Best Way to Measure Teacher's Effectiveness

Original Article: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-effectiveness-measuring-test-scores-elena-aguilar?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

When it comes to teacher evaluations, most educators cringe at the thought of it.  For a obvious reasons administrators must evaluate teachers to provide both positive and constructive feedback to teachers in an effort to make sure that highly qualified teachers are in the classroom.  The problem that so many teachers have with the whole evaluation process is that regardless of how well they educate, manage, facilitate, encourage and invest in and for their students, the only thing that matters in the end to administrators are test scores.

At my school, they like to link teachers to each of their students test results and post them at the faculty meeting for all the staff to see.  If your students did well on the standardized test you are considered a good teacher and if your students scored poorly then you are labeled ineffective. 

My thoughts on this issue is to first eliminate the link between students test scores and teachers.  I also feel that their should be more teacher observations by different administrators from other schools to eliminate bias opinions.  Another important way to measure teacher effectiveness is by allowing students to be involved in the evaluation process.  These methods will allow honest, fair and balanced ways that should be used in the process and could lead to better teachers in the classroom going forward.