Teacher evaluations being rolled out this month in Georgia’s 26 Race to the Top school districts will have a big impact on the way teacher effectiveness is measured across the state in the future.

The state is piloting evaluations for about 5,500 teachers in its Race to the Top districts, Teresa MacCartney, Georgia’s Race to the Top director, said Friday during a gathering in Atlanta on education issues. Those evaluations, which will take place through May, will take into account student achievement, classroom observations and evaluations from students -- from kindergartners through 12th-graders.

State education leaders will look at the evaluation results this summer and make changes to evaluations during the 2012-13 school year for all teachers in Race to the Top districts. Those evaluations may not be the final measure of teacher effectiveness, but they will be a start, MacCartney said.

In 2010, Georgia won a $400 million, four-year Race to the Top grant for K-12 education reforms, including the 26-district pilot of a controversial plan to tie teacher pay to student achievement.

Another 15 school districts not participating in Race to the Top initiatives have requested to be part of the early stages of the evaluation process.

Several people at the symposium asked whether it would be feasible to analyze those results and implement the evaluations on a larger scale by the fall.

“It will be very challenging,” MacCartney said. “I emphasize continuous improvement.”

The teacher evaluations piloted in the Race to the Top districts are expected to be rolled out statewide during the 2014-15 school year.

MacCartney also said she would like to see legislation for merit-based pay no earlier than 2013 in order to take into account the pilot data.

Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, is waiting to see how the evaluations are carried out, but he said a strong system has the potential to improve performance.

However, the final result must be manageable to carry out, too. During his days as a high school principal, he said there were a lot of demands on his time, academic and otherwise.

“You can talk about being an instructional leader all you want, but if you can’t run an organization, you aren’t going to be able to stay there and be an instructional leader anyhow.”

One key to improving teacher performance is to make sure that principals are playing an active role in what goes on in classrooms, Georgia Teacher of the Year Jadun McCarthy said at the symposium.

Teachers tend to get a lot of the blame for student underachievement, the Bibb County teacher said, but the teachers he’s worked with at Northeast High School and visited across the state genuinely want to see their students do well.

“Teachers need all the support we can get,” McCarthy said. “Are we perfect? No. Are we where we want to be? No, but I’m convinced that the teachers of this state want to be better. I’m convinced that they want to see their students succeed.”

State educators are also expecting to learn whether the U.S. Department of Education will grant Georgia a waiver from federal No Child Left Behind requirements by the end of the month. If so, the state will no longer release Adequate Yearly Progress reports, said state Superintendent John Barge. Whatever the outcome of the waiver, Barge said the state will begin evaluating schools using the College and Career Ready Performance Index, the state’s proposed alternative to No Child Left Behind.

Barge has said that model gives a more complete picture of student readiness as well as areas where schools need to improve.

To contact writer Andrea Castillo, call 744-4331.