While California will no doubt dig its heels in, other states are admitting defeat:
Historically, many teacher and principal evaluation systems have failed to yield meaningful, actionable data, leading most states (as well as school districts) to reform their educator evaluation systems over the past decade. These reforms, including increasing the number of possible ratings teachers and principals could earn, supplementing the measures on which educators are evaluated, and increasing the frequency and impact of evaluations, were all designed to make evaluation systems more accurately reflect individual educators' strengths and weaknesses. They also aimed to better distinguish the full range of educator talent...Read the whole thing.
Additionally, most historical teacher evaluation systems relied exclusively on subjective data, primarily based on principal observations of their teachers. In 2009, only 15 states required objective measures of student growth in teacher evaluations; by 2015 this number increased nearly threefold to 43 states.
However, as swiftly as states moved to make these changes, many of them have made a hasty retreat.
One of the many reasons I decided to retire two years early was the draconian system used for teacher evaluation in my district. Not content to address subject knowledge, application of standards and updating of information, the district (one of the few districts trying to throw off state testing) also mandated that we must create programs to interact with the community and support "worthy causes". So last year we ended up with all these contrived "for the good of (fill in the blank)" activities that ended up being a huge time suck. Add to that the online (of course it was online) form designed by our insulated IT team, was so difficult to navigate that even administrators didn't understand how to reach specific sections. An example would be, that in order to submit a project f'sor considering, the applicant needed to click on a phrase. Nowhere on the site did it tell you what the phrase was nor was it highlighted or underlined as most links would be. It became a huge joke, or would have been, except some administrators were using this as a brickbat to remove or force transfer teachers who didn't agree with them.
ReplyDeleteI know I am a good teacher. The admin knows I am a good teacher. I am being evaluated this year for the first time since the first Obama administration. I met with my AP a couple days ago and she said she wants to get the easy ones (like me) done by December so she can handle the tougher ones in the Spring. The problem with objective data is I teach History. There is no California state or district test for it and why should I be evaluated on how the English/Math teachers did?
ReplyDeletePlus I have all Gifted students. If you base it on growth, there wouldn't be that much improvement. If you base it on raw score, my scores would look great.
Finally a good administration knows who the good and bad teachers are on the campus. My admin comes into my classroom occasionally; I don't care because I am constantly being observed because I have student teachers almost every year and the admin always send new teachers to see my classroom management skills.
@David I was teaching AP Art History, a class for which there are no state tests nor are there any other teachers presenting the class. My AP would compare me to the band director. I have no idea how marching drills relate to painting or studying ancient architecture.
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