I would like to suggest a simple answer to that. If we are respect the professionalism of teachers, we must give them the authority to use their professional judgment in their their processes. My solution would be to evaluate the teachers on the outcomes of their work rather than on the processes they use to arrive at these outcomes. A more detailed discussion of this answer can be found at

Technical Report Data-Informed Decision Making

James E. McLean Thank you for sharing this resource and for your perspective on my question!

The prevailing view of leadership is still that it is concentrated or focused: in organizations, this makes it an input to business processes and performance—dependent on the attributes, behaviors, experience, knowledge, skills, and potential of the individuals chosen to impact these. Contrariwise, the theory of distributed leadership, which by the way was developed in education research, thinks that leadership is best considered as an outcome. Leadership is defined by what one does, not who one is. Leadership at all levels matters and must be drawn from, not just be added to, individuals and groups in organizations. Ergo, the literature of distributed leadership may be of interest.

Olivier Serrat , Thank you, I will check out distributed leadership!

Thank you for your answer.I agree that a leaders is defined by what he / she does and not what they are.@Olivier Serrat.

Teachers in the U.S. have become quasi-government workers.

As such there is little reason to excel (promotion, pay raise opportunities are few and everyone is praised and over-praised as great).

They are virtually unfirable for incompetence or any other action short of a major crime.

Parents are discouraged from getting involved in school administration and students exist in a "just-attend-and-you-will-graduate" environment.

Consequently, as with all government positions, every teacher's annual evaluation is over-blown ... everyone falls all over each other telling them how hard-working and invaluable they are, and how they all deserve more and more money.

And, as Thomas Jefferson said about other government employees ...

"Few die and none quit."

My sister-in-law is a 7th grade teacher. She had a talkative unruly student in her class and after repeatedly asking the student to stop distracting the class

"Wrote the students name on the board" (gadzooks!)

The next day the Principal called her into his office to say that the student's parent had called him, and that the student felt humiliated and that she was never to do such a thing again!

Needless to say, the student continued to be a problem for the remainder of the year.

So the situation is difficult. Individual initiative does matter and can be noticed but it is difficult to reward.

and..

For those with little ability and less initiative, there are no real remedies available to get rid of the dead wood or motivate the under-achievers.

So... (just daydreaming)

I think the best thing that could be done is to institute some sort of teacher evaluation system that guarantees 5% of the lowest performing teachers will be (and must be) let go annually.

This would get everyone moving, and though there would certainly be instances of favoritism or nepotism ... the overall result couldn't help but be an improvement over the current system.