Teacher Evaluation as Cultural Practice

A Framework for Equity and Excellence

María del Carmen Salazar, Jessica Lerner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429820694
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Moving beyond the expectations and processes of conventional teacher evaluation, this book provides a framework for teacher evaluation that better prepares educators to serve culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners. Covering theory, research, and practice, María del Carmen Salazar and Jessica Lerner showcase a model to aid prospective and practicing teachers who are concerned with issues of equity, excellence, and evaluation. Introducing a comprehensive, five-tenet model, the book demonstrates how to place the needs of CLD learners at the center and offers concrete approaches to assess and promote cultural responsiveness, thereby providing critical insight into the role of teacher evaluation in confronting inequity. This book is intended to serve as a resource for those who are committed to the reconceptualization of teacher evaluation in order to better support CLD learners and their communities, while promoting cultural competence and critical consciousness for all learners.

Part I

Teacher Evaluation and Culture

Part I presents theoretical, experiential, and practical assertions that illustrate the link between teacher evaluation and culture. Chapter 1 briefly describes the context of teacher evaluation reform, establishes the need for culturally responsive teacher evaluation (CRTE), and proposes a framework for CRTE. Chapter 2 describes how the cultural lenses of the authors of this book influence their conceptualizations of culture, teaching, and teacher evaluation. Chapter 3 reconceptualizes teacher evaluation through a critical race theoretical perspective to make the case that teacher evaluation is a cultural practice that positions the dominant culture at the normative center and marginalizes the other. This chapter includes concrete examples from nationally recognized teacher evaluation models to support this assertion.

1

Framing the Intersection between Teacher Evaluation and Culture

Chapter Overview: This chapter describes the need for teacher evaluation reform. Currently, teacher evaluation reform does not address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners. Thus, this chapter provides a framework that merges culture, pedagogy, assessment, and evaluation for the development of culturally responsive teacher evaluation (CRTE).

Students of Color currently comprise over 50% of public school enrollment and are expected to comprise 56% by 2024 (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Educators struggle with how to best serve culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners, who often face the starkest opportunity gaps. CLD learners from historically marginalized communities such as Black/African American, Latinx, and Indigenous youth are increasingly segregated in schools; disciplined at higher rates, with harsher consequences; disproportionately placed into the lowest academic tracks; and overrepresented in special education (Ford, 2012; Orfield, Kucsera, & Siegel-Hawley, 2012; Welton & Martinez, 2014). These youth have been systematically denied educational opportunities due to their race, native language, class, citizenship status, and learning differences, among other intersecting identities. As a result, CLD learners from historically marginalized communities experience an education system that is, at best, fragmented and irrelevant, and at worst, a systematic effort to marginalize, mis-educate, and disenfranchise generations of Americans (Salazar, 2013).

While some of our nation’s children face persistent opportunity gaps along color lines, all of our nation’s children are falling behind according to global comparisons. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD, 2018) indicates that the achievement of U.S. students lags in comparison to their international peers. The PISA measures student performance in mathematics, reading, and science for 15 year olds in 72 countries. In 2015, the U.S. failed to make the top 20 nations in any category. Moreover, average mathematics scores dropped 11 points from the previous assessment, and reading and science scores remained flat (OECD, 2018).

An Intense Focus on Effective Teachers and Teacher Evaluation

Educational scholars and policy makers assert that the nation’s children are in dire need of effective teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2013; Stronge, 2007). This assertion is bolstered by research demonstrating that no factor under a school’s control affects student outcomes more than the quality of the teacher in the classroom (Darling-Hammond, 2009; Goe, 2007; Tucker & Stronge, 2005). Research based on value-added models indicates that effective teachers make a significant difference in student learning (Aaronson, Barrow, & Sander, 2007; Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges, 2004; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005).

According to Darling-Hammond (2013), “teaching has become a major focus of policy attention, teacher evaluation is currently the primary tool being promoted to improve it” (p. 2). Ladson-Billings (1998) posits that the intense focus on teacher evaluation began in the 1980s with three key reports on teacher quality: “Teachers for Tomorrow’s Schools” (U.S. Holmes Group, 1986), “A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century” (Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, 1986), and “A Nation at Risk” (U.S. Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). Ladson-Billings explains that these reports revealed a need for improved assessment measures for pre-service and in-service teachers.

