Teaching - what if a key “reform,” SB
191, undermines trust?
A key word missing from
the state report on the teacher shortage
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
Ernest Hemingway
When we take our
eyes off the Olympics in South Korea and look north, one word repeatedly comes
to mind. Trust – or a lack of. Bad
faith. Suspicion. “Should we trust North Korea?”[i] “North Korea: In Deterrence We Trust.”[ii] “Pope Francis: We
must rebuild trust in North Korea, Syria.”[iii] We fear Kim
Jong-un, but have doubts about our President too: “Americans Don’t Trust Trump On North
Korea.”[iv]
But why go so far away, and imagine what if? a nuclear war? –
to emphasize how central trust is. It is
part of our lives, every day. In
friendships, family, marriage. And, of
course, in the workplace.
For teachers, in the school.
What if a lack of trust, for teachers, is at the heart of our struggles
to recruit and retain great people to be in our classrooms?
Will gubernatorial candidates speak to how SB 191 undermines trust in
the teaching profession?
The campaign has begun, so prepare for the familiar promises:
“We aim to put a quality teacher in every classroom." As for specifics? Candidates who do their homework, aware of
the recent attention to the teacher shortage in pockets of Colorado and in several
content areas, will study the recent report, Colorado' s Teacher Shortages: Attracting and Retaining Excellent
Educators[v], produced by the Colorado Department of
Higher Education (CDHE). It includes “options
for legislative consideration.”
Such reports wish to be practical—I see 4 strategic goals,
12 objectives, and 33 strategies in this one—so I almost understand why it fails to explore the intangibles that may
be a more basic reason the teaching profession is in peril. Like trust
and respect. Neither word appears in its 16-page report, so
I feel compelled to focus on them, and in doing to so, to ask our next governor
and policymakers to give Senate Bill 191—known as the “Educator Effectiveness
law,” a major review. If its heavy
emphasis on evaluation is based on a lack of trust, and if this is one cause
for our teacher shortage, let’s revisit it.
Why
t-r-u-s-t? Two reasons:
1. Among the frequent buzzwords in education
policy are “transparency” and “accountability,” and both include elements of
trust and faith. But “trust” is the
word we use in personal relationships, and what goes on between a teacher and
his or her administrator is personal. State policy is unlikely to acknowledge how
complex and fraught with emotion this relationship can be. You
never taught my subject, or my age level, and now you walk in here to judge
me?
2.
“Avoid
fancy words – Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a
ten-center handy, ready and able.”
From The Elements of Style,
by Strunk and White
|
Three cheers for accountability, but not this way
CDHE’s report edges close to issues of trust on several occasions:
·
OPTIONS FOR LEGISLATIVE CONSIDERATION • Promote the value of the teaching profession
and encourage all others to do so
·
Strategic Goal #1, OBJECTIVE 3: Improve Teacher Working Conditions
·
Strategic Goal #4, OBJECTIVE 1: Increase Positive Perceptions and Messaging
Around Teaching as a Career
What if SB 191—not in its intention, but in its
implementation—has devalued the
teaching profession (why hire me if you don’t trust me?) and worsened teaching conditions (why so much
time required to try to prove to my administrator I am doing my job?). What if it has made it harder for teachers to
sell the next generation on the rewards of this career? “Increase
positive perceptions”—but how, when the excessive evaluation in SB 191 seems
to reflect a lack of faith in our competence?
AV#68 – A skeptic on SB 191 takes a closer look (Sept. 2010)
AV#74A - Teacher evaluation: Hiring, trust -- and cheering on the best (Jan.
