Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Making the Grade

Pennsylvania Town Hall: Every child deserves an effective teacher, just as every teacher deserves a rewarding and enriching working environment.

...Led by Ron Tomalis, secretary of the state Department of Education, a discussion was held by a panel of eight administrators, teachers and professionals who were involved in the first pilot program of the evaluation system of the state Department of Education.

The first pilot program included four school districts and one intermediate unit. The pilot project was funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the state Department of Education

The new evaluation system is based on the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching, which is a research-based set of components of instruction grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching. It involved evaluating the performance of teachers and school administrators, such as principals and school nurses.

In this framework, the activity of teaching is divided into 22 components clustered into four domains of teaching responsibility: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction and professional responsibilities.

"We really see this tool and this system as the way to make our teachers more successful," said Joan Benso, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Partnerships, who gave the introduction and welcome of the meeting via video conference. Read more

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