In the 1980s we had the teacher effectiveness movement.  Researchers catalogued the behaviors exhibited by teachers generally rated by peers and administrators as effective.  They created observation sheets, for which observed behaviors were to be checked off.  Failure to exhibit a specific behavior resulted in a markdown, regardless of how effective the lesson may have been.  Linda Darling-Hammond wrote about a famous incident in which the Florida Teacher of the Year, who was also a finalist for the teacher in space program, was asked to do a lesson demonstrating a particular kind of behavior so his principal could check it off and thus get the teacher a merit award.  The teacher had sufficient integrity to refuse, noting that he had already been judged as more than effective by being teacher of the year in his building, his district and the state without ever having demonstrated that behavior.

Simply demonstrating the use of a particular technique does not in and of itself demonstrate effective teaching.  What may make sense in some circumstances is often counter-productive in others.  

I have been down this road.  I am generally considered to be a highly effective teacher.  We are piloting a new approach to teacher evaluation based largely on Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching, something I (and many administrators) find unnecessarily cumbersome without it necessarily providing the information and insight appropriate to improving instruction.  I was part of the pilot group in our building.  In the organizational meeting among the pilot teachers and the administrators I noted that if you came into my classroom during an AP class you would not see a warm-up on the board, because the class was run as a college level class where warm-ups simply are not done.  One administrator tried to complain that I was violating the county standard for lessons, but fortunately the principal told her to settle down.

I do not plan lessons to be able to provide the ability for administrators to check off that they have seen certain things.  I do not always use technology.  I use it when appropriate.  I put students in groups for some activities, but certainly not for every lesson.  Sometimes I lecture, sometimes I have students leading discussions with me only injecting myself to clarify or challenge.  If you observe the same lesson for my four consecutive AP classes you may see me doing 4 very different things, because I am modifying what I do according to my knowledge of my students.

The new approaches included pre- and post-conferences, data entry, etc.  It is very time-consuming for the administrators, limiting how much time they have to actually observe and give feedback:  

For principals, it is not just the observations, but also the pre-conference (where teachers explain and show the lesson), the post-conference (where observers explain what teachers might have done better) and four to six hours inputting data. “We are spending a lot of time evaluating people we know are very good teachers,” Mr. Kilzer said.

I think we need to step back.   Is the purpose of our evaluation process to weed out bad teachers, or to improve all the teaching we can?  In either case, is an administrator who is not a specialist in the content area an appropriate person to be evaluating?  If s/he is spending all the time in classroom taking notes and marking which behaviors s/he is observing, is s/he really able to fully grasp what is happening in the room?

All teachers, even experienced expert teachers, can benefit from outside eyes and ears and having a dialog.  It does not have to be anal retentive in gathering data and quantifying everything.   Some specifics need to be noted, but holistic observations are often more valuable.  

We have too many people who do not really understand the process of teaching and learning trying to quantify everything, often distorting what happens as teachers are forced to respond to how things are quantified.  Huge amounts of time, energy and money are spent on a process that so far has failed to demonstrate that it is an effective way either of improving teaching and learning or in accurately evaluating how effective the teaching has been.   When this overly quantitative approach is combined with student test scores (even if value-added), we reduce everything to numbers and lose sight of the person -  the teachers and the students whom they instruct - which should be our primary focus.

In a recent application for a graduate school program (which I will probably not undertake) one question I was asked was about how we should use test scores.  I noted that the very prestigious institution in question required graduate record examinations but had no hard cut score below which you would not be admitted nor above which you were guaranteed a spot:  it was part of the information that was used, but not in isolation.  Most elite institutions of higher education operate their admissions programs on a similar basis, attempting to evaluate applicants individual and more holistic approaches than merely quantifying test scores, academic records and the like.

The kinds of evaluation systems now being developed run a very high risk of distorting what is being observed in a fashion counterproductive to real learning and effective teaching.

We should note what we see, and ask why a teacher does or does not do certain behaviors.  We should neither automatically credit a teacher for exhibiting a behavior nor dock her for failing to.   We need to know why, and if there is a good reason that demonstrates appropriate professional judgment being applied, have a method for taking that into account.

Teachers should be required to try different approaches, to learn how do implement certain technologies and strategies so that they have more tools in the toolbox to better meet the needs of their students.  But to insist on doing lessons in a particular format is not an approach that will improve teaching or learning.  We have tons of studies from previous such approaches, including from the teacher effectiveness movement of several decades ago.

An insistence on such a rigid approach is going to cost America teachers you will not want to lose.  If you try to squeeze an effective teacher into a model that is contrary to what makes him effective, you may not only lose his effectiveness, you may lose him completely as he decides that teaching is no longer a field to which he wishes to devote himself.

And yes, if you have any doubt, that previous paragraph is applicable to me.