered what the children were learning in the evaluation
process -- how to perform for the boss? how to make a good
impression? This is likely not part of what you are doing in this
paper, but it is an aspect of the hidden curriculum that has, to my
knowledge, not been talked about.
3. Back to the issue of gender: the administrators appear to be male
and most of the teachers seem to be female. The in-service trainers
are most likely female? As females, they are the ones that know about
teaching/mothering at the primary level. The principals then don't
need to know because they're men. Well, maybe this last is too
strongly drawn. But its worth thinking about.
4. You seem to have some data from outside the Nocam site. You need
to fill out your methods description.]
Legitimizing Teacher Evaluation
It is our contention that the principal problem with teacher
evaluation is that it is viewed as lacking legitimacy by the persons
who are the object of the evaluation, the teachers themselves.
Consequences of Loss of Legitimacy
Teacher evaluation viewed as illegitimate by teachers themselves
generates nothing but [ "nothing but"?] dissembling, passivity and
feelings of alienation and powerlessness. (Glass, 1990) School boards
through administrators have a legitimate interest in how instruction
is conducted, but it is not an overriding interest,[ I'm not sure what
you are saying here.] nor does it follow that their interest is served
by direct participation of the principal in the evaluation of
teachers.
Where legitimacy is lacking, one can expect little more than
passive compliance. Is it a matter of concern that an evaluation
system is imposed from the administrative hierarchy and not seen as
legitimate by the teachers who are being evaluated? One line of
argument answers "No." Suppose that the system imposed is so
comprehensive and well designed that it encompasses most of what
teachers should be expected to perform. One might argue then that it
is irrelevant whether the teachers "like" what it imposes, since if
they conform to its vision of what a good teacher is, they will ipso
facto teach well. [This was the argument behind the Louisiana Teacher
Evaluation Project -- mandated state-wide evaluations known as LaTEP.
Teachers were to construct their best lessons and goal statement. Then
the evaluators would come into the classroom and watch the teacher do
a model lesson -- do the best lesson they could. Well, of course,
teachers didn't understand what they were supposed to do because in
true Louisiana fashion it was not communicated or implemented well.
So some didn't change what they were doing and some put on a
performance -- all trained their students to take part in the
evaluation day -- other faculty helped the teachers by taking the
worst students into their classes while the evaluation was proceeding.
LaTEP claimed to be different from other evaluations because it
required teachers to model a good lesson. The rationale was that if
the teachers could model it, they could teach it and they would become
better teachers. That was the theory.] This argument is similar to
questions debated under the topic of "teaching to the test" in
educational assessment. Some maintain that if a test is good enough,
then teaching to it will only result in good education. Similarly, if
a teacher evaluation system is good enough (i.e., defines a good model
of what a teacher is to be), then complying with it--even if that
compliance is "false" or pretended in some sense--will result in the
teacher being a good teacher.
The difficulty with the "teaching to the test" argument is that
the kinds of test generally used in assessments are rather pale
reflections of a good education. Likewise, many of the bases of
teacher evaluation systems are weak or impoverished models of what
good teaching is. Checklists of teaching acts or "elements" reduce
teaching to a few general principles of instruction, and divert
attention from concerns of curriculum. A teacher can be a good teacher
under such surveillance while teaching shallow or false knowledge.
Some believe that this is little concern at elementary grades since
"there is no discipline" (in the academic sense) at that level.
"Elementary school teachers have no discipline, they just teach"; or
"teaching is their discipline." Others are shocked to hear that the
teaching of reading or language or mathematics is believed by some not
to raise technical and intellectual questions as complex and
sophisticated as the teaching of calculus to high-school students.
[This argument and example are not convincing, yet.]
Ways of Seeking Legitimacy
Legitimacy can be bestowed in at least two ways: by appeals to
widely accepted scientific or technological knowledge or through the
appeal to the authority of legitimate political institutions or
arrangements.
[All of a sudden, you are using Habermasian categories. Is this the
underlying conceptual framework for this article? You need to
clarify.]
