Assessing the Best Ways to Evaluate Elementary School Teachers

Abstract

In every professional career, employees are assessed to determine if they are still adequate for their position. In education, this process is crucial because a teacher’s performance directly affects the lives of students. In many schools, teachers are given tenure and seniority based on which teachers have been at the school the longest. Certainly, this method is not the most effective to determine which teachers are the best at what they do. This thesis will discover and examine other methods of assessing the performance of elementary school teachers, such as portfolios, point systems, parent feedback, and principal determination. Additionally, these methods will be compared and contrasted to determine which method would be most effective at determining whether or not a teacher is educating children to the best of his or her ability.