Teacher Evaluations

What Are Your Thoughts as Parents, Teachers and Artists on the new Teacher Performance Evaluation Process?   

As a specialist,  I agree with the article in the Times. I personally feel as if I have less time to discover new ideas for lessons, no time to see what other artists are doing both locally and through media and I feel that I need three more hours in the day on top of the three I already do outside of the school day to do evaluation work.  I found out the hard way that doing what I love most, developing new lessons and experimenting with the ideas in my studio first then connecting them to the Common Core, ELA, and new standards is a long time consuming process that can keep me up until the wee hours of the night thus getting far less sleep than I used to. 

 For me, I spend much more time trying to connect what I am doing to the state mandated teacher rubric so that I can prove I am teaching and prove the students are learning. It never was simple given there are so many schools of though on how or if you even should assess student artwork through the artistic process meaning the artwork itself, critique, display and following the citywide visual art standards as I have done for many years. 

 I still start by doing what I always did, find a new and exciting  approach to teaching color theory as an example but now I must use the new language the new acronyms and buzz words, the national  art standards, the state standards the city standards and then connect the lesson to the ELA goals or the math goal then making sure it fits into the school wide goals, have my exit tickets for the students that can read ready, have my modifications in place for the students that need them as always. Now I can teach my lesson.  Now I would venture to say from 25 years of teaching, the lesson is only as exciting to the students as it is to you.  So by 2 or 3am when it is finished and I am getting 3-5 hours of sleep a night how excited am I to teach it on modified supplies because we just do not have what some school systems have.  I thank the parents for every dime they support us with. 

So, how do I feel, a bit lost, scared, alone and tired.  The lesson that I was so excited about is now the lesson I am worried about. Does the lesson now fit into all the places it needs to fit?  Did I cover every point on the rubric for every grade level I teach? I am just not sure anymore.  The one thing I am sure of, I love to teach and you have to in order to do it.  Do I love to teach trying to implement so may aspects of assessment both for the students and myself?  I am not sure.  That is what I am sure about.  All I really wish at the end of this process is that I have the enthusiasm and confidence I began with when I started to plan the lesson.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/nyregion/bumpy-start-for-teacher-evaluation-program-in-new-york-schools.html?_r=0