Appraisal - rigour or rubbish

Lets not beat around the bush, if your teacher is achieving in the classroom then they will always "pass" an observation and you will always attest to their meeting the professional standards. This presumes of course that they are collaborative team players bla bla bla. The problem I have is that the MOE says you should have goals, observations etc. I know one highly respected colleague who gave me a blow by blow discussion on how he observes practice and rigorously appraises teachers and it makes a huge difference to kids learning (he does have the evidence to prove it too). But what if they are sometimes late for school, and your DP has observed something in passing that set off a small alarm, their team personal demeanor isn't always spot on, and a couple of parents have expressed something that doesn't sit well with you as principal.

The thing is that an observation or even ten of them doesn't tell the whole picture. The term ‘playing the game’ is too easily applied to too many levels of the process. Pre booked observations are easy to plan for and often show unrealistically high effort. Planning can be checked, but this may or may not reflect the teacher’s practice during real student contact time. Still, these methods are widely accepted by governmental and Board stakeholders who are familiar with such business-world models to justify investment in institutions and programs.

Teachers and managers know strategies to succeed in these systems, but those strategies are seldom collegial, transparent, self-reflective or even honest. If the system of appraisal involves forced and false situations for observation, lengthy yet shallow accountability procedures and the underlying dichotomy of expecting teachers to engage in a process that has historically offered little benefit, then it’s unreasonable to expect that a culture of useful, honest dialogue may ever become embedded in a school as a result. Engaging in the ‘play the game’ subtext at a school wide level offers considerable threat to essential learning dialogue with peers or the chance for teachers to request help from management or leaders.

So every day of the week, month, and year teachers are being judged. Its a bitch I know, but here is what you are really being judged on:
the professional standards and your professionalism
colleagues and there observations and discussions
planning
your children and how well you cope
lateness, punctuality, the time you put in or perceived time
senior managers, DP's, team leaders
environment the look and feel
your dialogue with everyone from the office staff to parents to kids and colleagues
professional learning your participation, enthusiasm, attitude
personal demeanor, happiness, feedback to others
part of learning community, fit and feel with staff
wider community, parental support

So all this stuff is really used to judge you as a teacher, I need a beer just looking at the list. So lets fake it and go to an observation, an irrelevant goal and tick the box. Or lets look at the horrible list and tackle it with respect and professionalism. Leaders need to be trusted. If they are lemons you are in trouble, but if you trust them and the little things are taken care of, then the open honest learning community will thrive.

Teachers if its all too much, just read the list above and apply that list to your principal, because everyday that guy has been in teaching he has also been judged by the same list. Would you attest to your principal?