Presentation Abstract
In
independent schools, the accountability movement has manifested primarily as
teacher evaluations. Thus, the question
of how best to evaluate is on the minds of administrators, as demonstrated
recently by an issue of Independent
School dedicated entirely to evaluation and accountability. Administrators see evaluation as vital to school
quality, but it’s generally seen as not going well, just as other
accountability measures are seen as not going well in public education. Why not?
One
way of pursuing an answer is to examine teacher evaluations not as
disinterested conveyers of data but as compositions—rhetorical products. Even a basic assessment of the role of
speaker, kairos, subject, audience, and purpose reveals the complexities that
may interfere with evaluations’ effectiveness as accountability measures. In particular, dual audiences and purposes
reduce evaluations’ effectiveness as tools for teacher growth because the
evaluation cannot not be an argument in
favor of material rewards, sanctions, or other accountability measures. Thus, instead of a genuine act of inquiry, the
evaluation process focuses on collecting data with a thesis already in mind,
making it difficult for the evaluator not to be affected by concerns about how
the evidence will be used.
Examining
evaluations as rhetorically composed documents highlights their conflicted
nature. It also reveals the similarities
between independent schools and higher education, as both need to demonstrate
value to compete for tuition dollars while also responding to teachers’ expectations
of autonomy. Therefore, independent
schools should look to institutions of higher education for ideas on
evaluation. As a next step,
administrators in independent schools should pursue a new question, not “What
are the public schools doing?” but “How do colleges and universities assess how
well people are carrying out a complex activity and how much they are growing?”
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