School districts across the country are considering important changes to how teachers are evaluated, a change that is going to lead to better teaching and learning. That's critical. U.S. students are doing mediocre at best on international tests. We can and must do better.
There is not a single school factor that has more of an effect on student learning than teacher quality. It's more important than shrinking class sizes or building state-of-the-art science labs. Sure, those are nice. But having a highly effective teacher is essential.
So how do we get there? When I was chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools from 2007 until late last year, we put a robust teacher evaluation system in place. However, before we got started, we came up with clear expectations. For example, teachers had to show they could deliver content in an understandable way and differentiate their instruction to reach a diverse group of kids.
Once we raised awareness around what good teaching looked like, we tackled evaluations. It was a complete turnaround for the district. Like most, it had a weak system in which teachers were reviewed inconsistently and infrequently, leaving them without the feedback all professionals want and need.
A recent Aspen Institute report stated that the problem was crystallized when you looked at student achievement data showing less than half of students were proficient on district reading and math tests, while 95 percent of teachers either met or exceeded expectations. It doesn't take a numbers whiz to realize those figures don't add up. Teachers were getting passing grades even as their students were failing.
By the end of the first year using the new evaluation system, about 16 percent of teachers got the very highest rating, meaning they exceeded expectations. That was a drop from about 45 percent the year before, under the old system. Those top performers can now earn up to $25,000 in bonuses, and they can get raises if they receive the highest rating again in a consecutive year. At the other end of the spectrum, the new system makes it easier to remove the most ineffective teachers, something that was extremely difficult to do before.
For educators who teach subjects and grades tested under federal law, half of a teacher's evaluation is based on student achievement data. Critics say we shouldn't judge teachers based on how their students do on tests, but that doesn't make sense. It would be irresponsible to ignore student growth when we have the ability to measure it. Good teachers know this. They don't want to ignore the evidence either.
The rest of a teacher's evaluation is largely based on classroom observations. Teachers are evaluated five times a year by their peers and principals. A lot of input went into creating the new system. We held more than 150 focus group and feedback sessions and met with more than 1,500 teachers, principals and other school employees. We listened closely to what they had to say. To paraphrase a line from President Obama, we didn't do it to them. We did it with them.
The Aspen report described DCPS as a "frontrunner in redefining teaching standards and evaluation, long the Achilles' heel of public education." It also said other districts should learn from our experience and improve on it. I welcome that and hope very much that they succeed. Kids and teachers are depending on it.
Follow Michelle Rhee on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@m_rhee
'Value-added' teacher evaluations: L.A. Unified tackles a tough ...
The Answer Sheet - The best kind of teacher evaluation
NJEA argues teacher evaluation based on student test scores not ...
Evaluating teacher evaluations | School Zone | Chron.com - Houston ...
We Need to Standardize Teacher Evaluation Systems
Ed commissioner's plan for teacher evaluations gets it right
I suggest you keep an open mind and read "The Case Against Standardized Testing" and other studies that show how invalid standardized test are and how they should not be the only criteria for rating teachers. http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/staiv.htm
Furthermore, merit pay and teachers bonuses for higher test scores don't improve those scores.
http://www.tasb.org/services/hr_services/hrexchange/2010/Nov10/a_perf_pay_not_working.aspx
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/09/21/05pay_ep.h30.html?tkn=OQMFvFwEfovuCvDE1yLpIOU92COqqGCxl28b&cmp=clp-edweek
http://www.newser.com/story/101187/teachers-bonuses-dont-help-test-scores.html
Fudge those numbers. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/02/michelle-rhee-liar-who-just-keeps-on.html
Peace,
Tex Shelters
No-nothing.
Really? I was thinking that know-nothing administrators "no" everything that isn't test prep these days.
Sigh. Way to represent self.
Your logic is faulty. If 95% of students were getting A's from a teacher, but then most failed a standardized test, you'd surely blame the teacher. Depending on the validity of the test, you'd have a point. Yet, you're blaming the teacher's skills, not their student method of student assessment. Now if the same percentage of these teachers is meeting or exceeding expectations, then who's to blame for this? It's the principal, not the evaluation process. Simply changing the evaluation process is not the answer. Hiring principals with teaching experience, intelligence and the tenacity to challenge and marginalize poor teachers (an unfortunate need due to overprotective unions) is the answer.
