Most teacher evaluations, however, are just another check box on an administrator’s to-do list and a lesson in futility for those on both sides of the table. State reforms have tied success to high-stakes standardized test scores and other rigorous quantitative measures, which one study found have “.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

As school leaders reimagine education, they have focused intensely on student growth. But they must also — and perhaps first — rethink how to help educators grow and improve. Prioritizing teachers’ professional development is crucial. Educators need support and guidance to enhance their practice and benefit student learning. Too often, administrators point out issues and wash their hands of the problem, expecting teachers to construct their way out without any support.

At, where I serve as superintendent, we unearthed some uncomfortable truths about the traditional evaluation processes. Teachers reported that evaluations induce anxiety, often lack accuracy and fail to facilitate professional growth. Administrators found the system burdensome, obstructing genuine conversations focused on improvement.

This isn’t merely an implementation issue; it’s symptomatic of a on both the macro level and in one-on-one implementation that needs to be fixed — not just here in small-town Indiana, but also in.

When speaking with my fellow superintendents, district administrators and, most importantly, teachers, flaws that devalue what should be an empowering process emerged:

• Unrealistic expectations placed on evaluators’ expertise. Twenty years ago, I student-taught kindergarten. However, this doesn’t qualify me to offer nuanced guidance to current kindergarten teachers. An overreliance on evaluators’ instructional and content expertise is a critical defect, leading to evaluations that are subject to criticism from those who work in classrooms every day.
  
• Averaging scores from multiple classroom visits. This approach shifts the focus from the qualitative aspects of teaching to a quantitative score, which can be misleading and distracts from meaningful, constructive feedback. Once scores are assigned, they tend to overshadow the actual practices and areas for improvement that led to them. Teachers preoccupied with a high rating may neglect valuable insights and constructive criticism that could help them strengthen their practice. This score-centric approach creates a stressful and competitive environment, detracting from what should be a collaborative and developmental evaluation process.
  
• Limiting observations to rubric-based evaluations. Performance metrics are often prioritized over teachers’ abilities, turning “.” Scores are often inflated because administrators may feel unqualified or insecure about giving lower scores and fear a backlash. Conversely, some administrators suggest that achieving the highest standards outlined in rubrics is nearly impossible, discouraging the pursuit of excellence. Both scenarios undermine the integrity and effectiveness of the evaluation.
  
• Lack of mentorship for teachers. There’s a common misconception that administrators cannot simultaneously serve as evaluators and coaches. On the contrary, our primary responsibility should be to facilitate educators’ professional improvement and foster a culture of continuous growth. 

To truly reform evaluations, administrators must shift from a system of judgment to one centered on teacher improvement. At Eastern Hancock, we began reimagining our approach in fall 2022 and continued refining it throughout the school year through meetings with teachers and administrators. We began implementing the Teacher Growth Plan in fall 2023, placing educators at the heart of the process and empowering them to own their professional growth.

Most teacher evaluation systems start with an administrator rating a teacher’s performance during classroom observations, then awarding grades ranging from 1 to 4 and averaging those scores. Those marks are entered in a four-column rubric, ranking the teacher’s performance for various criteria as “not good at all,” “needs improvement,” “good enough” or “best.”

This gives educators limited opportunities to share their experiences and provide input into their growth and feedback. We wanted to change that. Instead of relying primarily on administrators judging a series of classroom visits, we give each teacher a three-column rubric that focuses exclusively on best practices in different areas, such as classroom environment and student engagement. These are listed in the middle column, while the left and right columns are blank. The left column is headed “areas of needed help/support,” while the right side is headed “areas of strength/confidence.” The teachers use this rubric to reflect on their practices and assess their confidence in meeting these standards, and then fill in the blanks with their thoughts. On the left, they note areas for growth, and on the right, their strengths. This sets a framework for vital and honest conversations with the evaluator, focused on creating a plan for individual development.

This self-assessment forms the basis for setting goals in five focus areas: an orderly and relationship-focused classroom; clarity around what students will learn (not just what they do); a deep understanding of students to anticipate their varying needs; ability to create engaging learning activities; and reflective and responsive instructional practices.

Teachers meet with evaluators throughout the year to discuss their progress. Unlike traditional models, points are earned through the teacher’s willingness and ability to reflect, set goals and demonstrate improvement. Classroom observations are conducted frequently, sparking meaningful conversations and allowing exemplary practices to be shared and learned from. Ongoing discussions help monitor progress, and midyear conferences provide updates on goals and plans — particularly for teachers who are new to the district or at risk of low performance ratings.

At the end of the year, teachers and evaluators sit down to talk about progress on goals set for the year. The teachers present updated self-assessments and final reflections. Then, together with the evaluators, they use collected evidence and professional judgment to complete the evaluation. Those meeting proficiency criteria can step into leadership roles, contribute to professional development and peer mentorship, earn additional points and become eligible for a highly effective rating. 

The evaluation process is transparent, supportive and aligned with the district’s mission of continuous improvement and exceptional educational outcomes, ensuring that teachers can actively engage in their personal growth.

