My Annual Teaching Evaluation

I would like to take up a little blog space with a weekly feature examining the teaching evaluation process. Last week was my annual teaching evaluation. Every year I look forward to the event as it my chance to showcase what I do everyday. As a level III master teacher in New Mexico, I am required to have the instructional quality of my teaching practices scrutinized only once per year. As much as I harp on the fact that the number one factor in a students learning is parental involvement studies also show (most famously a study by Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond) that the number one factor AT SCHOOL is teacher effectiveness, and I agree. The evaluation process is intended to ensure that the school side of things are taking care of business. However, I find most of the evaluation process ineffective, and here's why. To begin with, let's examine the process of scheduling an administrator to come into a classroom and observe ones teaching. At my school, as in many others I suspect, the teacher signs up for a specific date, and is given weeks and weeks of advanced notice and coaching on lesson plans, pedagogy development, hands-on activity practice, etc. In other words, it is quite common for a worksheet King or Queen (that's school speak for crappy teacher) to schedule a very innovative Dog and Pony Show/lesson once or twice per year (depending upon ones level of licensure). After their evaluation, in which the administrator applauds what a wonderful teacher/King/Queen they are, many (most) ineffective teachers devolve back into the instructional path of least resistance, from whence they came: worksheets, word finds, crossword puzzles, and other canned curriculum resources that result in very little learning. These are the ineffective teachers who believe that giving assignments, talking for 45 minutes, and teaching/learning are the same thing. Incredulously, they exclaim, "What? How in the world did you fail that test? I mean, I talked every day and you took notes...how could learning not have occurred??" Then, they roll their eyes and just can't believe how "kids are these days." Instead, I find the idea of scheduling my evaluation to be disingenuous. It is not fair for the teacher, the process, or the students who must continue to have these poor teachers. I have instructed my administrator to come in whenever they wish (they still insist that I sign up, though), and do a "pop" eval. I've told them to bring guests from around the district (politicians, parents, superintendents) and to bring cameras and record my teaching. After all, shouldn't I be on my "A" game everyday, and not just as scheduled? Shouldn't every lesson included learning standards and objectives? Obviously, I am not on my "A" game everyday, but neither is any human being. I think that is normal in any career. I don't think it is unreasonable. I don't think it is anything to fear. Let me know what you think in the comments section.