Alan Singer: Who Is Charlotte Danielson?

June 15, 2013 //

Charlotte Danielson is the leading guru of teacher evaluation. Alan Singer asks who she is, what is her background, and why will so many teachers be evaluated by her rubric.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

57 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Teacher111 says:

June 15, 2013 at 5:16 pm

I hope there is an expose on Robert Marzano. In Florida, 31 of the 67 school districts adopted his evaluation framework. He apparently only has three years of classroom experience…in the 1960s.

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RL says:

June 15, 2013 at 5:55 pm

So, the careers of hundreds of professional educators will hinder on the comically lengthy rubric of a shadowy consultant group who may or may not have any verified experience in education and who may or may not have any real “data” to back up their evaluation plan and who may or may not have a real person as their spokesperson. Priceless!

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RL says:

June 15, 2013 at 5:58 pm

as an aside, I’m a NYC teacher. Our administrators don’t have enough time to evaluate us at is is. Many of the evaluations are made up. We view this new process as the joke that it is. Something that is instituted by people who know nothing. I’ll say it again – when you don’t have the buy in of your workforce, your multi-million dollar backed edicts will fail over and over again.

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- Chantal says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 10:17 am
  
  I am also a NYC teacher. Our principal also does not have adequate time to evaluate us all. She chose to have the school participate in the ‘Danielson’ pilot program. As a result, she has visited some classroom teachers 4 times and others, not at all. The ones who were not visited were people she happened to like. As a result, they were given ‘effective ratings,’ without being observed. What is to prevent principals from doing this when the ratings actually matter?
  
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Retired says:

June 15, 2013 at 5:59 pm

I don’t understand how CD has taught at “all levels, kindergarten through college.” How many certifications does she have? So, we should find that she’s taught thirteen years plus college? Her professional résumé is disturbingly vague about her teaching experience.

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Changemaker says:

June 15, 2013 at 6:04 pm

Madeline Hunter, where are you when we need you? She set forth the components of a good lesson and even she said they need not all be present in every lesson.

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- Jere Hochman says:
  
  June 15, 2013 at 7:00 pm
  
  Thanks for bringing her up! Five days with her and my planning, teaching, and observations changed dramatically (and validated some good stuff, too). See note below.
  
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Alan says:

June 15, 2013 at 6:13 pm

I wonder if they use Danielson evals for faculty at Chicago Lab, Harpeth Hall, or Sidwell Friends?

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George Buzzetti says:

June 15, 2013 at 6:30 pm

The web has been cleaned of her past. Have seen this before. Go see how many pages there are on me and I do not have a consulting firm with 36 consultants under me. There is no question that someone who knows what they are doing has cleaned up the web on her for whatever reasons. Usually to hide something. What other reason could there be? When no information question always at least. I always ignore as I know the information is no good when not all there and planted.

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Bill Duncan says:

June 15, 2013 at 6:43 pm

Why all this conspiracy talk from a distance? Why didn’t Alan Singer just call her up? I don’t know her or have any reason to defend her, but I have seen that her rubric is widely used and easily accessible to anyone who wants to critique it and propose a better alternative, the benefit of which would be a serious discussion instead of the easy cynicism in Alan’s post.

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- Manuel says:
  
  November 26, 2013 at 11:21 pm
  
  The only cynicism here comes from those who call themselves experts, leave the classroom because they hate students as wells as teaching and lesson planning, and know support a disrespectful and unethical evaluation plan. The social problems derived from dysfunctional families in our schools have paved the way for opportunists…what a shameful scenario!
  
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Jere Hochman says:

June 15, 2013 at 6:58 pm

Madeline Hunter once said: Do NOT take my work and turn it into a checklist for observation and evaluation. Guess what? “They” did.

However… folks are going a little too conspiracy and generalizing that anyone who is connected to evaluation is the bad guy. If they took Bloom’s Taxonomy or Dewey’s Principles of Democracy and Education and turned them into a rubric I guess they’d be bad guys too.

Any good research in the hands of uninformed people and those with different ulterior motives (politicians, too many state departments, and corporate profiteers) can be bastardized and demonized.

Danielson has been observing teachers and training observers for decades. It’s all common sense, based on what good teachers do over time, and not much different than what we learned from Madeline Hunter. Has Singer seen the rubric?
One ex: “Virtually all students are intellectually engaged in challenging content through well-designed learning tasks and suitable scaffolding by the teacher and fully aligned with the instructional outcomes. In addition, there is evidence of some student initiation of inquiry and of student contribution to the exploration of important content.”

