Cincinnati students learned more in the years after their teacher received an evaluation, according to a new study, findings that should encourage Connecticut’s implementation of a teacher evaluation system.
Experienced teachers and administrators observed teachers in the classroom and evaluated their performance.
Eric S. Taylor, a doctoral student at Stanford University, and John H. Tyler, a professor of education, economics and public policy at Brown University, wrote an article summarizing their research for Education Next.
“We find that teachers are more effective at raising student achievement during the school year when they are being evaluated than they were previously, and even more effective in the years after evaluation,” Taylor and Tyler said.
“Indeed, we find that postevaluation improvements in performance were largest for teachers whose performance was weakest prior to evaluation, suggesting that rigorous teacher evaluation may offer a new way to think about teacher professional development,” they said.
Connecticut’s State Board of Education established an evaluation system in June. Sixteen school districts will begin using it in September.