PERA

This week I attended a professional development on ways to use formative assessment.  PERA, which stands for performance evaluation reform act, is the new evaluation system that Illinois uses to evaluate teacher and principal performance.  On Thursday, the teachers came together to discuss what assessments would be used to gauge student growth.  As they gauged which assessment tools would most effectively determine student success, they also determined which tool would best determine the effectiveness of their teaching practices.  We talked about how subjective student success can be. They worried that their teaching would be unfairly judged.  Assessing student growth is imperative, but as I watched this group of excellent teachers second guess whether their teaching would be 'enough' to satisfy the evaluation, I realized that teaching is a lifelong commitment to self reflection.  There will be times that our best, may not be good enough.  There will be days where the failures may outgrow the successes.  I believe in my future students, and I will be committed to reflect on my teaching consistently and in a way that will help my students learn.