Teacher Evaluation Post - How SHould Teachers Be Held Accountable?

How can the taxpayers of a city be sure that their children's teachers are adequately preparing them? In most cities, it seems that test scores often determine how well a teacher is doing. I have seen statistics where 50%-90% of how a teacher is evaluated is based on how well their students perform on the state’s standardized testing. However, there are many flaws in this methodology. Students do not always perform well on standardized tests due to high stress, language barriers and misinformation. For these reasons, I feel standardized test scores should not be the most important way taxpayers hold teachers accountable. Perhaps peer reviews in which a department head and a fellow teacher sit in on a few classes and complete evaluations would be beneficial. This, along with the testing scores, could be used to create a more well-rounded evaluation.  Unfortunately, this idea has flaws such as that the review could fall victim to politics. Another great way to involve teachers, parents and taxpayers are school committee meetings. That way, everyone could have a say as to what goes on in the schools. Although not everybody’s ideas can be implemented they can be used for a larger discussion about issues that are going on in the school. Using standards and objectives, teachers should be able to justify to parents and taxpayers why they choose specific methods, and that is why I feel if a good teacher were to be confronted at a meeting, they would be prepared to defend themselves or prove that they can fix and adjust their lessons to suit the students’ needs. The issue of teacher evaluation is difficult because each classroom and grade level are different and it is not fair to students or teachers if they are only worried about testing in order to succeed in school or in their career.  This issue is not black and white and I believe special attention should be paid to the grey areas so that teachers can be most accurately evaluated.