The attempt to legitimate the standard practice of teacher
evaluation by appealing to science and technical-rationality fails for
a couple of reasons. First, there is no widely respected science of
teaching and learning. Common sense or practical and tacit knowledge
of teaching usually succeed as well as systems that profess to be
based on research. Second, most efforts to reform teacher evaluation
start from an assumption that all parties with a direct interest in
improved education share a consensus on what good education is. From
false assumptions of consensus come technical-rational attempts to
manage teachers. We begin from a different starting point. Schools are
micro-political units where teachers, administrators, parents,
students and even society far removed from the classroom seek to
realize their interests. These interests often conflict. Without
agreement on ends, mechanical and technical solutions fail. Third,
school administrators who are vested with the authority to evaluate
teachers as instructors generally lack knowledge of the subject matter
being taught. Their role as evaluator consequently strikes the teacher
as superficial, then illegitimate. (See Scriven, 1992, for a
discussion of what limits subject matter specificity does and does not
place on teacher evaluation.)
[The following example doesn't clarify the argument as you would like
it to.]
An example may help illustrate a nonspecialist's lack of subject
matter knowledge can invalidate the type of evaluation that focuses on
general acts of teaching. A junior high school English teacher is
reviewing a lesson on nouns. He writes on the board "A noun is a
Person, Place or Thing," leaving space beside each for examples.
Turning to the class, he invites anyone who can illustrate a noun as
the name of a person to step to the board and write. A student is
congratulated for writing "singer" beside Person, as is a second
student who writes "school" beside Place. The third volunteer writes
"kitchen" beside Thing only to be told politely by the teacher that a
kitchen is a place, not a thing. The checklist that the observer of
this episode was filling out had categories only for the commonly
identified important elements of teaching: previews lesson, clarifies
goals, provides for active participation, reinforces correct
responses, and the like. This teacher even scores points for
correcting mistakes quickly. This kind of evaluation of this act of
teaching misses the important point of what actually took place. One
need not be a grammarian to sense that something is seriously wrong
with this lesson. Of course a kitchen is a "thing," as in "I have
remodeled my kitchen." And it may function as a place in other uses.
Nor are Person, Place and Thing mutually exclusive and exhaustive
categories. Where does the "unicorn" reside, grammatically speaking,
and what about "truth"? The point is that this teacher is teaching a
shallow or false point and this consideration should override all
other questions. Indeed, his grasp of grammar has led him to confuse a
student (probably more than one) and draw that student into a publicly
embarrassing situation, where her valid understanding of language
usage is labeled "wrong." Where in the evaluation of this teacher is
it noted that the teacher has a responsibility to understand and
continue to learn the subject being taught? Some will argue that it is
impossible for a principal or a principal's deputy to know all the
subject matter taught by all the teachers in the school. Indeed it is;
and lacking that understanding, it is questionable to what degree the
principal can serve as the guide for the teacher's efforts to become a
better teacher.
If technical-rationality can not confer legitimacy on teacher
evaluation, then it remains for political arrangements to do so.
Modern political institutions are bureaucratic democracies, with one
distinguished from the other by the balance of democracy and
bureaucracy.
Appeals to the science of teaching or to technical-rational
arguments about what ought to be taught and how can not hope to
justify a particular form for teacher evaluation within the
hierarchical bureaucracy of contemporary schools. Legitimacy for some
form of teacher evaluation must be found in a new set of political
arrangements that will be viewed as legitimate by the teachers
themselves.
Seeking New Political Arrangements
Three evaluation theorists have addressed the systemic political
problems that have led to the current state of teacher evaluation.
MacDonald. "Democratic evaluation," as envisioned by Barry
MacDonald (1974), addresses the tension between power concentration
and power diffusion in liberal democracies by opting for radical power
diffusion. MacDonald focuses more on the role of the evaluator than on
such aspects of the evaluation as the criteria, data and the like. He
saw the evaluator as an information broker among interested parties.
The evaluator stops short of making recommendations; information,
ultimately owned by those from whom it is collected, is presented to
those persons with legitimate interests in what is being evaluated.
Decisions flow from some unspecified process of democratic discussion
among interested parties. "MacDonald's evaluation approach
intentionally includes diverse interests, allows people to represent
their own interests, and is based on an idea of mutual consent." House
(1980, p.150) A direct, rather than a representative form of
democracy, is being imagined by MacDonald. The limitations of direct
democratic participation in complex, mass societies are obvious.