Marzano has been at this for decades, too. Sound principles of instructional leadership. His nine strategies that affect achievement are no-brainers but how often implemented?
1.Identifying Similarities and Differences:
2. Summarizing and Note-taking
3. Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition:
4. Homework and Practice:
5. Nonlinguistic Representations:
6. Cooperative Learning:
7. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback:
8. Generating and Testing Hypotheses
9. Cues, Questions, and Advanced Organizers:

ALL of this depends on WHO is doing the observing and evaluating, the rubrics pretty much all say the same thing a different way.

How many ways can we observe: Are all students engaged? Are teachers asking higher-order thinking questions? Does the teacher check for understanding? Etc. etc.

The fact that Danielson sold out and let them hook her rubric to analyze teaching using an eyeball – that’s a problem. The fact that many states/districts bastardized some of the research of these folks and others – that’s a problem.

And, Mr. Singer – the concept of Instructional Rounds (your critique of short visits) is based on the medical model. Observers focused on a theory of practice – observe several rooms – construct meaning and provide feedback.

In 5 to 10 minutes I can tell you quite a lot about the teacher’s pedagogy and planning. Must be all that work leaning from Madeline Hunter et al.

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- Chris says:
  
  June 15, 2013 at 7:51 pm
  
  Jere, the problem I have is that Danielson, Marzano, and others like them, received the imprimatur of ASCD, formed for-profit companies where they are raking in millions of dollars from districts all over this country and in some other countries as well. Their programs are being abused and used to demean and fire teachers all over the country and yet the best they can do is, when asked a direct question, lament that that’s not what they intended. Are you saying that we have no right to ask for accountability because of their past accomplishments? When you go for the money you are open to deeper scrutiny and a different set of rules in my book.
  
  How is it that so many other programs are able to maintain fidelity and proper use of their programs yet these folks can’t be bothered? I know that both Danielson and Marzano have intensive training programs where they authorize and certify their observers. Why aren’t they more vocal and public about the abuses of their programs? How do they justify their work being used to destroy the livelihoods and careers of so many teachers and just remain largely silent about it?
  
  I agree that Danielson has a valid system of evaluation that was designed to create opportunities for discussion and teacher improvement. If properly implemented it has great benefits for teachers and administrators. She says she opposes VAM yet her checklist is coupled with VAM in pretty much every state now.
  
  Marzano’s metastudies and generalizations have meaning and purpose as well, though I would quarrel with the way he focused entirely on high schools in his research reviews and theories and then retrofit the same methods on primary classrooms which have different needs and different evidence of best practices. Too bad though, it’s one size fits all and Kindergarten teachers are checked off the same list as high school chemistry teachers.
  
  Seems a bit broad and shortsighted to me but I haven’t made the big bucks, have I?
  
  Both methodologies have become gotcha checklists in far too many places. Poorly trained observers and district policies that show deep ignorance of the purpose, scope, and procedure of using these tools has led to them being hated by many. Not what they intended, I’m sure, yet I don’t see either doing much of anything about that, although Danielson does mention having her name attached to “something people hate” with a bit of horror in one of her public speeches on YouTube.
  
  I know that Madeline Hunter suffered for the rest of her career over the misuse of her work and I know she vocally and frequently objected to those misuses. Why is it that these researches can’t or don’t take a lesson from the history of reforms and figure out a way to prevent these abuses from happening? They are highly paid, highly praised, and highly regarded, are they not? It doesn’t seem to me to be beyond their abilities. Maybe they could consult with Apple about how they maintain the integrity of their products while still raking in the profits.
  
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  - LG says:
    
    June 15, 2013 at 8:41 pm
    
    We are switching to Danielson next year and have spent the year on training. My principal put it this way: This model measures the same things we’ve been measuring all along only with more depth and breadth. There are 4 levels, four being the highest. He stated that we all are capable of Level 3 with Level 4 being extremely difficult to achieve in every domain. From what I’ve learned about Level 4, it is the ideal teacher who does everything right in every domain every second of the class. This teacher is what I’d call a figment of everyone’s imagination as this person is “perfection incarnate.” My principal told us to “live in Level 3” and to “visit Level 4” as much as we can as a goal for which we should strive.
    