Both teachers and administrators have responded positively. During meetings with evaluators, teachers reported increased confidence and a stronger focus on their improvement goals compared to prior years. Administrators say the new system makes it easier to engage in meaningful, growth-oriented conversations with teachers.

By prioritizing improvement and emphasizing teachers’ confidence in their abilities, we have created a more effective environment that fosters professional development and career growth for our educators. Most traditional teacher evaluation systems neglect the role of educators in addressing their own progress. This new approach allows administrators to support teacher growth, leading to a more collaborative and supportive environment for educators, ultimately resulting in better outcomes for students.

is one of the first thorough examinations of classroom observation — the common method of using an evaluator, such as a school principal, to watch and rate a teacher’s work with pupils — across an entire state. Its findings may cast doubt on the efficacy and fairness of the practice not only in Tennessee, but also the huge number of states that also place the in-person reviews at the heart of their federally mandated teacher evaluation systems.

Study co-author Jason Grissom, a professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University, said that distortions in teacher evaluations — which were especially large in observations of male instructors relative to females — held significant sway over decisions on retention, firing, and promotion. Biased scores could undermine states’ ability to raise teacher performance and offer a better education to students, he added. 

“If we’re not collecting accurate information, it’s going to disrupt the feedback that’s supposed to be a big way that evaluation can drive improvement,” Grissom said. “And it can treat people unfairly, which can undermine the capacity of the system to improve schools.”

The study, conducted by Grissom and University of Virginia professor Brendan Bartanen, focused on Tennessee as an example of an evaluation framework that has long since reached maturity, with standards-based performance rubrics and observers who are trained to follow specific procedures in rating teachers. One of the original winners of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top school reform initiative, the state first rolled out its system in 2011. In-person appraisals represent the largest single element in each teacher’s overall performance score, alongside student test scores and other factors. 

To isolate the possible role of bias in ratings, the researchers accessed detailed administrative data on Tennessee teacher demographics, locations, and work experience. Next, they poured over information from over 460,000 classroom observations between the 2011–12 and 2018–19 school years. Teachers in the state typically undergo between two and five observations each year, and the overwhelming majority are rated on 19 indicators of instruction, environment, and planning. On each metric, subjects are measured on a scale of one (“significantly below expectations”) to five (“significantly above expectations”). 

Across all years, male teachers scored approximately .18 points lower than females on average on the 1–5 scale, while African Americans scored approximately .09 points lower than whites. Black male teachers, faced with two possible sources of bias, were the lowest-scoring group, rated about half of a standard deviation lower than their white female counterparts, the highest-scoring. Black women scored slightly higher than white men. While ratings for all groups crept upward over time, gaps between categories remained roughly the same throughout.

The racial and gender disparities shrank somewhat, but did not disappear, when Grissom and Bartanen controlled for factors such as teacher experience, educational attainment (whether or not they had gained a master’s or PhD), and student test performance. In other words, even when comparing similarly credentialed teachers whose pupils achieved at about the same level, white and female teachers were rated higher.

As a way of demonstrating the effects of these gaps, the researchers theoretically “credited” African American and male teachers with the points that they evidently lost due to bias during their classroom observations; ultimately, 9 percent of all male teachers would have ascended to the next threshold on the five-point measurement scale, including one-third of all males rated at Level One and nearly one-quarter of males rated at Level Two. 

The difference in those grades, especially at the lower margins of teacher performance, could mean everything to a given educator, Grissom argued.

“The difference between a Level-One and a Level-Two [grade] is very likely the difference between you getting to come back to your school next year or not,” he said. “The difference between Level Two and Level Three might be the difference between you being on probationary or non-probationary status. So the magnitude is large in that sense.”

Exploring possible explanations for the trends, the authors discovered that the racial gap, while smaller, was perhaps more explicable: Black teachers were more likely than white teachers in their own schools to be assigned students who had previously achieved at lower levels and were more likely to be absent from school. They also received modestly higher grades from same-race observers than from white observers, and experienced larger score gaps in schools that employed fewer African American teachers. 

The explanation for the difference between genders was murkier, though it could stem from the fact that men are more likely to teach subjects (such as career and technical education) and at grade levels (particularly high school) that tend to see lower classroom observation scores on average.

The results somewhat echo those of earlier research focusing on the Measures of Effective Teaching Project, a teacher evaluation initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. , two groups of teachers were more likely to be graded lower on a set of low-stakes classroom observations: Men, and those who worked in classrooms with higher concentrations of low-performing students and students of color. A authored by researchers at Brown University also found that low-achieving students are disproportionately likely to be assigned to non-white and novice teachers.

Grissom added that his own prior investigations have suggested that school leaders rely heavily on classroom observations as a kind of “eye test” to help form judgments on personnel decisions. 

“One of the really stark findings is that principals really emphasize what they’re seeing in observation,” he said. “That’s the real information that’s useful, and in their own minds, they down-weight other information for various reasons.”