By JC Bowman – Education Editor, TriStar Daily
Welcome to Tennessee, the land of Elvis, moonshine, and a teacher evaluation system as straightforward as a country song played in reverse. If you’ve ever wondered how to evaluate teachers effectively, look no further than the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (TEAM). This system has had more twists and turns than a Nashville honky-tonk dance floor.
Let’s roll back to the 1980s when Bill Sanders, the mastermind behind the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS), decided that measuring teachers’ impact on student growth should be a thing. This was all part of Governor Lamar Alexander’s grand plan to link teacher pay to performance. Because nothing says “I love teaching” quite like a paycheck dependent on how well kids can fill in bubbles on a standardized test.
Fast forward to the 1992 Education Improvement Act, which made monitoring academic progressa priority. But how did they do this? By relying heavily on principal observations—which, let’s be honest, are about as reliable as a weather forecast in Tennessee. Spoiler alert: they were subjective, and not in the “I appreciate your unique teaching style” way, but more in the “I’m judging you based on my mood today” way.
Then, in the early 2000s, the Framework for Evaluation and Professional Growth (FEPG) came along. Think of it as a makeover for teacher assessments, but instead of a new hairstyle, it provided structured assessments. It was like putting a fresh coat of paint on a house that was still built on a shaky foundation.
Enter the 2011 First to the Top Act, which marked a seismic shift in how we evaluate teachers. Suddenly, student outcomes were part of the mix! The TEAM model emerged, blending 50% observations, 35% student growth through TVAAS, and 15% student achievement into a delightful cocktail of accountability. Research showed some improvement in student performance and teacher retention in certain districts, which is great—until you realize it’s all based on a system that could easily be confused with a game of musical chairs.
Before you get too excited! Not everyone applauded this new system. Critics point out that relying on standardized test scores can unfairly penalize teachers in non-tested subjects. Imagine being judged on your ability to teach art based on how well students do on a math test. It’s like telling a chef they’re terrible because their soufflé didn’t rise during a tornado.
Then there’s the issue of evaluator training—what a wild ride that is! The inconsistency in how evaluators are trained can make you feel like you’re playing a game of “Guess Who?” with your career on the line. Some teachers are left feeling like they’re being judged by someone who just learned the ropes yesterday—if that.
And let’s not forget that the evaluation process can be a time-sucking black hole. Teachers often find themselves drowning in preparation instead of focusing on what really matters: teaching.
As for feedback? It can feel more like a slap on the wrist than a helpful guide. You might leave an evaluation feeling like you just got yelled at by your high school gym teacher for missing a layup.
So what’s the solution? Well, we could start by refining those pesky value-added measures, especially for non-tested subjects. Let’s improve and standardize evaluator training so everyone knows the rules of the game. Streamlining the evaluation process would free up teachers to actually teach instead of preparing for their evaluations like they’re training for the Olympics.
And for heaven’s sake, let’s enhance feedback and link evaluations to professional development that actually helps teachers grow. After all, we want to cultivate a culture of growth—not a penalty box.
Finally, increasing transparency and incorporating educator feedback can help build trust in the system. Because at the end of the day, we all want the same thing: a fair and effective evaluation system that benefits teachers and, most importantly, the students they serve.
Tennessee has made strides in teacher evaluation, but there’s still a long road ahead. If we can learn from these challenges and implement targeted reforms, we might just create a system that truly reflects the hard work and dedication of our educators.
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JC Bowman is Education Editor for TriStar Daily and Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited. For more information on this subject or any education issue please contact Professional Educators of Tennessee. To schedule an interview please contact info@proedtn.org or 1-800-471-4867.
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