This posting is a continuation of the series begun recently. We are focusing on applying principals of Edward Deming’s “Continuous Quality Improvement”
“Another current trend in education is that of developing punitive teacher evaluation systems. While there is a need to evaluate teachers, the current trends seem to be ignoring Deming's seventh and eighth principles. Number seven being "the aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job" and number eight being "drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company." Instead of using a system to help teachers improve their craft, many new teacher evaluation systems tend to be pitting school administrators against the teachers and putting fear into teachers of losing their job.”
Find out what's happening in Kirklandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“In addition, the current teacher evaluation systems violate one of Deming's "Seven Deadly Diseases" that being "Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance." Again, if we "built quality" into the teacher development process there would not be such a great need for the current teacher evaluation systems.”
Find out what's happening in Kirklandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Fortunately, Washington state’s newly developed “Teacher/Principal Evaluation” protocols follow Deming’s principles rather well. While it does involve annual evaluations and allows for the use of student growth data, it is focused upon helping teachers become the most effective teachers they can be. I think Deming would approve. However, Pres. Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan seem to disagree. They have given Washington state one year to return to the current “punitive “ system or lose substantial federal funding. Seems they’ve either never read Deming’s work or they have an alternative agenda in mind.