However, one is casting a small net when the object of an evaluation
is a teacher and a classroom. The range of interests to capture and
bring to consensus is narrow. After all, juries reach consensus even
when the stakes are high. [What would MacDonalds model look like in a
school evalution -- could you re-visit the Nocam example and show how
it would look there? This is the same comment I have after the other
two evaluation theorists cited below. It would tie the data to the
theory and make the paper less like two papers.
Strike. Kenneth Strike has pursued an examination of political
forms and their relevance to education. He contrasts two quite
different approaches to achieving democratic governance. The first is
John Locke's legislative majoritarian democracy. Its operations are
familiar to all; its assumptions are less obvious. Naturally free and
equal humans are to be granted equal sovereignty, which is exercised
by voting for representative government. With the consent of the
governed, sovereignty is placed in the legislative body. Legislatures
exercise sovereign control through hired managers who follow the
policy direction set down by the legislative body. Exigencies will
call for clearer rules and policies; in time, rules will accrue and
the modern bureaucratic democracy will emerge. Citizens may not regard
every rule as legitimate, but the stability of the institution rests
on a wide-spread belief in the legitimacy of the process by which the
representatives are first chosen and then formulate the rules. "We can
see a legislature as a means to vector interests more than as a means
for making and judging the merits of practical argument. Majorities
may be seen as formed more by a process of combining and reconciling
interests than by a process that seeks the better argument." (Strike,
1993, p. 16). Current practice in teacher evaluation is embedded in
this context of legislative bureaucratic democracy. It has failed to
engender among teachers a belief in its legitimacy. Most writing to
date about the politics of teacher evaluation have assumed no changes
in the basic nature of democratic institutions and as a result offer
suggestions that tinker with the balance of power between democratic
bureaucracies and professions.
An opposing view of democratic institutions grows out of the
attempts of Jurgen Habermas to justify liberal democracy. Habermas
argues for the legitimacy of a communitarian democracy in which social
norms are justified by uncoerced argument among equals in an ideal
speech community. To Habermas, a social choice is "discursively
redeemed" when it has the consensus of a community of citizens and
that consensus was reached in open and undominated discourse.
Argument--not votes--legitimates choices and actions for the good of
the community.
Strike recognizes a Utopian character to Habermas's notion of the
discursive redemption of policy choices in an ideal speech community.
As a practical matter, sovereignty will have to be located in a
representative body and conflicting interests "vectored" to a solution
when consensus is impossible. But he can not back away from Habermas's
ideas without trying to answer the question, "How might we make
bureaucratic democratic institutions more Habermasian?"
Kemmis. While Strike may wish to cook the Habermasian omelet
without breaking the Habermasian eggs, Stephen Kemmis does not
hesitate to recommend the Habermasian ideal. To Kemmis, teacher
evaluation would be one particular aspect of what he calls
"emancipatory action research" (Carr Kemmis, 1986; Kemmis, 1993a;
Kemmis, 1993b). "When schools--teachers, students, principals and
others--are forced to change on the basis of outside evaluations and
the crude coercive powers of the state, however, they frequently
resist, passively if not actively. And that, it seems to me, just
produces still further administrative demands for surveillance,
regulation and control.... I believe that the evaluation processes I
have attempted to develop--as well as some of the practices associated
with 'responsive', 'illuminative' and 'democratic' evaluation--did
(and do) contribute to the development of less irrational, less unjust
and less satisfying forms of social life. Though some of those
perspectives have no particular inclination to justify themselves
against the criteria of critical social theory or critical social
science, in practice they do seem to offer increased opportunities for
what Habermas describes as "communicative action"--action oriented
towards mutual understanding and unforced agreement...." (Kemmis,
1993, pp. 46-47)
Conclusion
Teachers view the evaluation to which they are subject as being
illegitimate. They do not recognize the authority of those who perform
the evaluation; they do not accept it as valid and defensible.
Legitimacy can be conferred by democratizing the process of teacher
evaluation, by removing it from the context of hierarchical
bureaucracy in which it now resides, and by carrying it out in a new
context. Some theorists offer justifications for this rearrangement of
the politics of teacher evaluation. As yet, it is unclear how the
reform would be played out in its essential details, e.g., who would
participate in the evaluation of teachers, what information would be
relevant and how it would be obtained, with whom authority would lie
to call for an evaluation, and the like.
[The conclusion needs to be re-written.]
[What is the next bit about? Why is it not in the body of the paper
if it is relevant. If not, why leave it in?]
