Five Stars

A Case on the Performance Management and Continuous Monitoring

I. Background of the Case

“Most organizations fail to manage performance effectively because they fail to look into the system
holistically.”, said Pearl Zhu, author of the book Performance Master: Take a Holistic Approach to Unlock
Digital Performance. This book focuses on digital performance, but at its core is taking performance
management seriously with the right tools and systems in place.

But how valuable really is performance management and feedback to people? What value is there
when we engage our people with feedback and evaluation with the right monitoring tools?

In organizations, one of the key roles of managers is the management and evaluation of performance.
Different organizations in different industries employ different systems, techniques, and models when
analyzing and evaluating performance.

For this case, let us look at the performance evaluation system implemented by the state’s department
of education for teacher performance. The state was pressured to look for ways to search for a tool and
system to evaluate teacher performance as demanded by legislators. The state wanted to have a teacher
evaluation method that can gauge the teacher’s accountability level over the student’s learning progress
and performance.

Teacher performance review is under the guidance of the National Council for Teacher Quality. Though
the criteria vary per state, normally, 40 percent of each teacher’s accountability score would be based on
the principal’s evaluation and ranking based on personal observation, 30 percent would be based on
personal observation by a master teacher from outside the district, and the other 30 percent would be based
on student test score gains. Teachers were rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5
representing near perfection.

The mid-year teacher performance review was just out and cousins and fellow public school teachers
Jeri Lynn DeBose, Tish Hoover, and Josephine (Joey) Parks looked forward to meeting up during the
Christmas holidays to compare notes on the results of midyear teacher evaluations. Though all public
school teachers, their areas were very different in nature. Jeri Lynn worked for a metropolitan system that
included many low-income students whose first language was not English, and several schools within the
system were on the brink of state takeover if improvement in student scores didn’t well. Tish was in a luckier
side of the spectrum. She worked in a county system dominated by upper-income residents who were
potential Ivy League-school students. And Joey taught in the rural community in which all three grew up.
The rural community had high unemployment, and a low percentage of graduates went on to college. With
this, the cousins came to the table with differing teaching backgrounds and experiences with several factors
such as language barriers, socio-economic status, family background, and cultural differences contributing
to the experience.

As they were talking about the teacher performance review, questions on the accuracy and fairness of
the system were raised.

II. Statement of the Problem

There is no perfect performance management system that can capture all of the nitty gritty details and
idiosyncrasies of a particular group. All organizations would have something unique about it that any
performance management system will not be able to totally capture.

However, good managers will try incorporate as much details as they can to evaluate the performance
of their people given the kind of circumstances where they are at. Good managers will balance both
quantitative and qualitative feedback to have an overall assessment of their people. Also, good managers
will design systems that can be customized to the functions and circumstances of any given group with a
certain commonality. Lastly, good managers will objectively evaluate performance with goals of improving
the performance of their people.

And this seems to be a flaw in the newly implemented system teacher performance review. But it also
had its strengths.

Given this, to springboard the evaluation of newly implemented system, let us analyze the strengths
and flaws of the system.

A. Strengths of the Teacher Performance Review

The teacher performance review being implemented in the state have the following strengths:
1. One strength that the system has is it incorporates feedback and measure not purely from students’
test scores and performance. Teachers were also evaluated from other perspective such as those
from the principal and the master teacher. Depending on the situation and circumstances of the
students, their performance and results may vary. So incorporating feedback and evaluation from
other’s view can help in reviewing the performance of the teachers. This gives teachers a chance
to bounce back if any other aspect of his performance may be dismal.
2. Different states have the option of customize the criteria as long as its compliant to the basic
requirements set by the National Council for Teacher Quality. Normally, it was on a 40-30-30
division among the principal, master teacher, and student performance. But based on the case,
 states, or perhaps even clusters or regions in the state, can customize the rating criteria based on
a given set of metrics such as location, and socio-economic class.

B. Flaws of the Teacher Performance Review

The teacher performance review being implemented in the state have the following flaws:
1. There was subjectivity in the performance review being done by the principals and master teachers.
the master teachers and principals may base their observations on personal factors and history
with the teachers resulting in a biased performance review. These results may not be as accurate
as what the state wanted it to be. For instance, in Joey’s case as a teacher in the rural areas, she
may likely suffer misrepresentation since the principal has a longstanding relationship with each of
them in the school that go way back to parents, grandparents, or even older generations. Another
source of subjectivity is the principals being protective of their own turfs, they may score their
reviews higher to show higher ratings as this may affect the schools’ overall performance and
reputation.
2. There was also a lack of expert opinion with the set of evaluators included in the roster. If a principal
is not highly skilled or expert in Math, he may not give a fully objective review of the teacher without
the full knowledge of the subject matter being taught.
3. With the numeric rating, it may not touch on qualitative aspects such as soft skills of the teachers
which also need feedback and evaluation. Skills like teaching which involves interaction to various
personalities and set of people requires continuous improvement and feedback that cannot be
measured fully by numbers alone.
4. There was also an absence of monitoring on the teacher performance review. No one validates if
there was actual compliance of the two-time visits that principals and master teachers should be
conducting. Results may not be as accurate should there be a high level of compliance on the
system in place.

