Evaluating Teachers as Professionals.

This document outlines a practical teacher evaluation system that avoids the fatal invalidities of present methods. The recommended approach treats teachers as responsible professionals undertaking to perform certain duties while retaining considerable autonomy in discharging them. While teachers acknowledge a need for accountability and systematic professional development, they also deserve full protection against the use of an arbitrary, invalid, unjust, or noninformative system. T'I discussion first explains why commonly used approaches are invalid, highlighting teaching as a profession, the limits of negotiation (or political compromise), administrator accountability, the lack of serious administrator evaluation systems, professional development connections, summative evaluation versus development support, and the need for a comprehensive evaluation system. The paper then shows the underlying fallacies of researchand judament-based tests and of management-by-objectives approaches. The duties-based model is presented as a valid alternative that divides teacher merit into four major categories and considers a teacher's worth to the district. Finally, an exhaustive list of minimally required teachers' duties is presented and the new rules and sources of evidence explained. The inclusion of student test data, the teacher portfolio containing self-evaluations and personal development plans, and "footprint" data (exit interviews with graduating seniors) more fully depict a given teacher's contribution. (MLH) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document.