Quality education is important for the international competitiveness of a nation,
and in large part is dependent upon the quality of teachers. As a way to assure
teacher quality, teacher evaluation has been considered as one of the important
targets of educational reform in many countries.
In this study the purposes/uses of results, contents, methods of teacher evaluation
systems, the nature of traditional teacher evaluation systems and directions of
change, the characteristics of the new teacher evaluation systems in the US, and
their implications for the those in Korea were explored.
Teacher evaluation systems in the US are much more research-based and
systematic with the goal of quality assurance and professional development in mind.
They use a differentiated approach for different groups of teachers, and have a
multiyear evaluation cycle for tenured teachers. And teachers play active roles,
preparing portfolios and reflecting through professional conversation with peers and
evaluators.
In light of those in the US, the teacher evaluation systems in Korea need to be
more structured in terms of the connection between the formative and summative
evaluation, evaluation standardsㆍmethodsㆍprocedures, and the evaluator and
evaluatee education as well as improving other related subsystems.