 The National Teacher Evaluation System is a mandatory evaluation process for the 70,000 teachers who work in municipal (public) schools in Chile. Its purpose is to strengthen the teaching profession and to improve the quality of education.
Since its beginning in 2003, more than 52,000 teachers have been evaluated (up to 2008), among those who are practicing in Preschool, Primary and Secondary Education.
Teachers are evaluated with four instruments that collect information from four different perspectives:
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A self-evaluation, reflecting the perspective of the evaluatee. |
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A peer assessment: a judgment made by a colleague (from another school), after interviewing the teacher. |
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A supervisor assessment: the headmaster and the head of pedagogical affairs in each school rate the performance of the teacher. |
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A portfolio (including a videotape of one lesson): this represents direct evidence about teaching, pedagogical decisions and classroom practice. |
 The Evaluation System is coordinated by the Ministry of Education of Chile, through its Teacher Training and Research Center, CPEIP. The development of the instruments and implementation of the process is in charge of MIDE UC, the Measurement Center of the Catholic University of Chile. In this center, the Docentemás Project is responsible for the development of all the actions and materials required by the evaluation process, including technical and operational aspects.
 A central task of the Evaluation System is the construction and validation of the four assessment instruments: self-evaluation questionnaire, peer interview, supervisors’ questionnaire and portfolio (comprising a written part and a videotaped lesson). This task involves the participation of expert teachers from different educational levels and subject fields. They also collaborate in the elaboration of the scoring rubrics for the peer interview and portfolio. Several pilot and pre-testing studies are conducted and statistical analysis of the previous evaluation data are made to ensure the validity and reliability of the instruments and the assessment results.
The execution of the evaluation also requires a variety of others processes and activities, including:
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Each year over 250,000 units of evaluation materials, including manuals, schedules and envelops among many others, are printed and distributed to the 345 municipalities (comunas) of Chile, reaching very far locations as islands and border villages. |
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Docentemás organizes a network of audiovisual technicians for the filming of a class for each teacher. |
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All the evaluation materials are collected and processed at a Materials Management Center, in which each individual instrument is entered in a computer system which allows its accurate tracking through all the evaluation. |
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Each year more than 70 seminars are designed and implemented in two different moments of the year, to train about 1,500 teachers (selected as interviewers or “Peers Evaluators”). The first training prepares them for their roles as interviewers (and scorers of the interview), and the second for their later work as members of the Municipal Evaluation Committees. |
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The written and audiovisual units of the Portfolio are reviewed and scored in Portfolio Assesment Centers that operate in different universities of the country. Their staff is trained and supervised by the Docentemás Team through detailed protocols, in order to ensure a reliable scoring. The technical quality and consistency of the process is monitored through an online system (specialized software) that continuously tracks the scoring process. |
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Part of the Docentemás Team is permanently in contact with the Directors of the Departments of Education and Municipal Corporations of the 345 districts, giving them all the information required for the local implementation of the system, answering their questions and solving problems; also informative and training meetings are organized to guide and support critical steps such as the registration of the teachers that must be evaluated each year. |
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Also, information systems, such as a web site (www.docentemas.cl) and a call center are implemented to help the teachers and other participants in the evaluation. |
 Teachers are awarded one of four performance levels based on the results of the four instruments. The levels are: Unsatisfactory, Basic, Competent and Outstanding. Teachers are assessed every 4 years, unless they receive the lowest performance level (Unsatisfactory), in which case they have to be re-evaluated the following year. Teachers who receive the two lowest categories (Unsatisfactory and Basic) are offered professional training programs to help them overcome the weaknesses identified during the evaluation. On the other hand, teachers with good results (Competent and Outstanding) are eligible for an economic incentive: the Variable Assignment for Individual Performance. To get this salary increase, teachers must take a pedagogical and subject knowledge standardized test.  Depending on their performance on the tests, if they rank above a certain cutscore, they could receive one of 3 scales of salary increase.
The Chilean National Teacher Evaluation System aims to be a formative process, which contributes to the teacher professional development and to provide better learning opportunities to students in public schools.
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