Haslam backs plan to keep teacher evaluations secret

Thursday, March 22, 2012

photo Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam

NASHVILLE - Gov. Bill Haslam says he agrees with legislative moves to keep new state evaluations of individual public school teachers off limits to the parents and the rest of the public.

Legislation to do just that is already on its way to a Senate floor vote after being approved Wednesday by the House Education Subcommittee.

"I actually think it should" be kept confidential, Haslam said today. "The goal of evaluations is to have whoever's being evaluated get as much help from that as they can. And my experience has been, if people know that evaluation is going to be public, they [evaluators] are going to be a little less honest with that."

Moreover, Haslam argued, "we're trying to encourage people to be teachers. So if I'm a 20-year-old thinking about teaching, and I'm saying, 'Huh, every quarter, every half-year, whatever, my evaluation's going to be out there in the paper, am I?'

"I mean, I'd ask of you - do you want to do that? Have your evaluations be in the paper twice a year? Or would that make you less likely to choose that profession?"

Frank Gibson, public policy director and a lobbyist for the Tennessee Press Association, told the Knoxville News Sentinel that the move is unfair to parents, the public and the media.

"It's tragic that we have a new educational model establishing accountability and we make secret records on whether it is working or not," he said.