Teacher and Principal Evaluation Policy
The data and analysis on this page is from 2019. View and download the most recent policy data and analysis on Linking Evaluation to Professional Growth in Delaware from the State of the States 2022: Teacher and Principal Evaluation Policies report.
Evaluation feedback: Delaware requires that teachers receive feedback from their evaluations during an end-of-year Summative Evaluation Conference.
Professional development: Delaware specifies that findings shared during the Summative Evaluation Conference should be used to inform a teacher's future professional development activities.
Improvement plans: Delaware requires that improvement plans be developed for teachers rated ineffective or needs improvement on the summative evaluation and for teachers earning a rating of needs improvement or ineffective on any appraisal component regardless of the overall rating.
Evaluation rating categories: Delaware requires four rating categories: highly effective, effective, needs improvement, and ineffective.
As a result of Delaware's strong policy linking evaluation to professional growth policies, no recommendations are provided.
Delaware was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
7D: Linking Evaluation to Professional Growth
Professional development should be connected to needs identified through teacher evaluations. The goal of teacher evaluation systems should be not just to identify highly effective teachers and those who underperform but to help all teachers improve. Even highly effective teachers may have areas where they can continue to grow and develop their knowledge and skills.[1] Rigorous evaluations should provide actionable feedback on teachers' strengths and weaknesses that can form the basis of professional development activities. Too often professional development is random rather than targeted to the identified needs of individual teachers. Failure to make the connection between evaluations and professional development squanders the likelihood that professional development will be meaningful.[2]
Many states are only explicit about tying professional development plans to evaluation results if the evaluation results are bad. Good evaluations with meaningful feedback should be useful to all teachers, and if done right should help design professional development plans for all teachers—not just those who receive poor ratings.[3]
To further increase the utility and validity of evaluation systems, states should require that evaluation instruments differentiate among various levels of teacher performance rather than only giving binary satisfactory/unsatisfactory ratings. Binary rating systems often offer little meaning because virtually all teachers receive satisfactory ratings.[4] More rating categories allow for more nuanced distinctions between levels of teacher performance.