Be sure to check out Jay Mathews's latest about a teacher's experience with Michelle Rhee and Jason Kamras's long-awaited teacher evaluation system. I won't recap the nitty gritty about what the observer, a "Master Educator," had to say, but I found this comment from the teacher about how his evaluator repeated critical comments about Rhee fascinating "I guess confidentiality is out. How can they help me if I can’t express frustration and anger?"
Does an instructional leader, master educator, observer, etc. have any role to play as a sounding board or confident? If it's true, I think repeating those comments was tacky. Teaching can be isolating and frustrating, and occassional lapses into venting are best absorbed and forgotten.
In addition, the teacher felt his observer's experience teaching AP Government didn't qualify him/her to assess the teaching of AP US History. That strikes me as a pretty good match and more than close enough to satisfy our recommendation that instructional leaders know a subject, but I'm curious about what our policy team or new commenters have to say about that.
