IMPACT: Evaluating teacher’s teaching

A “new” method of evaluating the effectiveness of school teachers is being explored in Washington, D.C. It is called IMPACT.

From what I read the evaluation process includes observing teachers in the classroom during the school year and evaluating their teaching techniques. Then meeting with the teacher afterward and discussing the evaluations with the teacher, offering suggestions where appropriate.

IMPACT requires each teacher be observed twice a year by an outside evaluator called a “master educator,” and three times by an administrator at the school. The teachers are measured by a point system on various criteria. Followup conferences with the teacher are then held where their performance is discussed and suggestions offered to assist the teachers in improving their teaching skills.

There is, of course, mixed reaction to the method by teachers. Some feel threatened, others welcome and praise the new method.

Now, I’m no school teacher. I did take education when I was in undergraduate school and did a stint as a student teacher. I have also taught courses in community colleges and the University of California at Chico.

I think this new IMPACT idea has some merit. I do because of my experience as a new lawyer in the Ventura County District Attorney’s office in California. The District Attorney was Woody Deem in the 1960-70s. I was hired by the office in the fall of 1968 as a law clerk, along with six others, just out of law school, awaiting the results of the bar examination in December 1968.

The newly hired class of the seven of us were schooled in the DA’s office half of every workday on conducting trials. The other half was spent assisting Deputy DAs prepare for and conduct jury trials. We were taught how to conduct ourselves during trial. Ethics. Rules of evidence. How to address and handle juries, and a myriad  of other trial matters.

The training continued until the bar results came in and we were sworn in as lawyers in late December.  My first week as a Deputy District Attorney I conducted three jury trials.

Each of us was continually evaluated by our supervisors. Those evaluations focused on our strengths and weaknesses as trial lawyers. They were objective and brutal. But they worked and were valuable in improving our trial performances.

The Ventura County DA’s office was, in my judgment, the very best in the state of California. Mr. Deem was, I think, one of the best DAs ever. The conviction rate of the office was over 90%.

I see the idea of IMPACT as similar to the evaluations we experienced as prosecutors. The focus of IMPAC appears to be different from the “No Child Left Behind” method because it shifts the focus from the students to the teacher as the means of evaluating the effectiveness of education.

Considering the problems faced currently in Nevada’s education system, and nationwide, educators should take an objective view of IMPACT and determine whether they might adopt the method here in Nevada.

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