2011)
AV#84 – The new quarterback and new teachers – and an account from a teacher
who just resigned (Nov. 2011)
AV#113 - Uncomfortable
Questions: Implementing SB 191 - Year One (May
2014)
AV#145 -Teacher
Leadership & Collaboration: DPS develops a better way to evaluate and
support teachers (March 2016)
AV#153 - After
three years of teaching –
Insights, frustrations, &
questions about “the profession” – if
it is one (Oct. 2016)
|
I questioned SB 191 early on and in six newsletters since
2010 (see box). Yes, I feel justified in
my fears and warnings. I won’t repeat myself here (excerpts at the back), but I
am glad to present a range of voices—see Addendum
A—that make the best case for reassessing SB 191: a study released last
month; quotes from Bill and Melinda Gates, major funders of teacher evaluation
policies; comments from Coloradans, including Rob Stein, superintendent of Roaring
Fork, and Van Schoales, chief executive officer of A Plus Colorado; from others
as well.
Addendum B shows that many states have modified elements of their
evaluation laws.
Addendum C quotes
from David Osborne’s Reinventing
America’s Schools, a must read for Colorado educators and
policymakers. His focus is the huge
change in school governance in Denver, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. When he looks at teacher evaluation, his
point is entirely consistent with his broader theme: schools, not districts (or
the state), should control day-to-day operations.
“… state systems
should not be used to hold teachers accountable for performance. States and districts should hold schools accountable and let the schools
figure out how to evaluate their teachers and hold them accountable.”[vi]
To address our teacher shortage, state leaders can learn
from CDHE’s report. But the first
response from policymakers is often: what more can we do? Another new bill? Before we take the report’s
33 strategies and pass more laws,
let’s first ask: are there unintended consequences from the 2010 law that we need to undo? Its message to
teachers—many feel—is this: you’re on thin ice, we’re watching you, you better
put together those videos and portfolios to PROVE you deserve to be
here—because, heck, why should we trust you?
So now let’s go through our 18-page
rubric[vii]
to see if you measure up.
It is time to revisit and repair SB 191.
**
Did new evaluations and weaker tenure make fewer
people want to become teachers?
A new study says yes[viii]
Chalkbeat, by Matt Barnum, Jan. 30, 2018 (Bold mine throughout)
When the Obama administration and states across the country
embraced tougher evaluation and tenure rules for teachers, critics offered a
familiar refrain: weakening teachers’ job security could make the profession
less attractive and ultimately backfire.
Now a new study is among the first to
suggest that this concern has become a reality, showing that after states put
in place new evaluation and tenure rules, the number of new teaching licenses
issued dropped substantially — a finding that researchers said suggests fewer
people were interested in the job.
“We find consistent evidence that both implementing
high-stakes evaluation reforms and repealing tenure reduced teacher labor
supply,” concludes the paper, which controlled for a number of factors that
might have affected the pool of teachers….
Matt Kraft, a Brown University
professor and one of the study’s authors, said he thought changes
to prevailing teacher evaluation systems were necessary, but warned they may have caused as much
harm as good. “In our effort to move
towards a better direction, were the costs larger than the benefits? That’s
quite possible,” he said…
No matter how they sliced the
data, they said, the results held: after states adopted reforms, the number of
new teaching licenses — that is, people eligible to teach in public schools —
dropped substantially.
The magnitude was fairly
substantial: a decline of about 15 percent for both evaluation and tenure
reforms.
Although the study is in line with popular wisdom, it
actually marks a shift from previous research ..., which has
found little evidence that school accountability reforms like No Child Left
Behind made teachers as a whole more dissatisfied or likely to quit.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – on efforts
around teacher evaluation[ix]
When Vicki Phillips stepped down late in
2015 as the head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she said she was proud
of the way “we have worked to put teachers in the center of everything.”
However, “Phillips said the
foundation does have a bit of a mea culpa when it comes to
teacher evaluation. (Bill Gates himself took to the newspaper pages to
make a similar point back
in 2013.)
"In the
best of all worlds, everyone would have loved it if [the Measures of Effective
Teaching study] had come out in time to inform all the changes and policies
around teacher evaluation, so people didn't jump too quickly and overemphasize
one component over another.... And as
that happened and other things happened, people would think the Gates
Foundation is only about evaluation of teachers, when we were, all along, about
meaningful improvement and actionable
feedback.”
“We have also worked
with districts across the country to help them improve the quality of teaching.