    “Kindergarten teachers are checked off the same list as high school chemistry teachers.”
    An excellent point. Level 4 for the domain regarding the creation of a classroom culture of learning (I’m trying to recall the domain name by sheer memory since I do not have my training packet memorized and it is currently not in front of me) includes an ideal scenario of students actively aiding in the instruction of other students independently. While Kindergarten students love, love, LOVE to model skills and behavior for their classmates, teachers are expected to facilitate this kind of learning behavior in children along with a myriad of other domain goals in every observable moment to get a Level 4 evaluation. Danielson is so comprehensive and cumbersome, I don’t see many teachers, if ANY, receiving Level 4 scores all around. You simply cannot be all these things at all times, and it may not be appropriate for a teacher to demonstrate every single one of these domain indicators in a 20-minutes time period. Lessons vary too much. In order to be fair, the observer must pick and choose what to include in an evaluation, yet it appears that EVERY indicator need be covered in EVERY observation. Seems impossible to me.
    
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  - Ed Harris says:
    
    June 15, 2013 at 10:24 pm
    
    Regarding LG’s comment at 8:41pm (either above mine or below)
    My principal told us to “live in Level 3″ and to “visit Level 4″ as much as we can as a goal for which we should strive.
    that is what the principals in Prince George’s County Public Schools are being told and relaying to their teachers.
    
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  - LG says:
    
    June 15, 2013 at 11:12 pm
    
    Yes, Ed. I noticed this same quote posted here before by yet another individual: “Live in Level 3, but visit Level 4.” Seems even administrators are beholden to a script, and now we know that it is nation-wide.
    
    It’s as if those “rolling this model out” (another catch-phrase) know that a) Level 4 is impossible to achieve and b) We are petrified that this evaluation model has set unrealistic goals that will misrepresent great teachers everywhere and jeopardize their positions AS teachers.
    
    Makes Danielson even more suspect.
    
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  - Sheery says:
    
    June 16, 2013 at 8:32 am
    
    Add to these comments that NY state education heads are repeating the mantra that we must get used to the notion of all teachers being developing (level 2) which, if you have read the Carol Burris post, has become fiction for NYC educators since John King’s ukase (love that word another commenter provided) that if a teacher scores ineffective in test scores he or she is overall ineffective NO MATTER WHAT the classroom observation states.
    
    How does one assure low test scores? Check this out:
    
    http://atthechalkface.com/2013/06/15/creating-artificial-student-failure-in-new-york-nysed-nysut/
    
    Just one devious example.
    
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  - Teach says:
    
    December 6, 2013 at 8:33 pm
    
    “According to the Times editorial, the “new evaluation system could make it easier to fire markedly poor performers” and help “the great majority of teachers become better at their jobs.””
    
    If it’s to be used to help teachers become better at their jobs, shouldn’t they be getting useful feedback at their post-observation conference? I went through mine and asked how to achieve more 4s. My administrator never answered the question. I then asked, “If you were teaching my lesson, what would you have done differently to achieve 4s?” No answer. I came out of my post-observation feeling defeated…I dropped from a 3.5 rating last year to a 3.13 this year. So….I still do the same work, put in the same amount of time and effort, continue to receive praises from parents and board members, my class does extremely well (every year) on standardized tests, but my score shows that I am getting worse instead of better.
    
    My colleague received a couple of 2s. One was in behavior management. Her students were involved in centers and because one group was chatting while doing their work, he told her she didn’t have control. I maintain…we are not puppeteers…we cannot and never will be able to completely control every move a child makes. They will make poor choices each and every day. Why we are being penalized for that is beyond me. Are parents rated on a scale? If their child decides to throw a tantrum in the middle of a restaurant, does that make them a bad parent? Should they be rated on a scale of 1-4? The tantrum would be a 1 or 2?
    
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  June 15, 2013 at 9:13 pm
  
  You mean Bloom et. al’s. taxonomy, eh! And Bloom himself said that it was not intended to be the end all be all. When one deconstructs the taxonomy one finds that the categories overlap and shouldn’t really be considered a taxonomy.
  
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  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    June 16, 2013 at 7:20 am
    
    GD, duane you’re not supposed to deconstruct anything these days, that’s way to post modern!
    
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  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    June 16, 2013 at 7:37 am
    
    way too not way to
    
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JW says:

June 15, 2013 at 7:11 pm

Danielson seems to be an evaluation system used to police people and is way to time consuming. I created the evidence binder that I spent the whole year creating and towards the end spent a minimum of 20 hours finishing up. When I submitted it to my supervisor she quickly sifted through it because of time…It was very frustrating.

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- Yertle says:
  
  June 15, 2013 at 10:42 pm
  
  My district has used Danielson (we call it Dilbertson) for two years. We get TIF money based on our evaluations. I was rated proficient in all areas two years ago. I didn’t receive any TIF money then because teachers needed at least two distinguished marks to qualify.
  
  Our personnel director admitted that 28% of the marks given in our building were distinguished. It was obvious that Danielson and TIF were being used to reward or punish teachers to the extent that they showed blind loyalty.
  
