Perhaps you could elaborate on the methods used by TAs to objectively gather data on the quality of teaching during a lesson. I've seen it done by TAs when they are observing the behavior and progress of students (which as i stated in my previous post is a valid role for the TA) but never have i seen TAs undertaking the task of 'objectively' observing a teachers performance so i'd be very keen to understand how this is done.

In fact having myself provided ongoing training for TAs on the task of observing students i was always very explicit that this should remain their focus. You can imagine it is quite difficult to observe a dozen young learners, provide support during activities and if we go by your role also observe the teacher, all at the same time.

I'm still confused as to why once this data has been collected it then goes to Chinese, non-academic, non-foreign teacher management first for their 'analysis'. Why the middle man? Again, i'd also have to ask, is their (as non-academic orientated staff) opinion/interruption of the data a valid one? Why not hand it directly to academic management to deal with? Seems like you've put the cart before the horse.

Through my experience, schools in China both private and public often have serious problems with territoriality. I'm sure that others on this board will agree and you can see from previous posts that information about academic staff is often gathered by local staff such as TAs and feed to non-academic managers who then use it to build up a case against teachers. It may be that they don't decide to act on this information immediately (which rather negates the idea that said information is there to help solve problems in teachers performance) but instead wait until such time as the information can be used to add weight to a position that these non-academic departments take against a teacher, an academic manager or the academic department itself.

I realise that i'm speaking about practices in general here and with the exception of what the OP has written have no evidence of individual cases where this has happened at your school. However, the system that you've described is very vulnerable to this kind of practice.

I'm happy to hear to that Shane Kunming places such emphasis on academic performance. If you read some of my other posts you'll see that i'm keen to discuss how to improve teacher support and academic quality in China.