The Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning was cited in The Pew Center on the States’ latest report, “Transforming Public Education: Pathway to a Pre-K-12 Future.”
The report claims that “to ensure more informative results, teacher evaluations should also employ observational methods that are reliable, valid and predictive of student growth and staffed by well-trained observers.” It then cites the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) developed at the University of Virginia as a tool incorporating fundamental early childhood principles for assessing pre-k and K-3 teachers.
“The value and accuracy of this evaluation are borne out in research conducted in thousands of classrooms showing that children in pre-k and early elementary classrooms whose teachers have high CLASS ratings make greater gains in reading, math and social skills,” the report says.
The Pew report goes on to say, “Such strategies can guide the design of data-driven teacher assessments to provide even greater insight into teacher performance and classroom practice than evaluations that rely heavily on test score data. They are critical to efforts to enhance teacher assessment and improve classroom practice.”