  This year the criteria changed and teachers with evaluations like the one I had received previously could qualify for a TIF bonus. Predictably, I received one basic mark this spring, bumping me off the TIF list.
  
  Oddly enough I had voluntarily taken a multiday district sponsored inservice in the area I had been downgraded in.
  
  I asked my administrator how I could go from proficient two years ago, to basic this year when I had added newly learned engagement strategies to the same ones she had rated proficient the previous year.
  
  My question caught her off guard and her stumbling response was that she had incorrectly rated my teaching too high during the previous year.
  
  With respect to the Danielson Rubric, the 4th Domain (Professionalism) is intrusive into the private lives of teachers to the point of being a little creepy. To be rated proficient by the Rubric a teacher must demonstrate “willing and active” participation in staff meetings. It isn’t clear what this means but being punctual and cordial isn’t good enough. Apparently some on our staff appear disinterested during meetings that are frequent and interminable. This is like telling a child “You are going to eat what I put on your plate and you’re going to like it.”
  
  Teachers who “only” fulfill 100% of their contractual obligations (8:00-4:00) get the second lowest rating. For my part I would be delighted if our district could fulfill 100% of its contractual obligations, since it has been 6 years since we have received the full amount of our wages and benefits.
  
  In the best of hands, Danielson is problematic. In the hands of an incompetent or vindictive administrator it is toxic.
  
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 7:25 am
  
  Yeah, we had to do an “evidence” binder (what the hell, am I a detective after my own ass? It’s like they want you to make your own noose). Started to do it, did it half assed because they wanted “data driven” pre, formative, summative and post testing anal yzed! (yes, there’s supposed to be a space there)
  Didn’t do that crap. Fortunately for me the AP is moving on to a bigger better position and didn’t bother with the folder at the end of the year when I turned it in.
  
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Diane Aoki says:

June 15, 2013 at 7:26 pm

Diane, do you know her? What do you think?

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- dianerav says:
  
  June 15, 2013 at 7:57 pm
  
  I don’t know her. I count on you to tell me how her rubric works.
  
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artseagal says:

June 15, 2013 at 7:53 pm

If Danielson were sincere, she would never allow her ideas to become fixed into a “NATION-WIDE HOW-TO MANUAL”! The biggest problem is that the powers that be are always trying to find “one model” and make everyone use it. Why? It involves the most efficient way to make a profit. Ughh!

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rratto says:

June 15, 2013 at 7:59 pm

anyone who claims they know how to measure a teacher’s effectiveness is full of #%^.

Because of our immensely diverse population and the need to differentiate I can tell you most teachers must change the way they teach almost daily. There is no magic rubric that can measure that.

Once we start aiming to check off the must do’s of a rubric we are no longer are teachers. We become circus monkeys performing for our masters.

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jfraad says:

June 15, 2013 at 8:02 pm

I’ve had experience with the Danielson rubric, and it is so cumbersome and there are so many pages to it that any administrator can use it as a tool to evaluate teachers negatively. In addition, in some ways the Common Core and Danielson are at odds. for example, the Common Core wants questions that are only “text based” while Danielson rewards “higher order questions” which go beyond the text. what is really useless about Danielson is is that it does not help teachers get better. Uncommon Schools has an evaluatio syste which is more user friendly and directed towards teachers really getting better.

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Deb says:

June 15, 2013 at 8:53 pm

The problem with the drop in 10 minute observations is just this: there is NO one who has their students fully engaged, cooperatively learning, and all the other things being evaluated every single minute of the day. The kids have a stomach ache, a bloody nose, an argument at recess, no food in their tummies in the morning, etc. This stuff has to be taken care of and if the evaluator just drops in, it isn’t like checking to see if a machine is working correctly. These are human beings … the kids and the teachers. Neither are machines or computers. Some of my best moments as a teacher were serendipitious.

These rubrics, just as the Common Core, and the tests might not be “bad” in and of themselves, but the implementation varies so much that they lose validity.

Also, remember, “the term observer effect means that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed.”

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- Chris says:
  
  June 15, 2013 at 10:33 pm
  
  Deb, I completely empathize. We had a team of “trained” observers, some from our district and some from a local university do a day of observations in our school this year, in order to help us make an “improvement plan”. It was not high stakes, thank goodness, but the final report was so riddled with errors that I decided if they come back I will ask that the observation be videotaped.
  
