Teachers know what good teaching is—it is inspiring children to explore their world, to learn how it operates and how to express their understanding of it, and to respect others with different opinions. It is challenging students to acquire more knowledge and use it wisely. It is providing them with the opportunity to reach their potential intellectually, socially and emotionally.

Good teachers are not born; rather, they are carefully and systematically cultivated through rigorous recruitment, preparation, induction and continuous professional development. The Washington Teachers’ Union supports comprehensive teacher evaluation that, when done right, can take good teachers and make them great.

Unfortunately, teacher evaluation is one of the issues that has been highlighted by data-driven education reformers that  want  to evaluate teachers based on student test scores alone. WTU insists that evaluations use multiple measures, including structured observations and assessments of teaching skills that truly measure teacher performance.