Two recent articles suggest two different 'cultures' to be considered, one separating 'managers' from teachers in order to make the new teacher evaluation systems effective, and one urging 'more training - not just on academics - but also on how to build relationships and support for learning among staff and students.'

The common insight seems to be that successful transformation involves more than a checklist of best practices, it involves the establishment and maintenance of an appropriate culture.

The first, building on the observation that the new teacher evaluation systems do not seem to be accomplishing much because 98% of the teachers are identified as good or outstanding.  This is taken as proof that either the student achievement standards are being set too low or that the principal observations are too generous, because '

Principals, who are often responsible for the personal-observation part of the grade, generally are not detached managerial types and can be loath to give teachers low marks. “There’s a real culture shift that has to occur and there’s a lot of evidence that that hasn’t occurred yet,”

It appears that the shift that is needed is for principals to become more 'detached managerial types' so they will be more inclined to give teachers low marks.

This article, from the March 30,2013 New York Times, entitled "Curious Grade for Teachers - Nearly All Pass" accurately points out an important positive of the new teacher evaluation systems - namely that:

"teachers are no longer rated simply on “classroom management” and “planning,” but rather on 60 specific elements, including “engaging students in cognitively complex tasks involving hypothesis generation” and “testing and demonstrating value and respect for low expectancy students.”

 Perhaps the advocates for the new teacher evaluation system would benefit from considering the advice from the second article, from the March 6, 2013 Education Week, "Principals Lack Training in Shaping School Climate."  Here the emphasis seems directly out of the transformational, Ethical, Invitational approach advocated by this website, involving the nurturing of trust and being intentiona about the development and maintenance of high quality human relationships.

Perhaps some readers will take a closer look at the original articles and offer some observations from their experience......