Evaluation of Effectiveness : New Hampshire

Analysis of New Hampshire's policies

New Hampshire does not require that objective evidence of student learning be the preponderant criterion of its teacher evaluations.

The state gives local school boards the authority to set policies for teacher evaluations and gives school principals the responsibility to conduct these personnel evaluations, yet the board is silent about the content of and the expectation for these evaluations. 

Citation

Part Ed 303 Duties of School Boards: 303.01 (a) Part Ed 304 Duties of School Principals: 304.01 (c)

Recommendations for New Hampshire

Require instructional effectiveness to be the preponderant criterion of any teacher evaluation.
New Hampshire should either require a common evaluation instrument in which evidence of student learning is the most significant criterion, or it should specifically require that student learning be the preponderant criterion in local evaluation processes. Whether state or locally developed, a teacher should not be able to receive a satisfactory rating if found ineffective in the classroom. 

Ensure that classroom observations specifically focus on and document the effectiveness of instruction.
New Hampshire should not only require that its evaluations include classroom observations, but also the state should specifically articulate that these observations focus on effectiveness of instruction. The primary component of a classroom observation should be the quality of instruction, as measured by student time on task, student grasp or mastery of the lesson objective and efficient use of class time.

Utilize rating categories that meaningfully differentiate among various levels of teacher performance.
To ensure that the evaluation instrument accurately differentiates among levels of teacher performance, New Hampshire should require districts to utilize multiple rating categories, such as highly effective, effective, needs improvement and ineffective. A binary system that merely categorizes teachers as satisfactory or unsatisfactory is inadequate.

State response to our analysis

New Hampshire asserted that its Task Force on Teaching Effectiveness has defined effective teaching, and is working to develop a system of educator effectiveness, which will include a framework for teacher evaluation using multiple measures of student achievement outcomes. In addition, New Hampshire's Accountability Task Force has developed a growth model for measuring student outcomes, which will drive the achievement component of the teacher evaluation framework.