Teacher effectiveness ratings seem to be slow-tracked in Charlotte, but Nashville is about to become the third large district to release ratings for individual teachers. The Tennessean reports that each teacher's evaluation on a five-point scale will be made public this summer, following the lead of media-initiated releases in Los Angeles and New York City (read one New Yorker's account of being labeled a bad teacher here.)
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has set aside the new tests and value-added ratings that created so much controversy last spring. Local teachers continue to study the best ways to gauge effectiveness, but the state's Race to the Top program is now taking the lead on evaluations based on student data. Students around the state will pilot a new survey this spring that could eventually be part of that standard, along with test-score gains.
In January, North Carolina released aggregate job-evaluation results for principals in each district and teachers at each school. Chief Academic Officer Rebecca Garland said last week there are no plans to post evaluation results for individuals. When and how the new evaluations might be linked to pay remains unclear.
Meanwhile, CMS interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh and school board Chairman Ericka Ellis-Stewart are scheduled to update the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee about local performance-pay and teacher evaluation efforts on Tuesday.
Officials from Project LIFT, the philanthropic school-reform group working with CMS, are also on the agenda. LIFT is looking at some kind of performance pay or bonuses in its nine schools for 2013-14. For the coming year, top teachers in those schools are being offered retention bonuses based on job evaluations and test-score gains if they'll commit to staying through 2012-13.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Latest twists in teacher ratings
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21 comments:
I hope CMS continues with the smart decision of not publicizing teacher evaluation results.
Bill Gates got it right in his op-ed a few weeks back: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/opinion/for-teachers-shame-is-no-solution.html?_r=1
CMS is working its way through an 8 year process of switching from pay-for-days-on-the-job to pay for performance.
What's next? Who knows, but my guess is that the left-leaning BOE soon brings in a new superintendent who says that this pay for performance thing is going way too fast. Look for the new super to conclude we need to slow down PFP implementation.
The problem we face is that we have so many people in our county whose family income depends on PFP never seeing the light of day. Jeff, I suspect you're one of them?
As in many parts of the country, the people with a vested interest in the status quo are more politically organized than those who want change. The latest BOE election showed this to be true.
Anonymous 5:17p - nothing wrong with PfP if it's done properly, my wife's teaching included.
PfP based on student test scores and other poorly-designed VAM measures, however, is absolutely wrong and should never see the light of day.
This is why TEP is faring somewhat better than PfP, as teachers actually have a say.
It will be years, if not decades, before anyone devices a foolproof, effective and informative tool that gauges teacher effectiveness (and it won't involve a standardized test, I can state that with conviction).
When they do, then let's talk about publishing teacher results.
In the meantime, check out this article which shows that the margin of error for some NYC teacher ratings was 30 percentile points!
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/05/24darlinghammond_ep.h31.html?tkn=YWWFF11Lv7Z2uyCoHOXjHA0O1f25UHS2AQjG&cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1
Jeff, you landed in the spam filter for a bit. I'm going to guess that "check out this article" followed by a link is a big trigger.
5:17, I hope your last 2 statements were not meant to portray the same thought. I and many others want to pay better/great teachers more for their performance. However, everything that has been thrown out there is not the way to do it. I do not know what it is yet. I know what it isn't. So with that, I am happy to stick with the existing system. I just wish the legilature would finish getting a century old state government and budget unwound so we can take it apart and kick out the useless pieces. I think it is a high priority to pay good teachers better. However, how do you create a statewide system that a principal in Asheville fairly rates a teacher compared to a principal in Manteo?
Clearly as WC has commented a number of times, the state curriculum is what is supposed to be tested. However as we have seen from some of the early state tests, elementary students are taking tests on subjects with terms they have never heard of.
The column Ann refers to from the NY teacher is dead on mostly. When he came to school as a teeenager, he was not into learning. He had not gone to bed on time. He had not come to school prepared for the lesson. Yet he is now making sense of what his high school teacher was attempting to teach him back then. The teacher planted the seed. I fear teachers are so caught up in this performance testing, they can not help but to miss those opportunities.
Jeff Wise refered to the column Bill Gates wrote. Bill finally gets it after seeing how a school uses a principal and a fellow teacher trained in observation analysis. The teachers are having as much satisfaction in improving/learning their craft at school that it is infectious to the rest of the teachers and the students.
I do not know what the next superintendent brings. I wonder at times if we could make a case so strong to the legislature that CMS and this poisonous mindset (that Gorman started) can only be fixed by flushing CMS and turning this into a county of charter schools like New Orleans has done. Those students are making great strides.
As long as the public school system satisfies the business community by graduating students who can talk, communicate, relate to customers, write and read simple directions, I think they will be most happy. That is not what they have been getting over the years.
