NASHVILLE, Tenn — Tennessee school principals are reluctant to give bad teachers failing marks, according to an annual report on the state’s teacher evaluation system.
WPLN-FM reports (http://bit.ly/1CzsEYE) principals calculate classroom observation scores on a 5-point scale, with 5 being the best score. In theory these should line up, at least roughly, with teachers’ scores from their classrooms’ standardized test performance.
But the report found that only 0.3 percent of Tennessee teachers were given 1s by an observer, even though nearly 20 percent of teachers scored 1s based on their students’ performance. That gap has only been growing. It could be even more difficult for principals to give low marks now because teachers can be fired for consistently low marks.
Principals also were reluctant to give 5s, but that gap has been shrinking.
