NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Under the state's new teacher evaluation system, observations by principals make up half of their scores, but a first glimpse at those observation scores shows they are all over the map.
An open records request from The Tennessean found that in Murfreesboro City Schools, for example, nearly half of the teachers were given a top score of five, while in Fayette County, only one percent earned the top rating.
Some teachers said that shows the evaluation system is too arbitrary.
But state officials said it's premature to draw conclusions on midyear data. At the end of the school year, districts with observation scores that don't closely align with student test score improvement could penalize principals by taking 10 percent off their own evaluations.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