  They said in their final report that not one classroom lesson in our school showed evidence of higher order thinking questions. That immediately set off my warning bells because I distinctly remembered that while the observation team of 7 was watching my math lesson, I introduced a method and then led my primary students in small group discussions of “why would we use this method?” and “why is this method considered helpful?” I was taught that evaluation is a higher order thinking activity yet not one of the 7 observers recognized it as such.
  
  They also made the statement that there was no evidence of essential questions or standards being posted in any classroom in the school. Again, I had the essential questions and standards posted in the front of the room on the white board in chart pockets written on sentence strips in 4-inch high letters! They later added that “one classroom had essential questions and standards that were not visible to the students” posted.
  
  All students were sitting between 2 – 5 feet from these pocket charts. The observers, however, were standing about 30 feet away and apparently felt that they needed to be written in billboard lettering to be valid and useful.
  
  If a team of 7 “trained” observers missed big, obvious, and important evidence like this how can anything they gathered be considered reliable and valid? The same holds true for administrators who do rapid walk-throughs and need to cover 20 or more classrooms in one day. They miss many, many things and they are not supposed to ask the teacher where something is but rather just “see evidence” without even moving from their observation point, all in 10-15 minutes.
  
  I am fortunate to have had 2 principals in the last 2 years who took the time to talk with me and ask for evidence of the Danielson/Marzano checklist items that they had missed during their observations before evaluating me. I could see how easily an incompetent or vindictive principal could use this to destroy a teacher though and it still makes me ill to think about that. Especially since those very checklists would downrate me if I assessed or treated a student the way a teacher is treated or evaluated.
  
  Hypocrisy and pseudo-science are what this is, nothing more and nothing less.
  
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  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    June 16, 2013 at 7:33 am
    
    “to help us make an “improvement plan””
    
    Aren’t you so glad that someone can come into your class for a few minutes and help you make an “improvement plan”? What hubristic crap! Personally, I’d tell them to f*&k off!
    
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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 7:30 am
  
  “These rubrics, just as the Common Core, and the tests might not be “bad” in and of themselves,”
  
  NO! No, deb, they are worse than bad they are evil incarnated. Why is that? Because when one starts with the falsehoods and invalidities that standards, rubrics and standardized testing entail one can only end up with falsehoods and invalidities. And these falsehoods and invalidities are being touted as “truths” in eduction discourses. Touting falsehoods and invalidities as truths is quite evil in my book.
  
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- Harlan Underhill says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 8:53 am
  
  We used to refer to it as putting on a dog and pony show for the principal when he made his 20 minute/year visit. A different principal used to walk up and down the building every hour, but never visited classes. He didn’t need to. He could tell through the window whether it was a productive class, and because he kept secrets, the kids confided in him. He protected the teachers from the parents and the kids from the teachers. It worked, but the school was small, 230 at the max. When a new principal was hired, he wanted money and glory, and expanded to 400 kids, with predictable increased distance from teachers and students.
  
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Michael Weston says:

June 15, 2013 at 9:14 pm

Of course we use the Danielson rubric in Hillsborough County Fl, where it forms one of the three pillars of the Gates funded “Empowering Effective Teachers”. The second pillar is value-added, the third is duplicity / deception.

Quite frankly, whether Charlotte is spelled Charlatan, whether her rubric is valuable or trash, whether her resume is padded…..none of this matters to me. What matters is what it is being used for. Teacher evaluation. Not a good use of money.

Teachers are not the major problem in education. The major problem in education is quite simple, well researched and accepted by everyone except Michelle Rhee.

The problem is the income gap.
The income gap causes an achievement gap.
The achievement gap causes efforts to close it.
The efforts to close it are misguided, destructive and tainted by greed and politics.

The pain, effort and treasure spent on teacher evaluation will produce miniscule returns, if any. The higher likelihood is that teacher evaluation schemes will have a negative net effect. The morale issues are huge and have yet to be quantified.

Most unfortunately, here is where the third pillar, duplicity / deception comes in to play. These schemes are “doomed to succeed”. Why? Because the big money behind them demands they succeed. How easy is it for the Gates Foundation to publish its own results. Very easy. How many School Districts will admit to having poisoned the well of education?

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Bill says:

June 15, 2013 at 10:10 pm

Here is a video clip of Danielson saying that we should NOT be using her evaluation system for “high stakes decisions”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo8EyEdubkA

I wonder if she truly knows how harmful her evaluation system will be on public education. I wonder if she is the type of person that can ignore the misuse of her work by others for less than honest reasons. I wonder if she will one day break her silence and put an end to it.

