Teacher Evaluation and Development

New! Every principal knows that the quality of the teachers and teaching practices in a school are the most important factors in student learning. Thus teacher evaluation is a critical area for new principals. Both formative and summative evaluations can have a significant impact on the change/improvement of instructional strategies, professional development programs, retention, tenure and school climate. Legal issues can be overwhelming. New principals need to become confident in improving teacher performance using evaluation systems.

This page of the Center for New Principals is currently under development. However, there are some excellent NASSP resources we want you to have at your fingertips now.

The focus of the March 2013 issue of Principal Leadership is “Teacher Evaluation”. Here you will find the following:

• An article by W. James Popham on the importance of both formative and summative evaluations
• Several articles on the importance of feedback in the evaluation process
• Multiple resources that will help you improve your skills and evaluation processes
• Articles about the value of student surveys in teacher evaluations
• A very important article by Perry Zirkel about some of the legal myths, issues, and best practices regarding teacher discipline and dismissal

Be sure to review this issue before you submit summative evaluations for the 2012-13 school year, and watch for more development of this page over the summer!