By Caitlin Hollister and Shakera Walker
Any teacher will tell you that teaching requires a balance of creative problem-solving and dogged determination. To be effective, we must work continually to improve our craft, both in the early years and throughout our careers. And we need support to do that. As a new teacher, one of us struggled with two boys whose emotional troubles were interfering with their academic progress. A more experienced colleague regularly observed the class and provided expert advice on how to push the boys to succeed while giving them the gentle support that made school a happier place for them. This thoughtful peer-to-peer advice had a huge impact; as a result, both boys finished the year proud to have mastered third grade. In the years since, like many teachers, neither of us has been evaluated much at all.
The experience of having little to no feedback is a common one for teachers. Last year in Massachusetts, when state policymakers collected educator feedback, only 13 percent of teachers said their last evaluation was very useful, and a full third said it was not useful at all. Research shows that the quality of the classroom teacher is the most important in-school factor in student success. With only 63 percent of Boston students graduating from high school on time, we must do better.
But how? Across the country, the question of how best to evaluate teachers -- and how to use evaluations effectively -- continues to cause stirring debates among teachers and policymakers. In December, the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, released a report calling for a teacher evaluation system that includes self-assessment, peer review, and evidence of student learning. In fact, both national teachers unions -- the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers -- now agree that robust, multi-faceted teacher evaluation systems, including some evidence of student learning, are necessary to provide teachers with the tools we need to best do our jobs. In the last two years, the number of states requiring annual evaluations of teachers has grown from 15 to 24, plus the District of Columbia, with 23 states requiring the use of objective student data in those evaluations.
Here in Massachusetts, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education passed a new plan for teacher evaluation last spring. This plan is unique among other states' in that the process begins with a self-evaluation, a component that we as teachers believe is hugely important. Furthermore, the plan doesn't mandate a specific percentage on the student data component, allowing districts to be more flexible and creative in determining which measures are most appropriate for different subjects and grade levels.
It's our hope that as this new plan rolls out over the next three years, it will change evaluations from primarily pro forma tasks to deep examinations of data and practice. As two experienced educators who hold ourselves to the highest standards (Ms. Hollister was named a Boston Public Schools Educator of the Year; Ms. Walker was selected for the U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellowship), we believe that what matters most now is how districts implement the new system of evaluation, and how they use the information gathered. If done right, this plan could open the door to the kind of valuable teacher evaluation that could help to provide all students with the outstanding educators they deserve, and offer a model for other teacher evaluation systems nationwide. With these outcomes in mind, we have three recommendations that will make this plan, and others like it across the country, successful:
Help the good become great: As districts implement this new system, we encourage leaders to ensure that the emphasis is placed not on the small percentage of teachers who are underperforming, but on the large majority who are good ... and who can become outstanding with the right support.
Revamp professional development: Tens of millions of dollars are spent on professional development in Massachusetts and other states each year. Yet the current model of workshop-style professional development hasn't shown dramatic results. Redesigning this time would help schools implement meaningful evaluations and give teachers the time to reflect and de-brief observations with evaluators and fellow teachers.
Develop peer evaluators: Principals can't do this job alone; they simply have too many responsibilities to provide the kind of intensive coaching that will be necessary to support teachers effectively. And as we learned early in our teaching careers, sometimes the most useful feedback comes from more experienced colleagues. Peer Assistance and Review programs -- in which experienced educators are trained to evaluate and coach fellow teachers through collaborations between unions and districts -- have been successful in cities across the country. We urge districts to pilot such programs in order to give more extensive support to teachers who need it and make the system doable for already-busy principals.
We understand that there is considerable concern around how standardized test scores will be used in teacher evaluations, and how those test scores will impact layoff procedures. Many teachers question a standardized test's ability to capture their teaching practice accurately and fully, and how outside factors that impact student learning will be quantified. But it isn't enough to say that teaching is an art that cannot be measured. Teachers have to come to the table -- and policymakers have to listen -- in an effort to develop the best possible solutions to the teacher evaluation challenge.
As two of the teachers who served on the Massachusetts task force that helped design the new evaluation system, we were proud that teacher voices were included in every step in this process. We know that making a change this significant will be hard, and it won't be perfect right away. But if districts engage teachers in the process, they will find teachers ready and willing to develop a system that could transform teaching nationwide. Stronger evaluation systems can help teachers -- and consequently our students -- thrive. Nothing could be more important.