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Arthur H. Camins says:

June 15, 2013 at 10:20 pm

Diane, Alan: There is a lot to sort out regarding teacher evaluation, apart from Danielson’s credentials. If we want teaching to be respected as a profession, we need profession-driven standards of effective practice, both generally and in domain specific terms. They need to be based on common agreement on the multiple goals of education and in what is known about teaching and learning. They also need to be grounded in the values of education to which we aspire. However, the content of those standards are a separate issue from how, by whom and for what purpose teaching standards are used. In addition, the content of professional teaching standards are not the same as a theory of action about how they fit within a system of improvement. There are two terrific books that deal with these issues in depth: Professional Capital (Michael Fullan, 2012) and Getting Teacher Evaluation Right (Linda Darling-Hammond, 2013).

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- Harlan Underhill says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 8:57 am
  
  I hardly understand a word of the above. So abstract. What is “domain specific”?
  
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  - Robert Rendo says:
    
    June 16, 2013 at 9:45 am
    
    Welcome toour world, Harlan.
    
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- anndelacy4boe.com says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 9:10 am
  
  I was present when Dr. Danielson spoke in depth during the formulation of the current Maryland evaluation system and at a Maryland State Education Association Convention. She stated that there was no research to measure teachers using student test scores. In fact, she stated that if a teacher was fired due to students test scores there could be possibility of litigation.
  
  Charlotte Danielson is the real deal! Her research has be co-opted (did I spell that correctly?) by Gates and company. Please do not disparage her.
  
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Diana Senechal says:

June 15, 2013 at 10:35 pm

My greatest objection to the Danielson rubric itself is that it doesn’t take differences of subject matter, grade level, and teaching styles into account. It assumes that students will be working in groups, but that isn’t necessary or appropriate for every kind of course. It gives the highest rating to those teachers whose students are essentially running the class themselves–so a teacher like Mrs. Ratliff (described in The Death and Life of the Great American School System) would perhaps be rated “effective” but not “highly effective” (or “proficient” but not “distinguished”). In addition, as others have pointed out, a teacher is expected to be everything–organized, knowledgeable, commanding, empowering, sensitive; involved in the school community and in professional activities; and willing to sacrifice personal life for the sake of the students. Sure, you could compensate for various weaknesses with strengths–but why should you have to be everything in the first place? (I wrote about that here: http://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/professionalism-without-protection-the-danielson-framework/)

Another problem is the implementation. In NYC, it does seem to be following a checklist model. Principals and other evaluators are supposed to conduct many brief “low-inference” observations, in addition to formal observations. In the “low-inference” observations, they are not supposed to interpret what they see. What they see is what’s there, period. They rate the teacher on the various items within a given component. Then they calculate the average of all of the scores–and voila, the final score reveals whether the teacher is “ineffective,” “developing,” “effective,” or “highly effective” (or whatever the terms might be) in the component. (Granted, this might change, as it looks like a setup for all kinds of problems.)

Human judgment, interpretation, and discernment are supposed to play a minimal role in these observations–yet the whole point of classroom observation (or a great part of it) is to allow for human judgment, interpretation, and discernment.

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Hannah says:

June 16, 2013 at 3:41 am

… and for the 4 people at my school (now previous school… because I quit), it was a lot like being “voted off the island.” No due process, because there is no union.

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- Hannah says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 3:41 am
  
  … the 4 people who were FIRED…
  
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Spoonbill says:

June 16, 2013 at 7:09 am

What scares me about the Danielson rubric is that you have to be “perfect” is all ways to be graded at the top level. I think I’m a good teacher, and I’ve been told so many times, but I’m not perfect. There are some aspects of the job I struggle with (paperwork). The thing is, I’m okay with that. Let me teach and be the imperfect human that I am. Don’t rate me on a scale that measures everything that I do. I find this extremely stressful.

I put my energy into creating new and innovative lessons for my kids, into in-depth conversations about literature, not some of this other stuff. I’m perfectly fine with that, but now my every fault is going to be mentioned on a checklist. The things I do well will never be able to cancel out what I do poorly.

Welcome to the new era of teaching ladies and gentlemen! My career is now being reduced to something that looks like a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet.

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- Harlan Underhill says:
  
  June 16, 2013 at 9:00 am
  
  This I understand. The effort should be going into the lessons, the daily classroom dramatization of thought. Mindless paperwork is an energy sapper.
  
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Robert Rendo says:

June 16, 2013 at 10:09 am

In her defense, Ms. Danielson herself has stated that her rubric system was never designed or intended to be used for hiring or firing purposes. It was strictly a system to help teachers develop exellence and professionalism. Notice how test scores are not at all part of her rubrics. Ditto for the the National Board Certification Standards back when I completed the program about three years ago. I don’t know if Jim Thorpe has changed any of that.

