rlaurenzi 04/22/2012 at 10:05am
I teach art in Tennessee. I bet I can guess what is on everyone's mind right now: the new evaluation process and its impact on art teachers.

ArtKat0508 07/02/2012 at 05:58pm
I'm a TN teacher too. I teach middle school art outside of Memphis. I'm trying to remain optimistic but each year it gets harder. Personally I scored well on the new evaluation process but half of my score is based on subjects that I don't teach and since my school hasn't done well on the tests the past two years there is little hope that this will be our year. Being judged by criteria that I have little to no control of is insulting.

rlaurenzi 08/05/2012 at 08:50am
THERE IS GOOD NEWS !!!!!

Last year Memphis City Schools (my district) arts teachers piloted a program in which they developed portfolios that demonstrated student growth in the arts. The goal was for it to replace the school's overall TCAP / TVAAS scores as a measure of the art teacher's performance, since this was an invalid measurement.

With this tool, called the Portfolio of Student Growth in the Arts (PSGA), the teacher collects evidence of growth (student artwork, music performances, etc), and the portfolio is peer-reviewed and scored. Then, the student growth portion of the evaluation (35%) is be based on actual growth of the teacher's actual students in their actual subject (fine arts, music, theater, dance).

This measurement tool has gained attention by Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education. It will be adopted by the state of Tennessee, and then hopefully by the nation.

Read this article for more info: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/may/03/arts-grading-may-change/?print=1