From the Top, Down: Tackling Teacher Evaluation Through Policy Development
Well thought-out education policy should pre- cede and reflect best practice as established by working educators. However, the movement to overhaul teacher evaluation in America’s public schools over the last several years, like many other educational reforms since the 1950s, has much more to do with political discourse than policy making.
Because Michigan’s existing Ken Moore Rick Catherman
independent professional music associations are grass-roots oriented and tend to focus on the activities of specific groups (i.e., instrumental teachers, vocal teachers, etc.), broader efforts to develop music education policy have been lim- ited. Wishing to confront problems from a more top-down viewpoint, the Partnership for Music Education Policy Development (PMEPD) was established in 2012 with a mission to make prac- tical recommendations to educational policy makers. We, the members of PMEPD, are com- mitted to addressing the pressing issues in our profession today, including the important matter of teacher evaluation. Since being established, we have attempted to shape and influence recent teacher evaluation reforms in ways that will benefit both music teachers and students, and this essay will outline some of those efforts.
In 2011, the Michigan legislature passed, and Governor Rick Snyder signed into law, Public Act 102, requiring each local school district to develop a “rigorous, transparent, and fair per- formance evaluation system.” Demonstration of student growth resulting directly from the teach- er’s instruction (also known as a value-added method of evaluation, or VAM) is a primary component of the legislation. School adminis- trators have responded quickly to comply; how- ever, in many districts the quick response has led administrators to use criteria for evaluating music teachers that is neither “fair” nor appro- priate. In a number of these cases, music edu- cators have reported being evaluated solely on the basis of non-musical criteria, for example, the math and reading scores attained by their music students on MEAP tests. Such practices undermine the efforts of music educators, the inclusion of music in the school curriculum, and
the richness and meaning that music adds to the human experience.
Following the passage of PA 102, Governor Snyder commissioned the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness (MCEE) and directed it to consider how the new law might best be put into practice. While MCEE carried out its task and piloted several evaluation systems in dif- ferent districts across the state, PMEPD tracked its progress and published a position statement, Criteria for Designing a Viable Music Teacher Evaluation Tool, which identifies the most rel- evant issues regarding the creation of a viable music educator evaluation instrument.
The first matter to consider in the process is who should do the evaluation. Only trained mu- sic specialists with considerable and successful teaching experience have the skills and knowl- edge necessary to provide meaningful evalua- tion of music instruction. While some areas of a music teacher’s professional performance— including promptness, the ability to work with colleagues, communication with parents, and dedication to the profession— may be better evaluated by a building administrator, a highly skilled music teacher is required to adequately appraise the kinds of materials and tools that would likely be used to show music student growth in a VAM-based evaluation system, items like recordings, written assessments using musical terms and concepts, compositions, and analyses of performances.
The second consideration is what should be evaluated. To be valid, a teacher’s effectiveness should be determined on the basis of the deliv- ery of the music curriculum approved by his or her school district in areas in which he or she is highly qualified and certified. Judging a cho- ral music teacher to be ineffective on the basis of students’ scores on the math portion of the MEAP test is hardly a “fair evaluation system,” but this scenario has been seen in some Michi- gan school districts. For those music classes in which large ensemble performance is a primary
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