“Without a common understanding of what constitutes teaching quality
and how teachers should be evaluated, any further conversation about
improving teaching will be inconsequential,” say the authors of what we
believe may be a first-of-its-kind report on state-level
teaching policy -- written by a virtual community of expert
California teachers who have used the Web and social networking tools
to organize an independent statewide advocacy organization.

A Quality Teacher in Every Classroom: An Evaluation System that
Works for California is the first in a promised series of policy
papers written by members of Accomplished California Teachers (ACT), a
group organized in 2008 with funding from the Stuart and Hewlitt
Foundations and support from the Stanford U. School of Education.

The report calls on state decision makers to redesign California’s
approach to teacher evaluation by incorporating the best elements
already in place into a new system framed around the best research on 
good teaching. Co-author David B. Cohen, an English teacher and academic advisor at Palo Alto High School, summarized the report's key principles in a recent post at the organization's blog InterACT.

They include:

1. Teacher evaluation should be
   based on professional standards.
2. Teacher evaluation should include
   performance assessments to guide a path of professional learning
   throughout a teacher’s career.
3. The design of a new evaluation
   system should build on successful, innovative practices in current use.
4. Evaluations should consider
   teacher practice and performance, as well as an array of student
   outcomes for teams of teachers as well as individual teachers.
5. Evaluation should be frequent and
   conducted by expert evaluators, including teachers who have
   demonstrated expertise in working with their peers.
6. Evaluation leading to permanent
   status (“tenure”) must be more intensive and must include more extensive
   evidence of quality teaching.
7. Evaluation should be accompanied
   by useful feedback, connected to professional development opportunities,
   and reviewed by evaluation teams or an oversight body to ensure
   fairness, consistency, and reliability.

We predict that as teacher leaders continue to use social media tools to organize themselves in state-level virtual communities, more policymakers will have the opportunity to benefit from the insights of accomplished teachers on the front lines of school reform.