Better Teacher Appraisal and Feedback: Improving Performance
A new system of teacher appraisal and feedback in Australia would
improve teacher effectiveness, recognise our best educators and lift the
outcomes of Australian students to the best in the world.
This report, the third in Grattan’s series on improving teacher
effectiveness, combines an analysis of international research with
extensive interviews with educators in order to propose a new system of
appraisal and feedback to meet teacher, parent and public concern.
The report examines eight methods of teacher appraisal and suggests that
schools use at least four of them to effectively appraise teachers’
performance through a balanced scorecard approach. These methods are
student performance and assessments, peer observation and collaboration,
direct observation of classroom teaching and learning, student surveys,
parent surveys, 360-degree assessment, self-assessment and external
observation. The report argues that teacher appraisal and feedback must
be decentralised, with individual schools given autonomy and
responsibility so that they can assess their own teachers.
Better teachers are the key to producing higher performing students.
Grattan’s analysis shows that systems of appraisal and feedback directly
linked to improved student performance can increase teacher
effectiveness by as much as 20 to 30%. This would not only arrest a
recent decline in the outcomes of Australian students but lift their
performance to the best in the world
