A new report from TNTP, Fixing Classroom Observations, suggests that evaluators are asked to do too much when they observe in classrooms. The teacher performance rubric has too many components and attempting to apply all of them during a single observation is inefficient.

The report questions accepted practice when observing a new teacher struggling with classroom management: does it make sense to use every rubric element?

Perhaps it makes more sense to streamline the rubric– to use certain components when observing certain teachers, or to identify a set of elements that the whole school or district will focus on.

The report contains several proposals for improving the quality of classroom observations.