More of the New York VAM madness: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/nyregion/in-brooklyn-hard-working-teachers-sabotaged-when-student-test-scores-slip.html?_r=1&src=rechp
Pay for Performance is as dead as Bin Laden, end of story. This state seems to think that it can nickel and dime its way up to 1st class. This state along with many others have attempted to define what good teaching is but as of yet have not designed an evaluation system that even comes close to getting it right. To be honest, I don't know if such a system even exists. What you all are going to discover is that we, as taxpayers, are going to spend millions on this worthless sytem only to come running back to the old system. All the while North Carolina is losing good teachers as a horrendous rate, and seemingly doesn't care! You people who live a lily white world are too scared to say what needs to be said, "The schools that need to be reformed are inner-city and rural schools with high povery levers!" Ardrey Kell, Providence and Hough have scores that easily compare with other schools of similar size around the world. It's not the teacher, it's the system that the teacher works in. Imagine being a soldier and being given a substandard rifle, low grade ammunition, and poor equipment and being told by incompetent generals that you need to win the war. I don't think anyone would expect victory, except maybe the ammunition suppliers and war profiteers "education consultants and testing companies"
NO DATA!
NO PEACE!
Follow the Money
No data?
No piece...
Of the money.
Who gets paid for the loss of performance from the summative tests? NC is spending almost 5 million on testing ACT juniors on Tuesday. This will eliminate DPI's expenditure on testing. Who in CMS had the vision and foresight to keep spending millions on testing? The ACT being used by NC was in the Charlotte Observer over a year ago.
By the time CMS gets the ridiculous data measurements of PfP or TEP or whatever the next acronym will be, the last train and bus of highly qualified teachers will have left the station to greener pastures.
9:40pm, Mandating that NC teachers give the ACT at their own high school is a conflict of interest.
First, the folks at ACT get to keep the money they normally pay test administrators. Second, a high school teacher is expected to administrate a test for an outside agency that will directly determine how the teacher's school and how the teacher him/herself will be evaluated.
How long do you think it will take before a teacher gets in trouble with his administration/central office because he or she followed the ACT's guidelines and dismissed a student from the test for misbehavior, thus harming the teacher, school, and district's scores?
Ann,
From a cursory scan of the data provided, and I can read it very well and know what each standard is, there is no way at all that the administration at some of the schools doing the observations have a clue as to how to use the instrument correctly. For example, Olympic Resonance shows huge numbers of teachers there being Proficient, that's like an "A++" grade while there are teachers at other schools like Clear Creek and its neighbors that have no, zero, none at Proficient. Trust me when I say you have to be super human almost to get proficient the way that CMS has it set up.
So these numbers are bogus because of the ineptitude of a few who skew the process and of course CMS who feels that there are no proficient teachers because that would meant that they would have to pay them more.
Correction of above posting:
Ann,
From a cursory scan of the data provided, and I can read it very well and know what each standard is, there is no way at all that the administration at some of the schools doing the observations have a clue as to how to use the instrument correctly. For example, Olympic Resonance shows huge numbers of teachers there being DISTINGUISHED, that's like an "A++" grade while there are teachers at other schools like Clear Creek and its neighbors that have no, zero, none at DISTINGUISHED. Trust me when I say you have to be super human almost to get DISTINGUISHED the way that CMS has it set up.
So these numbers are bogus because of the ineptitude of a few who skew the process and of course CMS who feels that there are no DISTINGUISHED teachers because that would meant that they would have to pay them more.
I think you mean distinguished.
Best thing about the ACT this morning is I don't have to be at school til 10am. Best night's sleep I've had in a long time.
8:07--You state that "You people who live a lily white world are too scared to say what needs to be said "The schools that need to be reformed are inner-city and rural schools with high povery levers!"
And why would the "lily white world"( which, if you're referring to suburban areas, is becoming more diverse every day) be scared to make this observation?--because there is a long history of bashing as racist anyone making such an observation.
All should take a look at an article in the NY Times today titled "Black Students Face More Discipline, Data Suggests". Article states that the Justice Department is examining disparities in disciplinary action rates for blacks as opposed to that of whites in public schools, apparently without taking into account actual behavioral issues that lead to the disciplinary issues to begin with. Nor does it talk about urban culture, teen parents, single parents, etc. as possible causes for higher discipline problems. So the Attorney General seems to be saying school discipline is racist--and you wonder why the "lily whites" of all colors are afraid to speak up (and are leaving public schools in droves).
PFP or what ever lilly name you want to give it if they dont have the money to pay the few teachers they have left the program cannot work. CMS has a incredible EXODUS of teachers now going to other schools to teach. SOme of our best as they see no light at the end of the tunnel. They are underpaid and under appreciated by the downtown folks so I cannot blame them. The quality of teaching is being downgraded and CMS could care less this makes no sense at all ! Who is Jef Wise another Bolyn ? His wife is not a teacher she is a band instructor. Band is not a educational subject we are trying to get these kids to add numbers not blow trumpets !
"Black Students Face More Discipline, Data Suggests"
Gee, what a shocker. This is not news, hasn't been for a long.
Of course, black males are discipline problems.
This is nothing new to our schools or society in general.
Just look at our jail and prison population and you will see the same thing.
Of course there is "white flight" due to this, just as there has always been since the 1960's when we were commanded to mix with each other.
This is a no-brainer situation for anyone who wants to avoid problems.
As I always say, just leave them behind. You'll be much better off.
Because you sure cannot "fix" them.
The problem with the Dept of Education is that they want to make juvenile delinquency the new norm.
They do this to avoid "disparate impact" of actual discipline on some minorities they see as needing protection.
It is nothing less than a perversion of civilized culture.
And something more civilized people will do their best to avoid.
It seems to me that activists and US government are (and long have been) demanding middle class results without requiring middle class behavior.
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