Governor Bill Haslam says the state could soon make changes to its controversial system for evaluating teachers. An outside review of the evaluation process is due out this week.
Haslam wanted the new teacher evaluations to finish the school-year before any retooling took place. Over winter he asked SCORE – the education group founded by former Senator Bill Frist – to look at ways to tweak the law. That helped keep legislators off the subject awhile. Now Haslam says SCORE’s recommendations won’t just be for show:
“We’re going to use them – that wasn’t just a charade to have SCORE go through that. I’m firmly committed to the evaluation process, and for it to work, we need to make certain it’s the best it can be.”
Earlier this month Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman doubted SCORE has heard much that state officials haven’t. Both Huffman and Haslam pointed to two areas likely to draw scrutiny: the amount of time it takes principals to repeatedly grade each teacher; and questions over how to grade teachers of hard-to-test subjects, like art.
UPDATE:
An official with SCORE says the report will come out Monday, June 11.
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