This effort helped educators understand how to observe teachers, rate their
performance fairly, and give them feedback they can act on. But we haven’t seen the large impact we had
hoped for. For any new approach to take off, you need three things. First
you have to run a pilot project showing that the approach works. Then the work
has to sustain itself. Finally, the approach has to spread to other places.
“How did our teacher effectiveness work do on
these three tests? Its effect on students’ learning was mixed, in part because
the pilot feedback systems were implemented differently in each place. The new
systems were maintained in some places, such as Memphis, but not in others. And
although most educators agree that teachers deserve more-useful feedback, not
enough districts are making the necessary investments and systemic changes to
deliver it.”
U.S. Secretary of Education John King
“The Every Student Succeeds Act
presents states, districts, and educators with a chance for a ‘fresh start’ and
‘much needed do-over’ on the very testy issue of teacher evaluation through
student outcomes, acting U.S. Secretary of Education John King said at a town
hall meeting for teachers ….
“King said: ‘A discussion that began with
shared interests and shared values—the importance of learning and growth for
all our children—ended up with a lot of teachers feeling attacked and blamed.
Teachers were not always adequately engaged by policymakers in the development
of new systems. And when they disagreed with evaluation systems, it appeared to
pit them against those who they cherished most—their students. That was no
one's desire.’ He said states should be prepared to rethink their
evaluation systems if they're not really helping teachers get better.”
Heard at the town
hall meeting in Limon,
one of 13 sessions hosted by CDHE and CDE to gather
community input (Aug. 18, 2017)
“At some point somebody at CDE needs to say
it’s a dumb law and we’ll implement it to the minimal degree.”
One individual spoke of his wife now teaching
a class of 34 students. “The actual
day-to-day job is what kids see; [we say] we need to improve the working
conditions, but ….” “[We must] allow
more local control of the teacher evaluation…”
He spoke derisively of the state’s model rubric, with “over 300 items to
be checked off….”
Six
years in, Colorado teacher evaluation program has changed the performance
conversation[xii]
Colorado
Public Radio, by Allison Sherry, May 30,
2017
“Rob Stein, the superintendent of the
Roaring Fork School District, said the entire process is time consuming and
unhelpful in improving education at his schools. Stein originally favored the
idea years ago and even helped pass it at the legislature.
“‘They went after this very complicated
system,’ he said. ‘And it’s turned it into this sick game where you end up
having a conversation about how you get the points instead of let me just give
you, like a coach on a field, let me give you a few pointers to help you
improve and try that out.’”
(from) How We Got Colorado's Teacher-Evaluation Reform Wrong[xiii]
Colorado's missteps on teacher evaluation is a
cautionary tale for other states
Education Week, Commentary, April 5, 2017
Education Week, Commentary, April 5, 2017
by Van Schoales, chief executive office of A Plus Colorado
“Implementation
did not live up to the promises.
“Colorado Department of Education data released in February show that the distribution of teacher
effectiveness in the
state looks much as it did before passage of the bill. Eighty-eight percent of Colorado teachers were rated effective
or highly effective, 4 percent were partially effective, 7.8 percent of
teachers were not rated, and less than 1 percent were
deemed ineffective. In other words, we leveraged everything we could and
not only didn’t advance teacher effectiveness, we created a massive bureaucracy
and alienated many in the field.
“We
wanted a new system to help professionalize teaching and address the real
disparities in teacher quality. Instead, we got an 18-page state rubric and
345-page user guide for teacher evaluation….
“The new teacher-evaluation laws in Colorado
and now 40 other states seem a classic example of putting policy ahead of
practice. Great in theory, but unrealistic when it comes to implementation. The
laws were constructed around a particular set of assumptions about school
district capacity and commitment. We underestimated the propensity of districts
to morph ‘innovations’ into existing practice and treat the new evaluation laws
as just one more compliance requirement. We also failed to understand the
political and district costs of tying such laws to federal incentives,
particularly given a strong ethos of local control in many school districts,
like most of those in Colorado.
“As a longtime educator
and education advocate, I got caught up in the hubris. I helped construct and
strongly supported the teacher-evaluation law but didn’t anticipate how the
state education department and school districts would turn the law into
practice….
