Professor of education publishes article on teacher evaluations in education association journal

Dr. Thomas J. Shields, assistant professor of education in the School of Professional and Continuing Studies and director of the University of Richmond Center for Leadership in Education, has published an article in the December 2012 edition of the Virginia Journal of Education.

The article, “An Accurate Measure: Six Ways to Make Virginia’s New Teacher Evaluations Work,” suggests the primary issue of the recent Chicago teachers strike—teacher evaluation—is a “huge issue here in Virginia, too, as the state implements a new evaluation system.”

Shields offers six suggestions, based on his experience in teaching leadership to aspirant and current school leaders, that should be considered to make Virginia’s measurement system effective. Those six suggestions are outlined as follows:

1. We need to develop an environment of transparency, nonjudgmentalism and trust.
2. We should incorporate alternative and nontraditional assessments.
3. We should shift from a focus on individual accountability to one of shared governance.
4. Principles must have a positive approach to teacher evaluation.
5. K-12 teachers should be free to focus on children, not on content.
6. We need significant professional development to conduct the new evaluations well.

The Center for Leadership in Education is a partnership of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies.