ementary school principal, and an employee with an unspecified state department of education.
The six analyses show the educational community's wide range of thinking about the evalution process. They pinpoint some of the difficulties finding an effective way to evalute the educational process present to teachers and administrators alike. Each approach offers a valuable perspective on the problem, and the range of prescriptions points out the fact that no single solution is applicable to every school situation.
The first prescription is titled "Evaluation for Enhancing Instruction: Linking Teacher Evaluation and Staff Development," prepared and written by Thomas L. McGreal, associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign College of Education. McGreal contends that teacher evalution needs to be part of a larger plan to develop the skills of the entire school staff. Evaluation must grow out of an active, ongoing partnership between teachers and administrators that emphasizes building a shared consensus about what constitutes effective teaching. Ways to evaluate the skill of every member of the educational team in delivering such instructional excellence are then the natural result of this dialogue. By begining with a commonly shared vocabulary, a way of talking about educational excellence that the entire staff shares, both teachers and administrators enter the process agreeing on their goals. McGreal suggests to schools: "Start with the bottom of the system, the teacher and administrator sitting down and talking together, and build from there . . . all we are trying to do is put in place a process that allows and encourages two adults to get together and talk about teaching" (3 4).
McGreal's prescription encourages teachers and administrators to work together to establish clearly defined goals. Evaluation follows from these goals, allowing all parties to agree on whether or not goals have been ac...