This focus intensified at the turn of the century with three key policy documents on teacher evaluation. The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality released a report titled, “Approaches to Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness: A Research Synthesis.” This report synthesizes methods of measuring teacher effectiveness, reveals a lack of consensus over what constitutes effective teaching, and asserts that there is no common method for evaluating teacher effectiveness (Goe, Bell, and Little, 2008).

The OECD (Isoré, 2009) released a report titled, “Teacher Evaluation: A Conceptual Framework and Examples of Country Practices.” This report documents teacher evaluation practices from around the globe including: defining competencies, preparing evaluators, and using results. Consequently, it fostered a global sense of urgency related to teacher evaluation.

TNTP released a report published by TNTP titled, “The Widget Effect: Our National Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Differences in Teacher Effectiveness” (Weisberg et al., 2009). The report concludes that teaching effectiveness is the most important factor in improving student achievement. It recommends that districts adopt a comprehensive performance evaluation system for teachers based on classroom observations and student growth data. The report was widely read and had a major influence on policy (Di Carlo, 2014).

Spurred by these key policy reports, teacher evaluation reform has become a dominant focus in educational reform. It is important to note, however, that other factors, besides teachers, influence student achievement, including: school conditions; home and community supports or challenges; individual student factors; and validity issues with testing (Darling-Hammond, Amrein-Beardsley, Haertel, & Rothstein, 2012).

Although teachers are not solely responsible for students’ educational success, teacher evaluation focuses on the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Thus, teacher evaluation models rely heavily on classroom-based observation tools: the most widely used measure of teacher effectiveness (Little, Goe, & Bell, 2009). The 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing survey showed that 99% of untenured teachers and 95% of tenured teachers are evaluated annually based on formal classroom observations (Cohen & Goldhaber, 2016). By 2013, all states required classroom observations as a component of their state teacher evaluation system (Hull, 2013).

Researchers indicate that classroom-based observation tools help improve teacher effectiveness and student achievement (Darling-Hammond, 2013; Rockoff & Speroni, 2010). Several teacher evaluation models based on classroom observation tools have emerged nationally, including: Danielson’s Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 2013), the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model (Marzano Center, 2017), and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System [CLASS] (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2006). All include widely used classroom observation tools (Brandt, Mathers, Oliva, Brown-Sims, & Hess, 2007).

The aforementioned teacher evaluation policy documents, and the national frameworks that define and measure effective teaching, have shaped the focus on teacher evaluation reform to date. However, as systematic teacher evaluation has become more widespread, scholars increasingly question whether current teacher evaluation models adequately address the needs of CLD learners (Cooper, 2013; Hawley & Irvine, 2011; Samson & Collins, 2012).

Culture, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Evaluation

The inquiry by scholars related to teacher evaluation models and CLD learners led us to explore the intersection between culture, pedagogy, assessment, and evaluation.

While there has been vast work to define culture, we offer a brief description. Nieto (1992) defines culture as “the ever-changing values, traditions, social and political relationships, and worldview created and shared by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors… and how these are transformed by those who share them” (p. 208). Culture is a creation of the human imagination, yet it is real and impacts every element of our lives.

How does culture intersect with pedagogy, assessment, and evaluation? This question is vital to our understanding of teacher evaluation. Goe et al. (2008) state, “What is measured is a reflection of what is valued, and as a corollary, what is measured is valued” (p. 4). Is culture valued in teacher evaluation? Hawley and Irvine (2011) address this question; they explain:

Most of the protocols for measuring performance give inadequate attention to teaching practices that are particularly effective with students from diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. By ignoring these research-based practices, generally called “culturally responsive pedagogy,” or CRP, any high-stakes teaching evaluation is likely—unintentionally and ironically—to fail the very students most in need of highly effective teaching.

(p. 1)

We are in agreement and assert that a comprehensive focus on CLD learners is conspicuously absent from teacher evaluation models. What is measured is a reflection of what is valued; this implies that meeting the needs of CLD learners is not valued. This assertion is supported in this book. Because we value CLD learners, we propose a new framework for teacher evaluation that merges culture, pedagogy, assessment, and evaluation. In the sections that follow we describe how culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), culturally responsive asses...