“I believe the intention
was right, but it was wrong to force everyone in a state to have one ‘best’
evaluation system.”
(from) Policies, Not Administrators, to Blame for Teacher-Evaluation
System[xiv]
Education Week, Letter to the Editor, June 1,
2016
by Al Ramirez, Professor, College of Education, University of Colorado-Colorado
Springs
“The problem is not with school
administrators. The problem is with the system—specifically, the policies that
create and drive the teacher-evaluation system.
“My graduate students and I have conducted
surveys, interviews, and focus groups with school administrators in my research
into teacher-evaluation systems, and the message is very clear. Because of the
limited time, resources, and school-based policies, there are often few
resources left to address mediocre teaching, much less ineffective teaching.
“Thanks to ‘Race to the Bottom,’ my state
of Colorado has made several teacher-evaluation policy changes that have made
matters worse, such as a more-than-20-page model evaluation form for
administrators to use and the decision to factor student test scores into final
teacher ratings.
“Our research clearly shows that the
uppermost problem school principals have with the teacher-development process
is available time. From my perspective as a former school administrator and
current education leadership professor, school administrators clearly know how
to ‘differentiate great teaching from that which is merely good, or perhaps
even mediocre.’ The problem is that the policies that create the system are
misguided.”
Education mandate puts arbitrary
pressure on teachers
The Denver Post, by Meredith C. Carroll, Sept.
23, 2013
“Throw in the fact that SB 191 adds yet
another pair of eyes on teachers in the form of an evaluator — in addition to a
classroom full of pint-size or adolescent supervisors, plus those kids’
parents, a principal, superintendent, board of education and a parent-teacher
association — and there’s just enough cooks in the kitchen to all but ensure an
overcrowded, disjointed and distasteful meal.
“With more bosses than ever and more ways
to fail than succeed, it’s no wonder why the 2013 TELL Colorado survey found a
12.5 percent decrease in teachers who believe that ‘the teacher evaluation
process improves teachers’ instructional strategies.’”
Teacher
'Demoralized' by Evaluation Framework[xv]
Education Week, by Colleen Rogers of St. John,
Ind., Letter to the Editor, Jan. 10, 2017
“This November, I quit my teaching job to
protest being subjected to cycles of evaluation under a rubric and evaluation
framework inspired by Charlotte Danielson
("It's Time to Rethink Teacher Evaluation," April 20, 2016). …
“The district assessed teaching staff using
Danielson's framework, and I was shocked at what a demoralizing experience it
was. I couldn't bear to participate in and witness the beating-down that every
teacher in the building was subjected to: the Pinterest-inspired scrapbooks we
made for each "Danielson domain," the hours of pre- and
post-conferencing, the observations, and our elusive attempts to decipher how
our ratings even remotely coincided with what had been observed in our
classrooms….
“I could not believe the system under which
nontenured teachers were being reviewed, and I feel that this system—and others
like it—are the exact reason so many of our talented young teachers quit.”
Teacher Evaluation and Support
Systems: Executive Summary[xvi]
A Perspective from Exemplary
Teachers
Published by Education Testing Services, July 2017
“As states reconsider their
current evaluation systems, stakeholders are offering their views about what
revisions should be made to existing measures and processes. This paper offers
a unique perspective to these conversations by capturing and synthesizing the
views of some of America’s exemplary teachers: State Teachers of the Year
(STOYs) and STOY finalists from every part of the country (hereafter referred
to as STOYs).”
[The recommendations in this paper are worth a look, but here I include what these exceptional teachers had to say in a survey. The results are not harshly critical of the
evaluation systems in their state; at the same time, neither do they offer a ringing endorsement of them. PH]
“State Teachers of the Year Responses to
Survey and Focus Group Questions"
“Responses were collected
through a survey of STOYs and focus group discussions with a subset of survey
respondents. A total of 266 valid survey responses were collected, and 29
respondents participated in the focus groups (sample details are available in the
full report). From the survey we found that:
• Forty-two percent (42%) of respondents perceived their evaluation
system as focused primarily on ‘getting a score or rating’ rather than on
professional growth.
