Clinical supervision focuses on helping teachers improve their performance through the analysis of observed events in the classroom and postobservation critiques. (Author/MLF)

Effective training, evaluation, and incentives are key aspects of this school system's six-level career ladder program for teacher development. The three-pronged committee structure for planning and communication and the program's ownership by everyone involved have been vital to its successful planning and development. (DCS)

Describes the California Formative Assessment & Support System for Teachers, the largest state-supported instructional improvement effort. At the core of the program are mentoring relationships, new teaching standards, and formative assessment tools. Policy makers are setting new standards of teaching quality at the beginning of a teaching…

Rather than burdening administrators, educators are discovering that a well-designed evaluation system can effectively merge professional development with quality assurance in teacher evaluation. New participatory evaluation approaches include differentiated systems, multiyear cycles, and active teacher roles (via portfolios, professional…

A teacher explores the recent educational reform movement and discusses the studies of schools done by Sociologist Christopher Jencks in the 1970s. An important idea that can be extrapolated from Jencks' studies is that schools should function more like families than factories. This would empower teachers and make schooling more equitable,…

Discusses the use of coaching to establish a communal learning effort among teachers and reinforce skills introduced through inservice. Issues examined include the length of coaching, who should coach, training coaches, coaching's effects, the relationships of evaluation and supervision to coaching, the principal's role, and implementation. (MCG)

Describes a California high school's collaborative teacher observation model. The Teacher-Guided Observation/Curriculum Analysis is a continuously evolving instructional and curricular development program that recognizes teachers' need to be treated like professionals, have nonthreatening growth opportunities, assume primary responsibility for…

Nowadays, teacher and administrator evaluations are being linked to retention and dismissal suggestions. School districts should involve teachers and administrators in developing a fair system of evaluation, carry it out as planned, and make sure it is visible and accepted. (Author/JM)

Lee Shulman's vision of good teaching includes nurturing students' moral and spiritual development, civic engagement, and socialization. High-stakes tests do not embody standards. When evaluating and rewarding teachers, mentoring and monitoring functions should be separated. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards improvement incentives…

Describes a former superintendent's disconcerting swim in the teacher candidate pool while trying to find a teaching position without "pulling strings." After landing a job teaching 36 fifth graders, he soon realized that espousing methodologies is very different from actually doing them. Allowing students more responsibility for their learning…

A professor of educational psychology describes the goals of research in progress on the personal characteristics of expert teachers, compares classroom management techniques of expert teachers with those of beginning and student teachers, and criticizes existing teacher evaluation systems for their lack of uniform standards and experienced…

Benchmarks are designed to demystify educational goals and illuminate the nature of good performance for teachers, students, and parents. Since 1987, the Toronto Board of Education has developed over 100 language and mathematics benchmarks at grades 3, 6, and 8, combining observation with holistic evaluation. Instruction, learning, and evaluation…

Widespread dissatisfaction caused a Nevada district to reexamine and revamp its teacher-evaluation process. The new system, which assumes teacher participation in goal setting helps teachers become self-reflective practitioners capable of adjusting their practices, has four domains: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and…