Argument-Centered Education has a deep conceptual alignment with the wave of new teacher performance evaluation systems, particularly those built on the work of Charlotte Danielson. Many of the hundreds of teachers with whom Argument-Centered Education has worked over the past several years have testified about the positive impact that implementing argument-centered pedagogy has had on their official evaluations.

‘The work that Argument-Centered Education creates is phenomenal. I am really happy to have had the opportunity to work with them and you will be too’ (Bogan H.S. teacher, 2015).

Our work aligns with four domains of new teacher evaluation systems, but probably most extensively in the instructional domain. Argument-centered education utilizes a consistent underlying platform, fully integrative of academic vocabulary, and communication with students maintains a ‘challenging clarity.’ Discussion in an argument-centered classroom is almost by definition student-led and student-to-student – teachers establish the structure, facilitate, and moderate: students argue and debate. ACE works closely and collaboratively with teachers – getting into the classroom with them – to get the difficult but essential qualities of calibrated complexity, sequencing, pacing, and differentiation honed and refined. This is where in-class instructional agility becomes crucial. And assessment is inter-woven throughout argument-centered units, much of it self- and peer-assessment, and all of it founded in consistent, precise rubrics, enabling productive revision.

‘The argument-centered education skills and techniques have now been built into my instructional practice’ (Peirce International Middle School teacher, 2015).

Argument-Centered Education also works with intentionality to create a respectful learning environment and to establish student ownership of learning in an elevated academic atmosphere of respectful but rigorous discussion and debate, having an impact on the academic environment domain. And it has systems for upgrading teacher planning and preparation, and for building in their engagement with a large and growing community of professionals committed to bringing argument in to the center of their instructional practice (the professionalism domain).