References
Armiger, M.L. (1981). The political realities of teacher
evaluation. Chp. 16 (pp. 292-302) in Millman, J. (Ed.)
Handbook of Teacher Evaluation. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE
Publications.
Beery, B.F. (1992). Master teacher conceptions of relationships
between teacher evaluation and excellence in teaching
performance. Doctoral dissertation. Tempe: Arizona State
University.
Carr, W. Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming critical: education,
knowledge and action research. London: Falmer Press.
Darling-Hammond, L., Wise, A.E. and Pease, S.R. (1983). Teacher
evaluation in the organization context: A review of the
literature. Review of Educational Research, 53, 285-328.
Glass, G.V (1990). Using student test scores to evaluate
teachers. Chapter 14 (pp. 229-240) in Millman, J.
Darling-Hammond, L. (Eds.). The New Handbook of Teacher
Evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications.
House, E.R. (1980). Evaluating with validity. Beverly Hills, CA:
SAGE Publications.
Kemmis, S. (1993a). Action research and social movement: A
challenge for policy research. Education Policy Analysis
Archives, Vol. 1, No. 1 (entire issue).
Kemmis, S. (1993b). Foucault, Habermas and evaluation. Curriculum
Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, 33-52.
MacDonald, B. (1974). Evaluation and the control of education.
Norwich, England: Centre for Applied Research in Education.
Martinez, B.A. (1993). How educational reform is compromised: A
critical investigation. Doctoral dissertation. Tempe:
Arizona State University.
McNeil, J.D. (1981). Politics of teacher evaluation. Chp. 15 (pp.
272-291) in Millman, J. (Ed.) Handbook of Teacher
Evaluation. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Publications.
Scriven, M. (October 1992). Should teacher evaluation be subject-
matter specific? TEMP Memo #10. Kalamazoo, MI: Center for
Research on Educational Accountability Teacher Evaluation,
Western Michigan University.
Scriven, M. (September, 1991). Duties of the Teacher. Memo from
the Center for Research on Educational Accountability
Teacher Evaluation, Western Michigan University. (Also see
Scriven, M. (1988). Duty-Based Teacher Evaluation. Journal
of Personnel Evaluation in Education.)
Strike, K.A. "Professionalism, democracy and discursive
communities: Normative reflections on restructuring."
American Educational Research Journal,(in press)
Strike, K.A. 'Is teaching a profession? How would we know?
Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education 4(1990),
91-117.
Strike, K.A. "The moral role of schooling in a liberal democratic
society" Review of Research in Education. Vol 17.
Strike, K.A. Humanizing Education: Subjective and Objective
Aspects" Studies in Philosophy of Education 11:1(1991),
17-30.
Strike, K.A. (1990). The ethics of educational evaluation. Chp.
21 (pp. 356-373) in Millman, J. Darling-Hammond, L.
(Eds.). The New Handbook of Teacher Evaluation. Newbury
Park, CA: SAGE Publications.
Strike, K. Bull, B. (1981). Fairness and the legal context of
teacher evaluation. Chp. 17 (pp. 303-343) in Millman, J.
(Ed.) Handbook of Teacher Evaluation. Beverly Hills, CA:
SAGE Publications.
Wise, A. Gendler, T. (1990). Governance issues in the
evaluation of elementary and secondary school teachers. Chp.
22 (pp. 374-389) in Millman, J. Darling-Hammond, L.
(Eds.). The New Handbook of Teacher Evaluation. Newbury
Park, CA: SAGE Publications.
Gene and Barbara:
In summary, this paper seems to be two papers that don't have much to
do with each other. If I understand the argument you are making, you
want to show that educational evaluation is in the middle of a crisis
of legitimacy (Habermas again) and that different communicative and
power relations are necessary in order for ed eval to be seen as
'useful' by teachers and other educators. (and evaluators?) I would
suggest that the crisis of legitimacy is illustrated by the data (you
might also illustrate that crisis in other areas eg the public
perception of teachers). I think you need to set up the paper by
bringing in the Habermasian framework or equivalent discussion of the
crisis of legitimacy at the beginning so the reader knows why its
important that teachers are contemptuous of evaluation. Then the
different evaluation models at the end (Kemmis, Strike, MacDonald)
become a way of exploring new ways to handle the "crisis" you have
named and descriptively illustrated.