Feedback From 360 Degrees

School Administrator, March, 1997 by Richard P. Manatt

* Parent feedback. At each parent-teacher conference session, parents are provided with a five-question report card to complete. Questions apply to the performance of the teacher and the entire school. The opportunity to submit their own evaluations has encouraged high parental attendance at such events, in some cases as high as 95 percent Teachers using the report card are pleasantly surprised by the positive and supportive feedback from parents.

* Student achievement. The major component of the system is the report of student achievement gains for each class, subject, and section taught by the teacher. Criterion-referenced tests and authentic assessment are used in a pre-test/post-test format. The results are provided to teachers in a percentage-of-mastery report.

This data set required several years of curriculum renewal, alignment, and assessment to develop. Once completed, it's the ultimate 360-degree source.

* Professional growth goals. Each year teachers and administrators are asked to examine all of their 360-degree data sets and determine one or more professional goals that will contribute to improved performance (for themselves and/or their students) in the next cycle. Common sense dictates that the valleys of performance, not peaks, are used for goal setting. Goals progress among teachers is assessed by the principal. Goals progress by principals is assessed by the superintendents, even in large school systems.

Improvement Plans

The data analysis and planning that precedes setting improvement goals is the most important link in the team evaluation process. The cognitive dissonance between the expected performance and the actual performance creates the targets for improvement. The evaluator in charge of helping the employee set the professional growth plans must combine and assess the types of feedback information and compare this information to the intended outcomes.

Typically, an organization using 360-degree feedback will have desired outcomes embedded in its strategic planning goals and its site improvement plans. A common expectation for teachers is that student achievement will improve continuously over time.

Using templates called management action plans for administrators or project action plans for instructional staff, the coaching evaluator and the evaluatee will set one to three goals. The action plan will ask the following questions:

* What is to be accomplished? (the goal)

* How it is to be accomplished? (a series of short-range objectives)

* What resources are needed? (funds, materials, staff)

* When must the goal be completed? (a specific date usually within a year)

* How will accomplishment of the goal be measured? (via achievement results, client satisfaction, improved feedback, lower costs, etc.)

The School Improvement Model team that I direct studied 3,000 performance goals set by employees of five K-12 school organizations. We found that good accomplishment is more likely to occur when (1) the evaluatee truly believes that the goal is hooked to feedback data; (2) enough time is allowed (evaluators tend to be impatient); (3) a specific measurement of success is used; (4) deadlines are reasonable but enforced; and (5) goals are announced publicly.