• Respondents were least confident (less than 20%) in the fairness of
the use of standardized test scores and school-wide averages based on those
scores as a component of their evaluation.
• Classroom observations were judged to be fair by 63% of survey
respondents.
• Student learning objectives or other local assessment data was
perceived as fair by 43% of respondents.
• Only 29% of respondents with recent classroom experience indicated
that they received timely and relevant feedback that helps them meet the needs
of students.
• Fewer than half of respondents (49%) indicated that their observers
were well-trained in conducting classroom observations.
• Forty-four percent (44%) of respondents believed evaluators could
meaningfully assess their teaching practice.
• Forty-six percent (46%) of respondents thought evaluators could
provide useful feedback on their teaching practice.”
Addendum B - Other states back off on
their teacher evaluation laws
Test-score growth plays lesser
role in six states
Education
Week, by Liana Loewus, Nov. 14, 2017
Bolstered by new research
and federal incentives, experts decided about a decade ago that better teacher evaluation was the path
to better student achievement. A flood of states started toughening their
teacher-evaluation systems, and many of them did it by incorporating
student-test scores into educators' ratings.
And while those policies
are still in place in a majority of states, there are signs the tide is
turning: Over the past two years, a handful of states have begun reversing
mandates on using student-growth measures—and standardized-test scores, in
particular—to gauge teacher quality.
|
“New Jersey
teachers will be evaluated by their supervisors in three 20-minute sessions a
year under new rules approved Wednesday that significantly reduce
the amount of time principals must spend observing classrooms.” (NJ.com, Jan. 4, 2017)
|
Six states—Alaska,
Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Oklahoma—have now dropped
requirements that evaluations include student-growth measures and begun letting
districts decide what elements to include in assessing teachers, according to
analyses from the Education Commission of the States and the National Council
on Teacher Quality.
Connecticut, Nevada, and
Utah passed policies that require some evidence of student learning but
prohibit using state standardized-test scores for that purpose. Florida kept
student-growth measures but now lets districts choose how they're calculated.
Those are all
"signals [states] are backing away from the inclusion of student-growth or
value-added measures," said Stephanie Aragon, a policy analyst for ECS.
The changes are due, at least partly,
to the increased flexibility that
states have under the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act.
**
ESSA
Offers Reprieve
But with the 2015 passage
of ESSA, states almost immediately got a reprieve.
The bipartisan law put
teacher evaluation back in states' hands—in essence renouncing the Obama
administration's push for strict test-based accountability.
While six states dropped
requirements around using student-growth in evaluations, they did so in
different ways.
Some, like Arkansas and
Kentucky, did so through state legislation. In fact, the National Conference of
State Legislators has tracked bills in 10 states that proposed such changes.
"We are just now
starting to see the effects of ESSA on state legislation, and we don't
anticipate seeing the majority of it till next legislative session," said
Exstrom of NCSL.
A few other states,
including Alaska, Connecticut, and North Carolina, passed policies backing away
from student-growth requirements in teacher evaluations through their state
boards of education.
**
Just as before, nearly all teachers continued
to get positive ratings,
even in states that overhauled their evaluation systems, a recent study showed.
(New Mexico, where nearly 1 in 4 teachers were rated "ineffective,"
is an outlier.) That's largely because principal observations still make up the
bulk of the evaluations nationwide—and principals almost never give
bad reviews.
**
"There was some
thought that if you [toughen evaluation systems], a whole bunch of teachers out
there will be able to demonstrate they aren't able to do their job," said
Exstrom. "I think that just hasn't come to light. ... It hasn't caused the
big traumatic effects some thought would happen." In fact, many states are
more concerned with teacher shortages than they are with evaluation policies,
she said.
Even so, the fate of teacher evaluations in many states may be
dependent on the 2018 election results.
"Probably the more
Democratic victories you see in state legislatures and governorships, the more
likely you are to see teacher-evaluation reforms rolled back to one extent or
another," said McGuinn. "What the electoral results are in states and
at the national level in 2018—certainly, it matters."
