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 Yea, there’s no doubt rubrics have to be constructed and approached very carefully. Generally they should be concerned to take an abstract concept and translate it into specific concrete traits of observable action that are that remove ambiguity or interpretation. But if the abstract concept is just translated into other abstractions, then the rubric is flawed and remains arbitrary. If we set up a hypothetical rubric of an “effective teacher” and then use categories such as teaches with “rigor”; teaches with some “rigor”; teaches without “rigor”, then obviously the rubric is garbage since “rigor” remains in the eyes of the beholder and needs its own rubric.

Unfortunately, Danielson’s rubric does have such flaws. In the concept of “Establishing a Culture for Learning” for example, we have “The classroom culture is a cognitively vibrant place, characterized by a shared belief in the importance of learning…” (Distinguished). Then we have “The classroom is culture is a cognitively busy place where learning is valued by all…”; “The classroom is culture is a place where commitment to learning by teacher or students…”; and finally “The classroom culture is characterized by lack of teacher or student commitment to learning…” (Unsatisfactory).

Notice all the undefined or ambiguous terms. “culture”, cognitively vibrant”, “shared belief”, “busy place”, “learning is valued”, “lack of… commitment to learning”. Each one of these terms is just replacing one abstraction by another  or given no specifics of how they are measured objectively. In fact, each one of those turns needs a rubric itself to be understood objectively. In a sense, there is a psychological trick here, since without thinking, we all assume we have a common understanding what it means that “learning is valued” in the “classroom culture”, but these terms really just remain in the eyes of the beholder and are arbitrary, since one person (the principal) will point to one thing and ignore others.

I am reminded of J.P. Morgan’s answer when he was asked whether he would do business with Jews. He said he would be proud to do business with any gentleman. Well, that seems pretty clear and fair. But he then went on to add that no Jew is a “gentleman”. So, Gotcha!

You ask very good questions. I certainly support rubrics for teacher evaluations since we are at the mercy of unknown, changing, and arbitrary standards otherwise. But the rubric must be well designed and looking at Danielson, I’m not sure how well it is. I believe she does provide specific examples of what her abstract terms mean in some of her versions, but when I looked the examples they are only one or two and certainly not inclusive, and in any case not part of the rubric itself. So I think that is going to be a problem going forward.

In the example I cited, I would include in the rubric itself such specific factors as how much informational posters are in the classroom, how much student work is displayed, is homework given consistently or even how much subject visual art is displayed among other things as evidence of a “learning culture”. Notice in this case, a photo of the classroom would confirm or not quite clearly these aspects of “culture”, so there should be little disagreement. The list is rather more extensive than this though and perhaps the very concept of a “learning culture” needs to be broken down more specifically in sub rubrics. 

And yes, as you point out, who finally approves the use of specific rubrics such as Danielson and where is the teacher input if any? I suspect all this is going to cause problems which is why we need a sunset provision. But at least we’re off ground zero. Unfortunately, it took the sinking of the Titanic for people to realize that true safety requires mandatory lifeboats for everyone on a ship which should have been common sense beforehand. So things do get better but only after others pay for it in the tragedy of their lives. And that’s probably what will happen here.   

Aside from vague statements regarding her K-12 classroom experience, Ms. Danielson has stated that her framework was not intended to formally evaluate teachers.

In practice, this will be of a piece with the Common Core (the origins of which spring from political advocacy, not organically from educators) : another weapon used to control, intimidate and fire teachers.