Teachers in DCPS are evaluated by both Administration and "Master Educators." For the most part, neither have a clue. However, one of my two M.E.'s is a former History Teacher who actually will take the time to listen and discuss the grades he has assigned.
FYI, an observation is an unannounced 30 minute slice of time that has a specific checklist that is supposed to be looked at, and in many ways it is a "gotcha tool" used by DCPS to keep teachers inline and keep costs down. If you don't achieve a score of 300 (out of 400) you can be dismissed. I truly hate the system. It is arbitrary and punitive, and if you are not on your the good side of your Administrator it can be used to get your fired. It can also be used to impact your pay.
In any event, I scored fairly well (a 3.44 out of 4), but I pointed out some of the issues I felt that my M.E. missed. For example, one of the line items reads: The instructor has "presented the opportunity for students to develop higher order thinking and understanding." My M.E. gave me a 3, and in his comments said that some of the students had not demonstrated higher order thinking or understanding. He agreed that I had presented them that opportunity, so I then asked if I was also responsible for getting them "through the zone." After all, I had presented them the opportunity, and to believe that students of any age or strip could immediately understand a concept was rather silly. He immediately said, "Vygotsky?" Score! We spent ten minutes discussing this point and he told me that he would consider changing that particular score (and two others) because I had pointed out that what I was doing was directly related to moving students through the Zone! Thanks Doc, your choice of material has already paid off for me!
Yea that is a pretty ridiculous way to get evaluated. In our county we decided to go a more proactive approach which forces you to justify what you teach before hand. A lot of these forms of teacher evaluation are off the mark because these school systems are very top-down oriented so the teacher is always on the bottom level of a hierarchy.
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