Still, Charlotte Danielson’s system is organized and fair within its own walls and contours of thought; it is not pragmatic nor is it fair and objective when used especially in a teacher rating system for employability. In that context, it’s really not that good. Ms. Danielson has stated that you should be “living in the 3’s (effective) and visiting the 4’s (highly effective) once in a blue moon.

I don’t know about any of you, but why have a standard that is so lofty and difficult that you can only achieve it once in a blue moon? Forgive the analogy, but it ultimately boils down to, in this win or lose everything mentality (after all we are RACING to the top!!!!!) that if you end up buying a beautiful old diesel mercedes that will never die and that wil last you, your kids, and your grandchildren their whole lives, it is still not as good as owning a Lamborghini. Therefore, you don’t really own a great car.

Is this Ultimate Fighting Championship approach really appropriate for education? Do we want to excel in collaboration to achieve excellent and best practices or do we want to transform our profession into one big fast and frenzied NASCAR competition, with each teacher vying for better skills and some winning while others losing?

Here are some experiences with the Danielson rubrics. The first piece talks only about the her framework and the second incorporates it as one of seven frames. Definitely click on the image to englarge and READ the copy !!!! It speaks volumes about the truth behind how Danielson is being misused.

Yet, I don’t hear of Charlotte speaking out against the misuse and perverting of her rubrics in any real robust way. I wonder why?

Take a look:

http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post_4204.html?view=snapshot

For this one, scroll down to “Step 3: Get Observed . . . ”

http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/2013/05/getting-slammed-six-easiest-breeziest.html?view=snapshot

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dr_dru says:

June 18, 2013 at 7:58 pm

Maybe Danielson, Weingarten, and Duncan all taught at the same school.

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M. Rodriguez says:

September 3, 2013 at 11:51 pm

Teachers are the only professionals who are evaluated as if they were students. You don’t see a doctor observing a doctor; or an engineer observing an engineer; or a lawyer observing a lawyer. People act based upon how they are treated; and teachers are treated like mediocre performers, when we all know that discipline is the main problem in our schools. In other countries where education is more effective, teachers get the respect they deserve.
An observation should not be an “evaluation”. Teachers were evaluated in their careers and when they got certified. Observations are usually performed by inexperienced administrators who do not even remember the last lesson they taught. Why not just observe and have a professional discussion about what was observed, including other strategic alternatives? Why do some pseudo teachers create all this mess to “evaluate” teachers? How can a person get rich by designing such an unethical, disrespectful “framework”; which ruins the art and creativity that characterizes real teaching and learning.

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elena alessandrini says:

October 13, 2013 at 10:49 pm

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the New World Order!!! Nobody notices that we don’t even know who Danielson really is? Who is the corporation that rules our lives? This is about slavery, not evaluation. We do not have time to greet one another because we are running breathlessly from one room to another, to be trained into the rubrics and CCC as if until now we didn’t do anything right . I went to a few universitiies and learned how to teach and I also learned from my 26 years of teaching experience, but now, I want my money back, considering that everything I have ever been taught does not match the Danielson rubrics. So we will be ruled as slaves, treated as slaves, fired at will by administrators that don’t even speak English correctly and will have no say in our destiny. The union is dying (already in a coma) and nobody will protect the working class. Everything will become privatized, no more “public school”, no more public nything because there is no money. The money has been shared andtaken in 2008, probably in Switzerland now. Don’t expect anything to be better. Look at our insurance!! Nobody accepts it any longer and more and more doctors and hospitals drop it. So what are you
really working for? not much money, no more job security, poor insurance and no pension if things go as in Detroit (which created a precedent)
really working for? Not much money as a teacher, no more job security, poor insurance, questionable pension (i Detroit

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Dr S says:

October 14, 2013 at 4:48 pm

I have just reviewed Danielson Group website and tried to get to uncover the level of expertise of Ms Danielson. It appears she has a spotty education background no PhD and her plan on the surface is somewhat Madeline Hunter like although Dr Hunter focused on instruction not evaluation (although many converted it to an evaluation rubric). It is the field that is so hungry for EASY ways to evaluate teachers. One size does not fit all. Evaluation of teachers should occur by using content based observations with a true understanding of pedagogy and pedagogical content knowledge (ability to transform the content through teaching experience to tailor the learning to meet the needs of students in a classroom using multiple representations etc). It concerns me when someone’s work is misused although Ms Danielson’s group could stop its use. The METS project used her framework but not sure their are any rigorously designed studies showing it works to improve instruction. A lot of it is old wine in new bottles. I wish school based decision makers would do their homework and use interventions that have evidence they work!! see this link very vague but it is a narrative of her expertise http://www.iobservation.com/danielson-collection/Biography/ If she had degrees from these top level academic institutions I would think it her bio would state she has real degrees such as Masters or PhD sounds like she took courses!

