Webb says Teacher Evaluations Should be Revamped

Tennessee’s Education Commissioner says if teachers are going to be paid based on their performance, there needs to be a better way of measuring how well they do their jobs.

Timothy Webb spoke today at the Nashville Chamber of Commerce’s Teacher Compensation Forum.

Webb says merit-based pay is needed, but he warns that it must implemented fairly. He says one initial step has to be developing new ways of evaluating teachers because the current system isn’t good enough.

 

“It’s quite cumbersome, its very difficult, and we think that there’s a better way to do that, a better way to evaluate teachers and to actually bring in the data, bring in all of these other pieces that can be used-quantitative and qualitative evaluations- that can be used to determine if teachers are being effective on an annual basis.”

 

While he says the finished product needs to take into account test scores and student improvement from year to year, Webb emphasized that there are other, less easily-measured factors that should also be taken into account.

To make sure that a new system is equitable, he says teachers must be included in the process of developing new evaluations.

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Mayor Karl Dean would like to see some sort of incentive pay plan put into place in the next year.

 

“I do think you ought to reward performance. I do think you ought to reward the people who are working in the most difficult situations. I mean, that is the way it’s done in the private sector, and I think that would be to the benefit of everybody involved.”