The day after Tennessee education hit the $500 million jackpot, Hamilton County administrators began work on a pilot teacher evaluation system that could become a statewide model.
Figuring out a way to evaluate teachers every year was one piece of legislation approved during a special General Assembly session in January. The new legislation allowed Gov. Phil Bredesen to compete for the federal Race to the Top competition, which Tennessee co-won with Delaware on Monday.
Normal Park Museum Magnet principal Jill Levine was named by Gov. Bredesen to a 15-member committee whose primary goal is to determine what the new evaluation system will look like. In August, the district will pilot a new evaluation process based loosely on one a consultant showed local principals earlier this year.
Currently, if a high school principal does a formal evaluation of a teacher, they go into a classroom three times for the entire 90-minute class period. The new model likely would have an administrator stop by every classroom for 10 minutes at a time, 10 to 12 times a year, Ms. Levine said.
“I think it will allow us to be much more in touch with what’s going on in every classroom on a daily basis,” she said. “Teachers would get much more feedback and more often.”