An insightful report by an independent group of experienced teachers can provide needed middle ground on the polarized issue of how to evaluate — and ultimately pay — teachers.

“A Quality Teacher in Every Classroom: Creating a Teacher Evaluation System That Works in California” indicts the current system of drive-by teacher evaluations that are often perfunctory and usually unhelpful. It lays out a more intensive alternative that would take into account the full range of teachers’ practice and performance while setting clear goals for improvement.

The timing is right for Accomplished California Teachers (ACT), an organization affiliated with the Stanford-based National Board Resource Center, to jump into the fray. There has been pressure nationwide, partly in response to the federal Race to the Top Competition, to tie teacher evaluations and higher pay to results on standardized tests. Teachers unions have resisted changes to an evaluation system grounded in compliance-based due-process rights.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing for legislation, chiefly SB 955, that would require decisions involving layoffs, transfers and rehiring of teachers be based on their performance, not seniority. But he would leave it largely to local districts and unions to rewrite the current evaluation system, though he’s insisting that student test results be a factor.

ACT’s 32-page report should be the center of local discussions, and soon may be in Los Angeles Unified. Today, one of the report’s authors, sixth grade teacher Kathleen Marshall, will present the findings at a two-day conference in Los Angeles on teacher evaluations. (The district’s newly appointed deputy superintendent, John Deasy, who’ll be leaving a senior post at the Gates Foundation, is a big proponent of comprehensive teacher evaluations and performance-based pay.)

“A Quality Teacher in Every Classroom” takes no position on changing the current pay scale, which is based strictly on longevity and academic degrees earned. Anthony Cody, another of the 13 teachers behind the report, said that performance pay would be the focus of the next report, later this year.

However, if ACT’s evaluation system were embraced by teachers and fully implemented, a new pay system, based on teacher accomplishments and student results, would be the logical next step. Once treated as professionals, teachers should demand to be paid like them.

Most members of ACT are nationally board certified teachers who have undergone extensive and rigorous peer and self-evaluations and training.

Other factors beside standardized tests

The report emphasize that “an array of student outcomes for teams of teachers as well as individual teachers” should be factored into an evaluation, not just standardized test scores. They might include formative assessments that show patterns of student improvement and “the development of habits of mind that lead to improved academic success along with contributing indicators like attendance, enrollment in advanced courses, graduation rates, pursuit of higher education, and work place success. Teachers should be evaluated both on their success in heir own classroom and their contributions to the success of their peers and the school as a whole.”

The report continues, “We do not mean to dismiss standardized test scores entirely, as we recognize they do provide some useful information. … Evaluating the quality of that work cannot be reduced to a simple link between the teacher and test scores. If it could, we would happily support it.”

The report also takes no position on the two-year probation period leading to teacher tenure in California, although it acknowledges that few teachers are denied tenure “even though we, who have mentored them or worked with them as grade level or department colleagues, may have concerns about granting them permanent status.” That’s all the more reason for teachers, as well  principals, to be involved in the evaluation process.

Teachers help beleaguered principals

Under the current system, too much responsibility for evaluations falls on overworked principals, who may base a teacher evaluation on a few moments of observation each year. The checklist used in the evaluation may have nothing to do with the observations. And principals, especially in high schools, may have no knowledge of the subjects taught by the teachers they’re evaluating. As a result, the report said, evaluations are often done “in a climate of fear.”

“It is most often conducted in a way that neither recognizes quality nor provokes honest conversations about improving student learning,” it said.

ACT urges that districts involve teachers in creating evaluations. Its report offered seven principles for the new system. Among them:

• Evaluations should be based on professional standards, starting with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and the National Board standard;

• Evaluations should be conducted by expert evaluators, including teachers who have demonstrated expertise in working with their peers.

• Evaluations leading to teacher tenure should  be more intensive and include extensive evidence of quality teaching.

• Evaluations should include feedback on professional development opportunities; they should be reviewed by evaluation teams to ensure fairness, consistency, and reliability.

Some districts already are integrating aspects of what ACT recommends. In Palo Alto Unified, high school teachers serve as instructional supervisors to do most evaluations in their areas of expertise and to take the lead in hiring recommendations.

In Santa Clara Unified, experienced teachers with good evaluations focus on improving one aspect of their practice; they set concrete goals, and report on how what they’ve learned has improved their teaching.