Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluating teaching and learning is key for guiding interventions. First, identifying low-performing teachers and students allows education systems to provide them with adequate support to improve. One example is using an observation rubric to diagnose teachers’ strengths and weaknesses and then provide targeted feedback on how to improve their pedagogical skills (Beisiegel, Mitchell, & Hill 2018; McDuffie et al. 2014; Walkoe 2015). The evidence from Brazil and the United States suggests that interventions where coaches observe and continuously provide feedback to teachers can have positive effects on instruction quality and indirectly on student learning (Bruns et al. 2018; Kraft, Blazar, & Hogan, in press).  When these interventions are complemented with student learning information to guide instruction, the effects can become larger (Fryer 2017; de Hoyos et al. 2017).  Second, teacher evaluation also helps identify good practices that can be shared across the system to improve school performance. For example, the IMPACT teacher evaluation system in Washington DC, which monitors quality and rewards good performance, led to substantial improvements in teaching quality and student learning (Dee & Wyckoff 2015; Gitomer et al. 2015).