Also, you say that teacher quality is the number one factor in a student's education. However, poor teachers will remain poor teachers when their total student load goes from 150 to 180, while the best teachers cannot maintain the same quality with those numbers. The Coalition of Essential Schools recommended 80 students per English teacher for optimum results. Obviously this is a pipe dream in this economic climate, but at more than double this recommendation, so is excellence in teaching.
Your combative and once-unique stance has brought you fame and notoriety. I'd have more faith in your ideas if they were more nuanced, as well.
If they are anything like the tests that are offered at the state level, the questions are so rife with distractors and mangled logic, I wonder if they give an accurate picture of a student's abilities to comprehend and analyse and synthesize information.
It's the students and their parents.
It has become less and less PC to put the onus back on the students, and that's where this problem, along with a change in society, stems.
It's easy to blame teachers. And easy, to a complex issue like this, is very rarely the solution.
I have also been a teacher in very disadvantaged areas with children who have learning disabilities and with emotionally disturbed kids from abusive homes. I worked just as hard, probably harder, and my scores did not compare to those that I have now. Does that mean I was not a good teacher and now I am? Put me back in some of the difficult situations and switch that teacher into my current position and then check out teacher performance. It is not an easy job to determine what makes a good teacher. We haven't even hit on the personal interaction skills that play such a role in encouraging students to be their best.
http://public-groups.nea.org/discussion/topic/show/307582
Some factors can be overcome by good teaching, but even the best teacher can only go so far. What the author and many of the other individuals so blithely commenting about this subject fail to realize is that unless our society is willing to sink far more resources into supporting all of our children, no matter what their background, teachers are doomed to eventually fail or burn out.
Teachers at my school have done an incredible job, but at the cost of devoting their entire lives to the job. Typically, they arrive at 7:00 and don't leave until after 5:00, some stay later. All take work home. My wife, children, and my own physical health, have all suffered in order for me to succeed at this job. I can't continue. Every year dozens of former students return to see me, but not next year. Continuing this job is too costly.
WORKABLE and RELIABLE evaluation system that triangulates data
acquired from teachers to make the results valid, using a
standardized test score, observations, AND student work, and
grades to paint a true portrait of student and teacher
performance."
find one pay for performance evaluation system in america that can do this. I know of none. the whole concept of pay for performance then ranking teachers based on tudent test performance is based on an average mentality of those teachers above average and those below average. even worst those even above average are told to improve and it gets worst, those bottom 5% are fired. your bottom 5% could be the best teachers in that school system.
pay for performance is based on a lack of understanding of variation and has the hidden agenda of taylorism and even the behaviorism of skinnerism, but yet we continue down this road. it is american to think we can buy our way out of everything even educating our kids.
my advice to teachers as these pay for performance reformers come to education is to learn to teach to the tests and if you dont you will be looking for another job soon. the industrial world has had to learn to cope with these pay for performance skinnerism's; now it is the teachers turn in the infamous ranking workers to fire barrel.
Actual research says the no 1 factor is socio-economic. When that is factored out, class size is the most important factor.
Your statement is blatantly false. You claim teacher effectiveness is the "number one factor" simply because you say so. How can you say there is no accurate way to judge teacher effectiveness (studies show test score grading is as accurate as a coin toss- 50/50), and yet claim the effectiveness (which we cannot measure) is the #1 factor? That is just silly. We have no way of measuring police "effectiveness", so we know it is the #1 factor in public safety. Let's pay the police in low crime areas more and fire the ones in high crime areas. Stupid idea, right? Yet some people will buy your research lacking claims as truth.
When my white daughter dragged her reluctant husband to her 20th High School Reunion, he could not believe the number of doctors, lawyers and other professionals in attendance. He thought he was going to spend the evening socializing with a ragtag bunch. It was the attitude of their teachers and Affirmative Action that opened a path for these people to become productive citizens. Then came Reagan and it was like the air going out of a balloon.
An interesting study was done during the 60s in the NYC public schools called the Pygmallion Study. Teachers were given the results of a phony test showing "late bloomers" who were really kids who tested the worst. By the end of the semester these kids actually were doing very well because of the teachers' belief that these kids could succeed. The test was quietly buried.