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The study measured teachers against the criteria in Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Effective Teaching rubric, which is used in New York as a tool for observing teachers. Teachers scored better at classroom management than they did on measures of higher-order instructional challenges, such as asking productive questions.

A historic look inside the nation’s classrooms, including some in New York City, painted a bleak picture, according to a report released by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today.

The second installment of the foundation’s ambitious Measures of Effective Teaching study, the report focuses on the picture of teaching yielded by five different classroom observation tools. It also scrutinizes those tools themselves, concluding that they are valuable as a way to help teachers improve but only useful as evaluation tools when combined with measures of student learning known as value-added scores.

The conclusion is a strong endorsement of the Obama administration’s approach to improving teaching by implementing new evaluations of teachers that draw on both observations and value-added measures. New York State took this approach to overhauling its evaluation system when it applied for federal Race to the Top funding.

Among the group of five observation tools the foundation studied is the rubric now being piloted in New York City classrooms as part of stalled efforts to implement the changes to teacher evaluation, Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Effective Teaching.

Through all five lenses, instruction looked mediocre in an overwhelming majority of more than 1,000 classrooms studied, the report concludes. There were some bright spots. Many teachers were scored relatively well for the aspect of teaching known as “classroom management” — keeping students well-behaved, making sure they are engaged.

But teachers often fell short when it came to other elements of teaching, such as facilitating discussions, speaking precisely about concepts, and carefully modeling skills that students need to master. These higher-order skill sets, the report notes, are crucial in order for students to meet the raised standards outlined in the Common Core. (more…)

A two-year project to study what makes a teacher good or bad is taking root in some of the city’s schools after struggling to bring teachers on board.

The United Federation of Teachers and the city’s Department of Education announced in September that they had joined forces to promote a study of teacher effectiveness paid for by the Gates Foundation. The $2.6 million project, called Measures of Effective Teaching, will look at ways of measuring teacher quality beyond using test scores.

A UFT special representative, Joseph Colletti, said 96 schools, most of them high schools, have signed onto the project. The goal is to have 100.

“They run the gamut from very high performing schools to schools that are challenged, from senior staff, to new staff,” Colletti said.

Though UFT president Michael Mulgrew enthusiastically supported the project, his eagerness took some time to trickle down to the union’s membership. The DOE changed its mid-October deadline for applications to a rolling deadline after too-few teachers applied. (more…)