Addendum C
(from) Reinventing America’s Schools - Creating a 21st Century Education
System
by David
Osborne
“Many assume that we should hold individual teachers accountable for
student learning, but in reality it is far more effective to hold schools
accountable. Since President Obama’s
Race to the Top competition made teacher evaluation systems based in part on
academic growth a central requirement of winning, most states have mandated
them. Making teachers accountable for the success of their student sis laudable
goal, but it hasn’t worked very well. In state after state, less than 1 percent
of teachers continue to be rated ‘unsatisfactory.’…
“Top down mandates simply aren’t very effective. Often school personnel
jump through hoops to comply with rules without truly embracing their purpose.
…
“Neerav Kingsland, the former
head of New Schools for New Orleans, points out that roughly 4 percent of charter
schools close each year and 7 percent are closed during formal evaluations,
whereas only 2 percent of teachers are terminated every year and less than 1
percent are rated in the lowest category. Why? Human nature.
Charter schools are valued by outside entities
that are separated by governance structures. Teachers are evaluated by their
bosses, who work with them every day. As a manager, I get it. It’s very
difficult to give extremely low ratings to employees, especially those you don’t
plan on firing. It’s still hard, but less difficult, to review the performance
of an entire organization that exists at arm’s length from you.
This is one reason among many that legislative
mandated accountability is best implemented at the organizational level rather
than at the employee level. Quite simply, it is more congruent with human
nature.
“Data, logic, and experience all suggest that states and districts should
hold schools accountable for
performance and let them figure out how to hold their teachers accountable.”
[Osborne
then gives several reasons -see page 233, including this one:]
“… teacher quality is important, but mandating penalties and rewards for
individual teachers risks undermining their morale. Indeed, it appears that evaluation mandates
did just that: according to a MetLife survey
of teachers, between 2008 and 2012 the percentage of teachers ‘very satisfied’
with their jobs fell from 62 to 39, the lowest level in a quarter of a century.” (pages
232-33)
**
Excerpts from Another View – Concerns about SB 191, beginning in 2010
From AV #68
(2010)
A principal’s evaluation of me gets
personal. It involves relationships and trust. And my job. Please don’t tell me
the bill is about how important a good teacher is, if it doesn’t treat me as
important. Moreover, who among us wants legislation that enters the day-to-day
life of our organization? Isn’t how we support and evaluate our employees
better left to each workplace—in our case, to each school?
“If teachers are given more autonomy and held
ultimately accountable for the work of their student—in itself a gratifying
compliment—they will perform to the best of their imaginative ability. Equally important, the career of teacher will
become more attractive than it is now.
Talented people seek jobs that entrust them with important things.”
Ted Sizer, Horace’s Compromise
A new teacher especially needs
support, needs to believe that the administration and colleagues are there to
help him or her be successful. The issue
is as basic as this: Do you trust me? When you hired me didn’t you think I could be good at this? Or are these first two years all about
critiquing my flaws and making me question if I’m in the right career?
**
From
AV #74A (Jan. 2011)
Hiring
“I think hiring is the most important thing I do."
Chris
Gibbons, principal West Denver Prep charter school
If Colorado fails to implement SB 191 wisely,
I believe it will be one more roadblock to attracting bright, committed folks
to teach in public schools.
The new attention given to teacher
evaluation may put the cart before the horse.
Improving who enters the
profession will pay far more dividends down the road than how we evaluate that six or fifteen-year veteran. If we want people with the intellect, skills,
and values that will make a powerful difference for students for many years to
come, we need to expand—not tighten—the alternative licensure path, and we need
schools of education to undergo huge changes—or go out of business
**
(I wrote
of the “extensive application process” when I was hired at a good private
school in New York.)
Once hired, there
was a level of trust and respect
that told me: you’re one of us. Yes,
I was observed and evaluated. It was not
a job forever—I wasn’t vetted for a life-time job on the Supreme Court! But I never felt that the real “judgment
stage” had now begun.
