Loading ...
As a former teacher, principal and assistant superintendent, I know very well that educators can tend to have their own language that makes non-educators’ eyes glaze over. Differentiated instruction, common core, instructional rounds, etc. could all describe a range of activities that have nothing to do with teaching or learning.
Translating the education-ease for a public audience can be a tricky endeavor. We want the public to understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of the strategy or intervention, but we don’t want to oversimplify the work. Unfortunately, the term ‘educator evaluation’ suffers from an oversimplification. Whether or not the oversimplification is justified in many cases, it is important that we begin to redefine the term.
The term ‘evaluation’ often brings up images of an inspection or other high-pressure situations in which there is a black and white decision made: yes or no, thumbs up or thumbs down, raise or no raise, continuation of employment or lay-off. When the evaluation is put in the context of teaching, the assumption is made that teachers are being graded as good or bad. Evaluation can and should be something a lot more than a grade or ranking.
Chalkboard sees evaluation as an important tool for school districts because good feedback supports good practice. All educators want to be successful in their classrooms, but they are often on their own when it comes to identifying new strategies for engaging students or planning lessons that meet a wide range of learning needs. Educators who have been in the classroom for ten or fifteen years and are seen as “good teachers” may go years without having anyone visit their classroom or having an opportunity to talk through an issue that is relevant to their work with their students. Meaningful evaluation should be part of a system that gives all educators the chance to reflect on their practice and have the benefit of relevant feedback.
The districts we are working with through the CLASS Project and the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant are beginning to implement comprehensive systems that prioritize personalized feedback to all educators, specialists and administrators included. They find this work valuable as a formative process that benefits teachers and students. As Bill Gates recently wrote in an op-ed in which he opposed the public shaming of educators, “Developing a systematic way to help teachers get better is the most powerful idea in education today. The surest way to weaken it is to twist it into a capricious exercise in public shaming. Let’s focus on creating a personnel system that truly helps teachers improve.”
Additionally in the CLASS and TIF districts, through professional conversation, educators receive the support and tools to act on meaningful feedback. As opposed to a one-day seminar where every educator in the district receives the same training, educators are receiving individualized opportunities to improve their work in the classroom or school building.
It will take a lot of work to ensure that all educators in the state of Oregon are receiving evaluations that help them improve their practice. But as we continue to advocate for effective evaluation systems, that is exactly the goal we are striving toward. Our hope is that the districts that are out in front developing meaningful systems will redefine the work. Educator evaluation should bring up images of respected professionals having important conversation about the complex work of educating students. These images may not be as dramatic as the inspection model or the ranking of teachers, but what will be dramatic is the sustained growth for both teachers and students.
Kate, the problem I have with the way Chalkboard looks at evaluation is twofold. One they seem to believe in the idea you can in some way evaluate teachers by using student test scores in some manner. This is completely bogus. The second is that in the third year the CLASS Project moves to using the supposed “just to help” teacher evaluations as tools to sort the good from the bad. I think this is two-faced and creates an atmosphere of mistrust. Don’t need it. And you certainly don’t need it if they are going to support the use of inaccurate measures particularly.
There is a third problem also. This project spends money on adults when Chalkboard should be supporting spending money on programs which “directly” affect kids.
Hi Steve-
Could you clarify your second issue about the third year of CLASS? I’m not sure where you are getting the impression that CLASS districts are sorting \the good from the bad.\
-Aimee
Aimee, I am sorry I can’t find the actual statement about the third year. Tell me if I am off base. But I did find the following on the Chalkboard website which points at my comment.
Compensation is one component and should recognize and reward educators for their professional contributions and raising student achievement.
Student achievement scores are just one measure ….. to evaluate effectiveness. When you evaluate effectiveness there are teachers who are evaluated as effective and ones who are not. There are other measures to be used but the use of achievement scores has pretty much been discredited, so why is it there?
COMPENSATION
Desired Outcome
I am recognized and rewarded
for my professional
contributions.
(This is listed as the final step in the 5 year model.)
. New compensation models provide alternatives to seniority-based pay. Incentive grants and career-based pay are tied to new roles and responsibilities and, increasingly, to improved student achievement.\n
My statement was that CLASS uses the model to sort the good from the bad. Fine, but it doesn’t evidently do that at first. It talks about professionalism etc. but in the end the people who do well with student testing (albeit only a part of the evaluation) get rewarded. Good from the bad. Secondly, the VAM stuff evidently doesn’t work. Whoever came up with that model may want to rework it.
Steve,
I am asking. You seem to suggest the union model that all employees should receive the same compensation whether they are a “good” employee, or a “bad” employee. Do you see room for additional compensation for the effective employee? If so, how do you determine effectiveness? Is it a qualitative decision, or quantitative?
I’ll try to clarify some of the CLASS work:
Evaluations throughout the length of the CLASS grants and beyond are used to help educators continuously improve. It is true that not all educators will receive the same evaluation- all educators will likely have different areas of strength and challenge. As one would expect not all educators will be seen as “proficient” in every category of the evaluation rubric, but the reason to have relevant evaluation is to help everyone improve their practice.
Teachers in the CLASS districts are engaged in revising the evaluation systems because they want a system that is meaningful. In many of the old evaluation systems teacher either got what amounted to a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. The teachers in these districts are asking for a system that actually acknowledges their professional strengths and gives them clear feedback about areas of growth.
New compensation models in the CLASS and TIF districts are all different depending on what the district develops, but districts are looking for ways to recognize and reward professional contributions. That isn’t the last step, it is something that districts work on in coordination with the other components. But creating new compensation models does not change the fact that they are designing evaluation systems that support continuous improvement.
Also, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that only “people who do well with student testing get rewarded.” In Tillamook, they created a model in which teachers in their first five years received a small bonus for every proficient or distinguished they received on their evaluation rubric (not related to test scores). Those dollars were put into an account for the teacher until they reached their fifth year in the district. If they stayed in Tillamook, they received those funds. The district also had a deal with local banks to give the Tillamook teachers a better deal on home loans. Tillamook’s goal with the model was to keep their beginning teachers that they were investing time and training in.
While it is true that some teachers receive rewards and others do not, it isn’t fair to say that evaluation gets used to sort “the good from the bad.” It is used to help everyone improve.