Caitlin Hollister and Shakera Walker are former Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellows. Ms. Hollister teaches third grade in the Boston Public Schools. Ms. Walker is a Boston Public Schools teacher currently serving as a Teaching Ambassador Fellow in the U.S. Department of Education. The views in this piece are her own, and are not meant to represent any position of the U.S. Department of Education.
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Above all, this is written with the sentiment that no matter what the evaluation model looks like, it is crucial that teachers join the conversation. After all, we are the ones living the daily reality of public schools, and it is our vantage points that are needed in this debate.
In the good old day teachers got tenure after three years unless they did something outrageous, or didn't show up for work.
They then were guaranteed a small to medium raise every year. Plus if the took more education courses, they got a secondary raise.
There was never, any serious evaluation of any teacher. Incompetency was not a bar to continued employment and raises.
Then it was noticed that American children could not read, do simple math, or write simple sentences, let alone graduate high school.
The idea of evaluating schools and teachers arose!
The idea of evaluating productivity and value in the educational system created great terror, and horrible consternation to those who had "been in the trenches" for twenty years.
Two things are happening.
T eachers are resistied any accountability whatsoever. They organized cheating parties to avoid evaluation.
Being liberals, they will be careful to use nothing more than blaming "non-English speakers" and minorities for the failure of the American educational system.
Since it is a fact nothing whatsoever in the way of honest and fair evaluation is acceptable to teachers, this creates a perfect stand-off. The "reasearchers" and bureaucrats will keep getting their paychecks, and teachers will keep doing whatever they have done in the past.
Now, it also opens the way for teachers to be more creative in changing test scores.
T eachers are resistied any accountabi lity whatsoever . They organized cheating parties to avoid evaluation .
Part I
No cheating? Apparently you don't read the Education Section of the Huffington Post.
Use the Huffington Post Search box.
I used Google.
It took .44 seconds to come up with 1,830,000 hits for "teacher cheating". Now mind you, most of them were about Atlanta.
For additional "data", read the comments on HuffPost from teachers defending the cheating. It is their position the cheating is necessary for a "level playing field".
There are full throated defenses of cheating all over the Huffington Post.
Mind you, one has to have sympathy for teachers absolutely resisting accountability. And the solidarity that teachers show to the "least of them".
If a proper, fair and complete evaluation system were implemented, it would have three effects.
1. It would be a fair way of assigning promotions, some even to "leadership roles" and increased salaries to the best teachers.
2. It might eliminate the "usual and customary" raise given to teachers for surviving another year in the classroom, with no arson reports.
3. It would result in the termination of truly incompetent teachers.
Of course the remotest possibiity of a teacher falling in #3 is absolutely unacceptable to the sisterhood of teachers. It got Michelle Rhee fired.
Many teachers are not sure they would not fit into catagory #3. They also know that after a few years their academic skills have atrophied considerably, and that they were never acquired any real salable skills, except, perhaps keeping the classroom from exploding.
Consider the position of a 45 year old teacher, who has chronic illnesses, has learned to hate her existence, and has no desire to work eight hours a day, eleven and a half months a year. Who would even want to hire her.
All teacher must rally around the BIG LIE to protect their sisters.
Oh, is my analysis cynical, indeed it is.
But the data I am working from is the fact that all occupations, outside of government, for which people are paid compensation, are subject to accountability either from customers/clients, bosses, professional associations or government regulations.
Fatima Rich - Indianapolis, IN
(Teach Plus Fellow and Ed Champ)
The Education of Diane Ravitch http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/diane-ravitch?page=2
Forging ahead with nutty teacher evaluation plan http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/forging-ahead-with-nutty-teacher-evaluation-plan/2011/12/29/gIQAkMiYQP_blog.html?wprss=answer-sheet
NCLB 2.0 and the New Feuderalism http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/10/nclb-20-and-new-feuderalism.html
When Bribes Don't Buy Buy-In, New York Ed Commish Tries the Extortion Route http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/12/when-bribes-dont-buy-buy-in-new-york-ed.html
Has anybody really thought about these things? I mean, this article is lauding the fact that more states are requiring annual evaluations, even of teachers that everyone agrees are doing their jobs well. Without additional funding for administrators, this means there's less time for evaluating the teachers who actually DO need feedback. And yet everyone seems to go on applauding the misallocation of resources. Nobody considers the fact that, if you've got the same number of people (or fewer, given budget cuts) doing three times as many evaluations, something's got to give.
But we'll just keep on claiming that we're fixing things, as we go on making them worse.