Communications and Engagement: Building Educators’ Support for New Evaluations

Communications and engagement can make or break a new evaluation and support system. Even a well-designed system will falter if teachers don’t understand it or if they believe it was created without their input. In this brief we explain how state and district leaders can engage educators in the development of new evaluation policies and communicate with teachers about how those policies will improve teaching and learning. We offer three main recommendations: (1) Develop a purposeful educator engagement strategy; (2) follow through on that educator engagement strategy; and (3) communicate early and often. For each recommendation, we include specific strategies and resources that states and districts can use.

We developed this brief with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of a series focused on teacher effectiveness titled Evaluation & Support: Strategies for Success. The series includes an introduction and six briefs providing district and state leaders with practical advice for implementing high-quality evaluation systems.