When I think about being evaluated as a classroom teacher, an incident from early in my teaching career comes instantly to mind. I stand in my classroom, working on something with my students when the principal pops her head into the doorway. As my students and I pause, she takes a sweeping look around the classroom. “Looks great!” she says. “Keep it up.” With that, she walks out of the room.

The reason I have never forgotten this 10-second moment in time is that the shock of being observed and evaluated in an egregiously insufficient way has never truly faded. Even more upsetting was the follow-up email I received from this administrator, asking me to write up a summary of the class I taught and send it to her so that she could get my evaluation done and dusted. 

Teachers tend to have strong feelings about being evaluated, and it is no wonder. Rather than embrace a transparent process, school leaders may unintentionally make it difficult for teachers to understand what it means to be successful. This lack of clear communication results in what I refer to in my second book, Lead Like a Teacher (2022), as the “empathy gap.” Essentially, as leaders become further removed from the classroom both physically and practically, they can forget that the criteria for evaluation that might be clear to them has not been communicated as effectively to teachers. To close the loop and ensure that teachers understand exactly what the evaluation process should look like, a “no secrets” approach from leaders is of utmost importance. 

Get the Context

School leaders are short on time. As a result, many classroom observations that are the basis for a subsequent evaluation do not take place for the entirety of the instructional period. Without the context of what happened with students before or after the observer was in the room, any evaluation is almost certain to be flawed. It is therefore crucial to follow up with the teacher after any classroom visits to get a full picture of the lesson in its entirety, as well as how that one snapshot fits into the larger trajectory of related unit objectives.

Whenever engaging in an evaluative conversation with teachers about their work, it also helps to send any questions about the class that was observed in advance of the meeting to help build trust and give the teacher an opportunity to prepare responses. Otherwise, the goal of getting more context becomes subverted as what is supposed to be a collaborative discussion turns into a potential interrogation. In addition, giving teachers time to reflect upon their classes with the evaluator’s questions provides a richer experience overall toward facilitating growth for instructional practice.

Evaluate Everyone

With the many time constraints that school leaders face, they may evaluate only underperforming teachers, but that sends a clear message that classroom visits are to be feared, not embraced. If evaluation (especially the observation portion of the process) is only reserved for those who are struggling, then many highly qualified teachers will never receive feedback that helps them continue to elevate their methods. In addition, highly qualified teachers who are ignored for long stretches of time are more likely to slide toward mediocrity, or to become burned out because they (often correctly) assume that leaders do not care about what they’re doing. The process can also be rushed, which makes every evaluation feel like an emergency that needs to be squeezed into the schedule before a school year ends.

In addition, it helps to set all teachers up for success to the greatest extent possible. Some evaluative visits are unannounced by sheer necessity, but that doesn’t mean that the goal should be to catch anyone out in a “gotcha.” There are many school days that are not conducive to a visit, such as the last day of school prior to a break or a day that has included multiple interruptions to instruction like a pep rally.

Explicitly Share Criteria for Success

It can be incredibly difficult for teachers to believe in the validity of the evaluation process when the criteria under which they are judged remains hidden. Evaluation has an element of high stakes in that it goes beyond observation and makes a measurable determination about the success of an individual’s instructional practice. Providing the time to share criteria with all teachers in advance of an evaluation, creating broad opportunities for a conversation about what the criteria mean so that everyone clearly understands the process, and ensuring that the evaluation feedback is closely aligned with the criteria is key to demystifying what is about to happen for all teachers. When teachers are afraid of being evaluated, it is usually at least in part because they find their leaders’ intentions opaque. However, if the process is truly objective and can be deconstructed in such a way that makes everything clear, all teachers can benefit from understanding what is about to happen without panic.

Practice Feedback on Feedback 

Years ago, I remember an administrator who came in for a classroom visit and had no feedback about my teaching, but the observation form included a comment about the window blinds being of uneven height. I had no opportunity to ask whether this note had anything to do with my evaluation. She had time to air her opinion, but I was left confused.

When correctly implemented, feedback is not a one-way street. If teachers are evaluated, it is only appropriate that they have an avenue to express themselves about the process. The practice of what is known as “feedback on feedback,” or following through on voice data to share next steps, is usually applied to classroom settings, but it works just as well for evaluation. After the evaluative process between a teacher and leader has been completed, the leader can follow up with a few open-ended questions, such as:

1. What was helpful about this evaluation process?

2. Where could the process be improved or clarified?

3. What remaining questions do you have that were not fully addressed?

Giving the teacher an opportunity to respond to these questions is helpful, but the second aspect of feedback on feedback is for the leader to then have a follow-up conversation with the teacher that addresses what they shared. There might not be satisfactory closure on everything the teacher has expressed, but the fact that a discussion has taken place to address concerns that can be resolved or otherwise in a transparent way goes a long way toward creating mutual understanding. 

Celebrate Success

Excellent teachers deserve meaningful recognition, which necessitates a clear awareness from leaders about their skill sets. One way to leverage teaching expertise to benefit an entire building is to think about how in-house professional development is so much more effective when teachers share their most helpful instructional practices. Otherwise, if administrators determine the focus of learning and deliver it in a top-down way, very few recipients will find the training meaningful, which is one reason that there can be so much pushback from teachers when professional development occurs.

The link between “no secrets” evaluation and professional learning is grounded in the knowledge that school leaders have about the human resources in the building. If evaluation processes are surface-level formalities, there is no way to be thoroughly familiar with what is happening in each classroom. How, for example, can we know which teachers most skillfully differentiate instruction if nobody has seen it in action and evaluated its success? If a principal decides that there is too much teacher talk throughout the building and wants to evaluate the building-wide implementation of student-to-student discourse in a way that is profound, does she know who is already successfully getting kids to talk to one another and might be willing to share those practices with colleagues? Ultimately, the strength of evaluative methods should directly connect to what teachers in the building are doing. Otherwise, goals are set for a whole building full of people that are not based on the most salient needs, and the teachers who are best suited to help based on their expertise are never approached.

The empathy gap that creates misunderstandings between teachers and leaders can be bridged in so many areas of practice, and teacher evaluation is a worthwhile place to start. When teachers understand what their administrators are looking for, it opens up avenues of communication that make everyone stronger. Even more important, students benefit from the results of “no secrets” evaluation processes when their teachers understand how they can continue to improve, and why. Ultimately, the joint goal of teachers and leaders is to facilitate student growth. Leaning into the evaluation process in a way that empowers teachers and values their expertise is an ultimate game-changer.

Miriam Plotinsky is a learning and achievement specialist with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, where she has worked for nearly 20 years as an English teacher, staff developer, and department chair. She is a National Board–certified teacher with additional certification in education administration and supervision. In addition to her work as a specialist, she is a freelance education writer who can be found on Twitter @MirPloMCPS.