It is also necessary to analyze the validity of the 1 to 5 rating scale for the teachers. This is a two-sided
rating scale which can both be good and bad. The bad side of rating scales is it sets a demarcation and
silos among the teaching staff. It silos them into good and bad teachers. Teachers with lower ratings,
coming from a subjective evaluation, can feel demotivated and have a low morale. While teachers getting
high ratings can develop a sense of superiority over their colleagues. This is wrong specially that the system
is not as objective as the state would have wanted. Also, quantitative measures must be coupled with
qualitative feedback so that numbers can be explained and points of improvement can be taken note of. It
is valuable to the extent that it tells a teacher where he or she stands but must be coupled with the right
reasons and suggestions for improvement. On the flipside, these rating scales can also be a source of
motivation for teachers to drive for improvement.
 III. Objectives of the Case
The objectives of the case are at two levels, is monitoring and evaluation at two levels: (1) that of the
end recipients like cousins Jeri Lynn de Bose, Tish Hoover, and Joey Parks and (2) that of the performance
evaluation owner, which in this case is the state.
The objectives are as follows:
1. The cousins must be able to formulate recommendations on the new teacher evaluations that they
can elevate to their superiors and to the state; and
2. The state should be able to properly evaluate the process and check on improvements that can be
implemented in the process.

IV. Alternative Courses of Action

Creating a holistic performance evaluation is no easy feat, especially that performance evaluation tools
cannot capture every sing unique aspect in the performance and situation that teachers, or even people,
may encounter. But efforts must still be placed to make performance evaluation systems to be as
comprehensive as possible to capture the most relevant aspects of performance.

The following are the recommendations that must be included in the review of the teacher performance
review, especially that monitoring is a key element in the people engagement role of managers:

1. Proper monitoring of any performance evaluation or review

The state, through the National Council for Teacher Quality should enforce a dedicated compliance
team that checks on the quality and the compliance of the reviewers on the set requirements of the
performance evaluation.

Performance evaluation, under the premise that it was carefully crafted to ensure holistic review, should
be monitored that it is regularly complied with and that all results generated from it are accurate and reliable.
Steps such as school visits or a regular quality review, should be present to ensure that the review system
in itself is effective and complied with. This can also result in opportunities that can help the council craft
improvements on the review system so that each time it is run, more reliable results can be generated.

2. Presence of blind and expert reviewers or evaluators

The National Council for Teacher Quality should have under their umbrella a set of consultants who
can perform blind and expert reviews in each school. The purpose of this is to remove any personal biases
and subjectivity in the system.
 Part of the mechanics of the teacher performance review should be the allocation of a set of reviewers
going into different schools where they do not have any personal history of. This will eliminate the chances
that the resulting evaluation for a teacher is full of biases from the principal or the master teacher. Another
benefit that can derived from this is benchmarking by the set of evaluators of best practices that can be
adopted in their own schools.

3. Customization of criteria based on the school location, background, and socio-economic status
States are given the option to customize the teacher performance review. It may be best practice to
lower the level of the customization up to the location and socio-economic background of the schools. They
must be able to tailor-fit key result areas depending on what the need is of that specific school or district as
long as it is aligned to the basic requirements being called for by the state.

This will assist the schools focus on result areas that are much needed by their schools rather than
putting in efforts into result areas that are not aligned to what the needs of the schools are. Part of the role
of the National Council for Teacher Quality should be the alignment of the needs and developmental areas
of the schools so that the right expectations from the teachers are set and goals are more concrete and
doable from the teacher’s end.

4. Inclusion of quantitative and qualitative evaluation for the teachers

Quantitative rating scales such as the 1 to 5 rating will work best if these are backed up by evidence
from other sources such as the qualitative evaluation from teacher interaction to students, teaching style,
classroom management style and incorporate these into a more cohesive and comprehensive evaluation
for the teachers. Results must not just be numerical but more provide the basis and suggestions for the
improvement of the teachers or where they were able to shine to continue doing great in those areas.

Creating holistic and cohesive evaluation results from an effective performance evaluation system is
key to performance evaluation.

V. Conclusions and Recommendations

There is no perfect system or organization that can capture all the aspects of performance, especially
for those that are people-facing, dealing with multiple personalities and behavior such as in the field of
teaching.

In the case of the new teacher performance review, the cousins must be transparent to voice their
thoughts on how to improve the system since everyone on their circle can actually benefit from it. The state
should also put into place a safe and transparent feedback system such that all relevant stakeholders’
thoughts and feedback are considered and incorporated because these may be important.
 Managers should be able to find the right tools and systems that can provide more holistic and cohesive
evaluation feedback to their people. When people are given the right feedback, this can be leveraged on to
produce great results for any organization.

References

Daft, R. L. (2016). Management. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.