Once SB 191 is in place, will teachers entering our public schools
be given this vote of confidence? Or
will it seem that the evaluation process is based on mistrust—we really aren’t
sure about you, we can’t assume we have hired well, so we now need to supervise
and micromanage in a way that –well, sorry if you find this demeaning, but this
is what the law demands!
**
Let’s not create a system that assumes we hire with considerable
indifference and then get serious
about measuring if we have good folks in our classrooms. We will not attract good new teachers to
public education if our first message is:
we do not trust you!
**
Let’s make sure
we don’t turn better teacher evaluation into unneeded exercises of
micromanagement based on mistrust. For if we do, we might drive a number of
today’s best young teachers away—and off to teach in private schools.
**
From AV
#84 (Nov. 2011)
As we begin to roll out SB 191, the
Educator Effectiveness Act—with its dubious faith in the power of teacher
evaluations by folks who are often anything but “instructional leaders,” and
see how Denver’s LEAP (Leading Effective Academic Progress) is piloted in over
120 DPS schools this year, I return to my warning of last year. Hearing two “evaluation” stories this
fall—both deeply troubling—makes me believe the point bears repeating, now with
greater urgency. A warning, then—perhaps
not about SB-191—but about unfair and even harsh ways some school leaders may
well “implement” the new law, unless we take great care.
**
From
AV #113 (May 2014)
I asked 22 questions related to SB 191, including these:
·
What impact is the new focus on increased
teacher evaluation having on the status of teaching?
·
Retention
- why teachers stay or leave: Is
the new focus on increased evaluation causing some teachers to leave the
profession? Any evidence to date? If so, why?
·
Has SB 191 become a factor in teachers not
taking jobs in low-performing schools and/ or with “low-achieving” students?
·
Does the greater time spent on teacher
evaluation make teachers feel more—or
less–trusted? Does it make them feel more–or less–professional?
·
Do teachers say it feels intrusive, a sign of
less trust in them as
professionals?
**
After this first “practice” year with
SB 191, are Colorado principals and other evaluators saying that the new
approach has indeed “raised the bar” for teachers to receive higher
ratings?
When will Colorado districts make the
information available as to what percentage are scoring at each of the
ratings—highly effective, effective, partially effective, and ineffective? When we see these results, will it really
look like progress from where we were in 2009?
[Feb 2018 UPDATE: See figures in Van Schoales’ Commentary for Education Week -Addendum A. “Less than 1 percent were deemed ineffective”]
**
From AV #153
(Oct. 2016) - Interview with a Colorado teacher who left teaching after three
years. [UPDATE: I am happy to report she is now teaching again, in Ohio, in a
high-performing charter
school.]
TEACHER EVALUATION
That does nothing. I did not grow
professionally by it. I thought that (teacher evaluation process) was the worst
joke. I don’t understand how this was
supposed to help me.
My evaluation went like this: I’m
sitting at a desk – my principal has her back to me as she types answers on the
evaluation check sheet—she’s asking what I do and she takes 30-40 minutes to
fill it out. That’s it! It’s just
paperwork. (The principal, she said, acknowledged how little value this had for
her as well.)
My
rating was fine. And yes, the principal observed my classes, but it’s not like
I grew at all from it. She didn’t
evaluate me; she rated me. She does not have the time to really evaluate
and help us improve. (The principal was
often out of the building at meetings called by the district, she told me.)
I needed someone so badly to come in,
to be in my class …
The evaluation system was so
complicated. I didn’t even complete some of what they asked (“Show what you are doing to ….”). I would
rather spend 10 minutes looking at the data on my kids….
PH
– I explained some of the story behind SB 191 (The Educator Effectiveness Bill)
to her.
It’s not constructive. It was so frustrating (that) this is what
(my year of teaching) boils down to – a 30-minute session with the principal
(with her back to me) filling out a form!
**
Endnotes
[vi]
Reinventing America’s Schools- Creating a
21st Century Education System, by David Osborne, Bloomsbury, New
York, 2017, p. 250.
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