By Sarah Lahm.

Wham, VAM, here comes a public airing of teacher evaluation data for all Minneapolis Public Schools teachers, just in time for the 2014 election. Sources tell me that Minneapolis’ largest newspaper, the StarTribune, will publish teacher evaluation information, based on SOEI (Standards of Effective Instruction) observations, student surveys, and value-added student test score data (VAM), on Sunday, November 2.

[Update, 4 pm Nov. 1: The report has now been posted.]

The newspaper is expected to publish a map of the city’s schools. Of course, this map will show that high poverty, high needs schools house the district’s lower performing teachers, and, probably, the district’s least-experienced teachers.

On Tuesday, November 4, Minneapolis voters will elect two new at-large school board candidates, in a race that has seen an incredible influx of outside money from such well-heeled proponents of education reform as Michael Bloomberg, who was an avid supporter of the public release of teacher evaluation data while mayor of New York City. The heightened political environment around our public school system, nationally and locally, means the release (without names) of teacher evaluation data will probably fan flames and push people farther apart from one another.

I would like to pierce through this a bit, by sharing my recent experience in a Minneapolis Public Schools classroom.

On October 30, I went to a “Pumpkin Math” party in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom (she goes to a Magnet school that is on the verge of qualifying for Title 1 funding). While there, I observed my daughter’s energetic young teacher moving about a mile a minute, working overtime to keep the twenty-seven five and six year olds in her class engaged, on topic, and safe.

This teacher had six spaces set out in her classroom, each with a large green sheet of paper, a large pumpkin, pencils, string, blocks, and a piece of paper for each child. She had obviously planned ahead and was as prepared as could be.

When her young students filed, or, rather, flew, jumped, bounced, wiggled, and sauntered, into the classroom, back from their time with a science teacher, the teacher’s carefully crafted plans were put to the test. Suddenly, the room seemed very crowded with the excited giggles and shouts of twenty-seven little voices.

The kindergarteners were supposed to measure the pumpkin in various ways, and even test one out in the classroom sink, to see if it could float. I sat at one of the six spaces with my own daughter, as well as three other little girls. Among the four, three native languages were represented: English, Spanish, and Somali.

The room buzzed with exuberance and enthusiasm, and it wasn’t long before the Pumpkin Math project lost favor with the students. The structured goals of the activity just could not compete with the energy of twenty-seven little bodies, on the day before Halloween.

Some kids literally could not sit still or follow directions. They wiggled, poked their neighbor, put the string that was to measure the width of the pumpkin around their own hands instead, and otherwise behaved like young children.

The teacher was amazing. She kept her cool. She moved on quickly when she sensed she was losing control of the class. She admonished those who were in danger of pushing the Pumpkin Math activity quickly downhill. She continually called on the students to stay focused and even pressed them to be silent a few times, which I viewed as an unfortunate necessity in such a crowded classroom.

Eventually, she had the whole class lined up in rows, dancing in unison to a Zumba video they were familiar with. In that moment, all twenty-seven acted as one, and seemed to revel in the movement and music. This teacher had an incredible amount of tricks up her sleeve, and has an incredible task in front of her: she must meet the needs of twenty-seven very different children for a full school day, five days a week. She has minimal classroom support, although parents have been told that the district is in the process of hiring a kindergarten aide.

What about any of this, I wonder, would show up in a rubric-based evaluation of her?