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J. A. says:

November 21, 2013 at 8:54 am

I doubt the public realizes how teachers are now being forced to follow this model for their observations and evaluations. It involves at least 10 hours of paperwork prior to and after the observation and it’s totally stacked against the teacher. I found the process very defeating because I’m told from the outset not to expect to get a “distinguished” rating. I consider myself to be an excellent teacher with very innovative and intellectually challenging lessons. After the observation I was required to choose my “grade:” unsatisfactory, basic, proficient or distinguished for 24 different characteristics on a rubric. I have to read through mountains of text, then decide on a grade for each, only to have my administrator contradict me and choose “proficient” because there’s some kind of quota on how many “distinguished” ratings you’re allowed to receive. The public needs to know this is where their education tax dollars are going. It’s nuts, and if it’s intended to build me up and make me a better teacher it has the opposite effect. The craziest thing is, here is PA, after all this ridiculously complicated process, at the end of the year you can only be judged “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory!”

I, too, have tried to find out more about Ms. Danielson and why she is considered such a renowned guru. The Internet seems to be wiped clean of that info.

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Bigal says:

March 19, 2014 at 11:32 pm

Charlotte Danielson evaluation tool is riddled with problems. It’s makes the assumption that all schools and classroom environment are equal. To use this type of evaluation in schools and districts that have had historic poor academic student assessments, and where students have performed abysmally year after year should be criminal. There are districts where students don’t come to school regularly, when they do come they have no pen/pencil or paper to work with. Many of the students enter high school with not even 6th grade reading levels. Many of these students are behavior problems that administrators don’t want to do anything with. Now under these circumstances an adminstrator wants to enter a classroom and observe for 30 minutes and then write evaluation. There’s twenty two areas to be evaluated, what make administrators qualified to evaluate them? Evaluatiing these areas are very subjective and gives administrators too much leeway in simply giving what they want to give you. It sad to say but it is the truth, federal and state education leaders are just making teachers the scapegoats for failing districts and they are using the CD framework to force teachers to make students learn, even attaching how well a student performs on assessments to the teacher evaluation so the leaders are going to mark down a teacher’s evaluation when student haven’t passed it in decades, how silly is this?

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- rratto says:
  
  March 20, 2014 at 9:26 am
  
  My question to an administrator on being evaluated using Danielson’s rubnric was, If you do not see something, why do you assume it is not there? Maybe it was there but you just didn’t see it, or maybe you’re not good enough to recognize it when you see it. The response shows the flaw in the rubric. “If I do not see it, it is not there.”
  
  How can someone make that conclusion during a brief observation?
  
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  - LG says:
    
    March 20, 2014 at 11:40 pm
    
    Not everything that can be measured counts, and not everything that counts can be measured.
    
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Dr S says:

March 23, 2014 at 10:55 am

The concerns I mainly have today is the power that Gates and Teach for America are asserting across all of education from the US Dept of Education to other education initiatives across the US. Time for “highly trained educators” to take back the field not those with money or supporters in high places that push the agenda of using inadequately prepared teachers to save education that then leave the classroom in a year or two and consider themselves gurus.

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Jwrtr68 says:

May 14, 2014 at 10:45 pm

Why is it that when you actually try to find out her actual background in teaching you come up with nothing?! An important question that needs to be asked because I’m sure that Mr. Singer, as some of us including myself have, tried to find that information out too and came up empty as well. So she’s taught all levels but you can’t find any background on her teaching anywhere? And I see no literature with her expounding upon actual ‘in the classroom day to day pounding of the board and desk(s),’ that every former teacher turned administrator can elaborate on. I smell a big, fat, corporately fed rat and the smell isn’t fresh by any stretch of the imagination! I mean am I wrong? The vast majority of coaches in sports are former athletes.

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Edwin J Sommers says:

August 3, 2016 at 3:52 pm

I have recently contacted the Danielson group trying to find out specific information about Charlotte Danielson’s teaching experience. I’ve asked them to provide specific names of schools and districts. They have refused to provide me this information. At this point she is as real as Betty Crocker. I see that the last comment here was from 2014. I hope we haven’t given up the fight to find out the truth. Since the seeds of the framework supposedly came from Charlotte Danielson’s teaching experience, we have the right to know what that experience really was. Let’s not give up.

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