Children’s Campaign engages teachers in review and redesign of Colorado’s educator evaluation system
Education policy is stronger when teachers are directly involved in its creation and implementation. This is one of the reasons the Children’s Campaign has partnered with Rose Community Foundation, the Public Education & Business Coalition and Teach Plus for the past year to elevate teacher voices and experiences around Colorado’s educator evaluation system.
The Teacher-Informed Solutions on Performance Evaluation (TISPE) Initiative gathered a diverse group of teachers for a series of convenings to explore a variety of case studies on design and implementation of evaluation in Colorado and beyond, and then created funded opportunities for teachers to develop and implement micro-pilots to explore the possibilities and limitations of the system in their home communities. Surveys, focus groups, planning and peer coaching, and observation sessions were common methods implemented and evaluated in micro-pilots.
Ten TISPE teachers presented their findings at a summit in October. These findings have been summarized in a final report that policymakers can use as they consider potential changes to Senate Bill 10-191, the law that established Colorado’s educator evaluation framework. The report offers principles for a successful system, and recommendations for implementation and policy change. At a high level, teachers see value in evaluation and want to be observed by colleagues they trust and respect, and they also believe improvements could be made.
TISPE’s work has already begun to inform the Colorado policy landscape. Gov. Jared Polis’s proposed budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year includes support for the types of improvements to educator evaluation that TISPE participants endorse.
Read Rose Community Foundation’s blog post about TISPE here, or read the Executive Summary of the report here. The full report is available upon request.
