Accredited universities normally include a standard that addresses faculty evaluation. It may contain references to performance criteria and procedures and usually emphasizes the need for faculty evaluations to be systematic, regular, fair, objective and relevant to achieving the goals of the institution. Accredited language programs usually have a similar standard that addresses instructor evaluation. However, quite often performance criteria are never spelled out and teacher effectiveness is measured only by student appraisals of the course and the instructor. Public K-12 programs normally have agreed upon standards, but schools all too often measure teacher effectiveness solely by student test scores. The research is very clear that neither of these constitutes a fair and relevant evaluation. Teaching large groups of individuals with varied skills and backgrounds in diverse settings is not easy and neither is measuring its effectiveness. An effective evaluation system, according to the author, needs to entail more than student test scores and appraisals. It needs to include professional standards with performance criteria and indicators spelled out and endorsed by the language teachers, tools and procedures for self-assessment, peer mentoring, mentor coaching and supervisor evaluation as well as procedures and suggestions for other types of reports and evidence of teacher performance. The aim is to create an evaluation system that promotes teacher growth and gathers evidence for making high-stakes decisions. In this article, the author describes different types of evaluation public K-12 programs can employ when assessing their effectiveness.