Bees, rubrics and teacher evaluation

My hives this morning

The new teacher evaluation (TEVAL) system is the source of tons of anxiety, conflict, and even anger among teachers here in CT. I've seen excellent veteran teachers crying at staff meetings when discussing the new system of formal observations, rubrics and ratings. Obviously, something's wrong with the system, or is it? What if it's all in the way we look at it?

I've been through the new TEVAL process twice as a teacher, but as a new administrator this year, I've been experiencing the system for the first time from the other side. As I've been conducting formal observations of my teachers and writing them up, I watched myself go through a shift in thinking.

I can be a bit overly critical, and in my own life I am always trying to push myself harder to improve (though I know I've got plenty of blind spots), and I'm afraid this was coming through in my write-ups and conversations with my staff about the process. In fact, I was worried about tensions and conflicts developing.

Then I realized the problem: I've been looking at this all wrong. I am not the driver of this process--I am just part of a structure.

I firmly believe that with the right structure in place, everything else falls into place. That's why we're working on building a structure at the Depot that will allow every student to thrive. That's why last year, I spent tons of time building a framework that would allow my biology students to thrive. As humans, we need the right structure of societal rules, relationships, health, and other systems if we are going to flourish. But the right structure is not about authority and hierarchies. That's not how humans work. That's not how anything works.

Bees are a great example. A lot of people think bees are ruled by the queen--that she somehow directs the activities of the hive, but that's not true at all. The whole colony is guided by a complex system of hormones and rules built into their tiny brains that determine how they interact with each other and the environment. The seemingly intelligent behaviour of the hive just emerges naturally from this set of rules.

Nature uses structures like that, not hierarchies. Humans don't function best in authority structures, but in collaborative communities.

That's how I'm seeing my new role within the TEVAL system. I'm not at the top at all. I'm just part of the structure--a structure designed to improve our schools. We're all interacting with it--its rules, rubrics and reviews of practice. We're also interacting with the rules that govern human behavior in general--rules about relationships and what makes humans thrive.

It's not about, "Here's how you need to improve." It's about, "How can we use this structure to improve together?"

Getting the right teachers on the bus

If you have to ask the question, “Why should we try to make it great? Isn’t success enough?” then you’re probably engaged in the wrong line of work.”

-Jim Collins, Good to Great 

When I first read Collins' strategy of "getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus," I questioned whether it would work for schools, since we can't just unload people mid-year, and we can't hold out for the right person when a school year is looming.

I also questioned whether it fit with a growth-mindset model of leadership. If teachers are struggling, if they are rated as "Developing" in the new teacher evaluation system, isn't our job to support them and help them to improve, rather than just get them off the bus? That's should definitely be our approach with kids. Our job is not to filter them out of the system, but support them until every single one of them succeeds.

But then I came to the above passage in Good to Great, and I realized who the right people are--they're the one's who want to improve themselves and student performance. They're the one's who see the need for continuous improvement. They're the ones we need to support, because they have the most essential component for success. They're the ones we need on the bus.

The teacher evaluation system is designed to support teacher who see the need for constant improvement. The rest? Well, maybe we can change their minds, but if not, I'm afraid they're probably in the wrong line of work.