No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
I take exception to the assertion that teacher evaluation is a high-cost, low-yield investment. Since we have done research on teaching and teachers are being evaluated in terms of that research, teaching has improved more in the last decade than it had in the previous centuries. Granted, there always have been outstanding teachers, but their skills usually were intuitive, not consciously practiced. Granted, also, that more research has been available for determining effective teaching in the last decade than in previous centuries. We need only look at the contribution of criterion testing to improvement of student performance in order to supply evidence that high yield results from application of research to the evaluation of students or teachers (or principals).
I will also grant that many principals still have not had the opportunity to learn how to either superivse (help) or evaluate a teacher: an indictment of our universities, many of whom still do an inadequate job of preparing principals for either professional responsibility.
Another issue with which I do not agree is the "fix or fire," "improve or remove" implication of formative and summative evaluation. We are way beyond those rudimentary notions. The outcome for both supervision and evaluation should be escalating teaching effectiveness. Summative evaluation becomes a check point when decisions need to be made about pay, promotion, or release. Expectations will vary for beginning and experienced teachers, but both must be certified as growing professionals not merely "adequate" teachers. The processes of gathering supporting valid evidence for formative and summative evaluation are much the same. Observing, script taping, and analyzing contitute the diagnostic phase of both. Prescribing for continuing professional growth or making decisions about future status constitute the prescriptive phase. Formative and summative evaluation must be sequential processes, not simultaneous, for the latter is a summation of and achieves validity from the former. The decision to terminate must be based on evidence that the individual has, throughout the year, had the opportunity but has not demonstrated the capacity and/or intention to grow professionally from that opportunity. Intent to grow can be stimulated as a result of supervision by someone who has the power to make a final evaluation and who has collected ongoing data to support final evalu-
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## Abstract Percutaneous medical devices are integral in the management and treatment of disease. The space created between the skin and the device becomes a haven for bacterial invasion and biofilm formation and results in infection. We hypothesize that sealing this space via integration of the sk