Teacher's & Data

There is a large push in the United States to rely more and more on data and numbers to evaluate teachers and figure out if they are doing their job properly or not.   At my wife's school in Connecticut, just about everything a teacher does that relates to her subject and classes must be logged in and recorded so that at any one point an administrator can come in and see if that teacher is on target.  That's not even counting the analysis of the numbers that come from test scores, literacy objectives, class sizes, etc.  Now I am not a teacher and as such am viewing this from an outside perspective, but it seems pretty clear to me that all this effort to attain more numbers and data with which to analyze the teachers is overburdening the teachers and keeping them away from their one main task; teaching students.  If administrators actually put in the effort to get the numbers and data themselves, then perhaps teachers would have more time to focus on their students and actual teaching.  But instead, teachers are being forced to utilize their "prep" periods or their free time to enter in their curriculum, their classroom status, achieve literacy objectives (which should be part of the actual studies in a classroom, not something separate), and they are consequently left with no time in which they can review their classes and how they are going, make adjustments to certain lesson plans, or simply clean the room and ensure that it is ready for the incoming class. 

Now is there a place for data in assessing teachers and their performance?  Yes, but it can not be the sole indicator of a good teacher.  There must be more consistent observation by the administration, more walk throughs, more one on one time with the teachers.  Data alone does not paint a picture of a teacher, it is but one small portion of the whole.  Yet administrators and the board of educations in many school systems look mostly or only at the data in their evaluation of how their teachers as a whole are doing.  All they want is high numbers so that they can look good at the end of the day.  If they can increase their numbers with as little effort as possible on their part, then nothing else matters.  It doesn't matter that a teacher could have a bad day or two when testing occurs or when a teacher doesn't fulfill all requirements because he/she is too focused on the students and their needs.  There is no way to truly ensure that teachers are on track 100% of the time, it is simply impossible.  By getting little pieces of data delivered throughout the year, it is like looking at a portrait in which all you can see is the nose, two fingers, and an ear; you can't tell what it really looks like.  A truly well rounded evaluation of a teacher would have many facets in my mind, only one of them being data.  Other than that, classroom observations and walk throughs should play an integral role (not when comparing the classroom to data however), student and parent surveys, and one on one meetings between administration and teachers.  If a picture is to be painted of how a teacher is functioning in the classroom, more effort needs to be put in on the part of the administration rather than placing the onus on the backs of the teachers. 

I am biased here obviously because my wife is a teacher.  But when I hear about all the new initiatives and data driven stats that are circulating through the school, it bothers me.  And when I hear it coming from multiple teachers, it bothers me even more.  If I had to sum up everything I heard from my wife and other teachers, it would sound like this; "we have less and less time to focus on the students and actually teaching."  If the push continues to elicit more and more data from teachers and their classrooms, students will begin to do worse because their teacher's are focused more on what the administrator's want than what their student's actually need.  If administrators want to weed out the bad teachers, then they need to listen to students, parents, and other teachers combined with extra emphasis on unannounced classroom observations.  Simply relying on data to point out which teachers aren't doing their job is not sufficient.  While it may offer useful information, to rely on it solely is ridiculous.  The folly of data reliance will prove itself in time, but is there time to waste?  Is there time for students to lose their teacher's attention because of data?  I don't believe so, but in a world where no child is supposed to be left behind, data drives everything.  What is needed is an effort to get back to basics, to human observation, of actual interaction between administration and teachers to provide the necessary information to make judgements on how teachers are actually doing in the classroom.