Archived News
NY State Education Department Approves Framework for Teaching
The New York State Department of Education (NYSED) has listed Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching as an approved teacher practice rubric with ASCD Teacher Effectiveness Suite.
August 1, 2011: Across the country and internationally, thousands of schools have implemented Danielson’s Framework for Teaching as a tool for teacher evaluation. The Framework divides the complex activity of teaching into 22 components across four domains. The Danielson Group will be supporting New York districts as they begin the process of redeveloping teacher evaluation systems this summer and over the course of the school year. Read More
Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness
Can classroom observations identify practices that raise achievement?
Summer 2011: Jointly developed by the local teachers union and district more than a decade ago, the Cincinnati Public Schools’ Teacher Evaluation System (TES) is often cited as a rare example of a high-quality evaluation program based on classroom observations. At a minimum, it is a system to which the district has devoted considerable resources. During the yearlong TES process, teachers are typically observed and scored four times: three times by a peer evaluator external to the school and once by a local school administrator. The peer evaluators are experienced classroom teachers chosen partly based on their own TES performance. They serve as full-time evaluators for three years before they return to the classroom. Both peer evaluators and administrators must complete an intensive training course and accurately score videotaped teaching examples.
The system requires that all new teachers participate in TES during their first year in the district, again to receive tenure (usually in their fourth year), and every fifth year thereafter. Teachers tenured before 2000–01 were gradually phased into the five-year rotation. Additionally, teachers may volunteer to be evaluated; most volunteers do so to post the high scores necessary to apply for selective positions in the district (for example, lead teacher or TES evaluator).
The TES scoring rubric used by the evaluators, which is based on the work of educator Charlotte Danielson, describes the practices, skills, and characteristics that effective teachers should possess and employ. We focus our analysis on the two (out of four total) domains of TES evaluations that directly address classroom practices: “Creating an Environment for Student Learning” and “Teaching for Student Learning.” (The other two TES domains assess teachers’ planning and professional contributions outside of the classroom; scores in these areas are based on lesson plans and other documents included in a portfolio reviewed by evaluators.) These two domains, with scores based on classroom observations, contain more than two dozen specific elements of practice that are grouped into eight “standards” of teaching. Read more
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Framework for Teaching Sees Record Growth
New Jersey most recent state to adopt research-based tool for systematic and scalable observations of instructional practice.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 2011: The widely-used and research-proven Framework for Teaching (FFT), created by Charlotte Danielson, marks its 15th anniversary with significant growth in states and school districts nationwide, most recently being chosen by the New Jersey State Department of Education as an approved model for teacher evaluation in New Jersey. The FFT is a research-based tool used as the basis for teacher evaluation systems in thousands of schools nationwide and overseas. By implementing the FFT, schools ensure a consistent process for evaluating teacher effectiveness that is based on a solid foundation of research and demonstrated to be strongly correlated to student growth. Read More
Rick Hess Interview with Charlotte Danielson
Rick Hess sits down to chat with Charlotte Danielson about some of the ins and outs of teacher evaluation and what cautions or advice she might have for practitioners or policymakers.
June 23, 2011: There's been a heavy emphasis of late on teacher evaluation, with states and districts making it a pillar of their efforts to rethink tenure, pay, and professional norms. States and districts have adopted systems that rely heavily on observational evaluation to complement or stand in for value-added metrics. In many cases, they are turning to celebrated edu-consultant Charlotte Danielson's "Danielson Framework for Teaching." Just last week, Danielson was in New York City with NYCDOE chief academic officer Shael Polakow-Suransky to discuss NYC's reform efforts (NYC is using Danielson's framework as it designs new teaching standards). The Consortium on Chicago School Research is currently in the midst of a two-year review examining the adoption of the Danielson Framework in Chicago. The first report, released last year, termed the Danielson Framework "a reliable tool for identifying low-quality teaching" and said it "has potential for improving teacher evaluation systems." In light of all this, I thought it worth chatting with Charlotte about some of the ins and outs of teacher evaluation and what cautions or advice she might have for practitioners or policymakers. Read More