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When the Cincinnati Public Schools implemented a new teacher evaluation system in the 2000-2001 school year it asked WCER researchers to conduct a formative evaluation.

Tony Milanowski and colleagues at WCER's Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) evaluated the first-year implementation and are continuing with a second year. At the same time, district staff and representatives of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers also provided substantial input based on the first year's experience. As a result, several significant changes were agreed on by CPS and the CFT.

The major changes were:

1. Revisions of the standards and rubrics to improve ease of use, improve consistency of language across rubric levels, and reduce sources of ambiguity
2. Limiting the scope of coverage of the comprehensive evaluation to new teachers, teachers in their third year as a novice (Novice 3), teachers seeking continuing contracts or lead teacher credentials, teachers on intervention, and volunteers
3. Reducing the number of classroom observations for the comprehensive evaluation from 6 to 5 to reduce evaluator workload. New hires and teachers on intervention will continue to have 6 observations.
4. Requiring evaluators to meet a standard of agreement with a set of master raters ('certification' of evaluators) to improve inter-evaluator consistency
5. Increased emphasis on the annual observation process, indulging more intensive training for teachers, a focus on the same standards for all teachers each year, and professional development focused on these standards, to help prepare teachers for comprehensive evaluation starting in 2005-2006.

For more information, contact: Tony Milanowski, at amilanow@facstaff.wisc.edu.