What's wrong with today's teacher-evaluation systems-and how to improve them
Unsound teacher evaluation practices lead to misinformed decisions regarding strategies for student learning, resulting in negative effects to students. Education measurement and evaluation expert W. James Popham critiques what is wrong with many existing teacher-evaluation systems and offers an alternate system that respects the professionalism and dignity of teachers.
Popham argues that, because teaching is a very situation-specific profession, the use of any paint-by-numbers, one-size-fits-all teacher evaluation system is patently absurd. Rather, the only defensible approach to teacher evaluation is to base it on collegial judgment, that is, on the evaluative conclusions of experienced teachers who have been specifically trained and formally certified to carry out this function.
This book discusses:
Key strengths and weaknesses of prominent teacher-evaluation evidence How to improve a flawed teacher-evaluation program The merits of a teacher evaluation program based on "evidence-governed collegial judgment"
W. James Popham, one of the country's foremost experts in education measurement and evaluation, proposes a commonsense approach to teacher evaluation that utilizes the expertise and professional judgment of master teachers. In this groundbreaking book, Popham:
Discusses the strengths and weaknesses of common evaluation systems such as testing, value-added models, and classroom observations
Describes a teacher evaluation system based on collegial judgment, in which experienced educators are trained and certified to evaluate teacher performance
Provides cases and examples of how collegial judgment represents the most fair, accurate, and rigorous approach to teacher evaluation
“"Through his delightful wit and insightful use of vocabulary, Jim Popham has crafted a must read book for education policy makers, school administrators, and teachers.Throughout the book there are many "pearls of wisdom" that help steer the teacher evaluation discussion in states and local school districts. As a chief state school officer who is currently working on implementing a statewide teacher evaluation system that is required to meet the Race to the Top and ESEA waiver requirements, this book provided me with the right questions to ask prior to completion of our work. I believe this book will enable readers to turn the subtitle--Mission Possible?--from a question into a reality."”
"It is an incredible discussion of the problem. VERY in-depth and comprehensive. It really is one of the best summaries of testing I have ever read, and it makes an incredible case for improving the teacher evaluation dilemma"
W. James Popham, professor emeritus at University of California Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, has spent the bulk of his educational career as a teacher. His first teaching assignment, for example, was in a small eastern Oregon high school where he taught English and social studies while serving as yearbook advisor, class sponsor, and unpaid tennis coach. That recompense meshed ideally with the quality of his coaching.
Most of Dr. Popham's teaching career took place at UCLA where, for nearly 30 years, he taught courses in instructional methods for prospective teachers as well as courses in evaluation and measurement for graduate students. At UCLA he won several distinguished teaching awards. In January 2000, he was recognized by UCLA Today as one of UCLA's top 20 professors of the 20th century. (He notes that the 20th century was a full-length century, unlike the current abbreviated one.) In 1992, he took early retirement from UCLA upon learning that emeritus professors received free parking.
Because at UCLA he was acutely aware of the perishability of professors who failed to publish, he spent his non-teaching hours affixing words to paper. The result: 30 books, 200 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 175 papers presented before research societies. Although not noted in his official vita, while at UCLA he also authored 1,426 grocery lists.
His most recent books are Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know, 6th Ed. (2010) and Assessment for Educational Leaders (2006), Allyn & Bacon; The Truth About Testing (2001), Test Better, Teach Better (2003), Transformative Assessment (2008) and Instruction that Measures Up (2009) ASCD; America's "Failing" Schools (2005) and Mastering Assessment (2006), Routledge; and Unlearned Lessons (2009) Harvard Education Press. He encourages purchase of these books because he regards their semi-annual royalties as psychologically reassuring.
In 1978, Dr. Popham was elected to the presidency of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He was also the founding editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a quarterly journal published by AERA. A Fellow of the Association, he has attended each year's AERA meeting since his first in 1958. He is inordinately compulsive.
In 1968, Dr. Popham established IOX Assessment Associates, an R&D group that formerly created statewide student achievement tests for a dozen states. He has personally passed all of those tests, largely because of his unlimited access to the tests' answer keys.
In 2002 the National Council on Measurement in Education presented him with its Award for Career Contributions to Educational Measurement. In 2006 he was awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the National Association of Test Directors. In 2009, he was appointed to be a board member of the National Assessment Governing Board. Dr. Popham's complete 44-page, single-spaced vita can be requested. It is really dull reading.
School Leadership Briefing Interview
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