Teacher evaluations will be different for everyone in the coming school year. Not only are the evaluators looking for different teaching characteristics than before, but they will also be asking for evidence that may not be observed. Assuming the District waiver days are approved by the state we will have a professional day to learn the evaluation/observation procedures. If you want a leg up on that follow this link showing the rubric.
The more controversial part has to do with having 50% of our evaluation based on Student Growth Measures (SGM). This area is a real struggle since we know there is much that is out of our control. Teachers who teach in a value added area where there is a test will have student scores directly tied to their evaluation. Another aspect of Student Growth Measures is something you have probably heard about called a Student Learning Objective (SLO).
The Appraisal Review Committee (ARC) has spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to determine the most reasonable weighting of the different parts of the 50% of each teacher’s evaluation based on Student Growth Measures. We believe we need a transition year to learn how this is supposed to work. The fact is that we only have a handful of teachers trained in writing SLOs and no one trained in how to approve or give feedback to them. We also need to align the District’s use of vendor tests that SLOs would be based upon to be most useful to teachers. Probably most importantly, the direction given by the state around how to use growth measures has been difficult to comprehend and ever-changing. For all these and other reasons, we believe the best course of action is to make the SGM as simple as possible for this next year.
So, here is how SGMs will work for 2013-14 enabling us to have a transition/learning year. We decided to maximize what is called a “shared attribution” district-wide for as many teachers as possible. This shared attribution will be the rating we, as a district, get on the state report card later this summer. For many teachers this rating will be applied completely for the SGM on their evaluation. For teachers in grade 4-8 math or reading, it will count of 24% of the 50% of their evaluation (26% being for the value added measure from the state tests). For 3rd grade and high school classes the TerraNova or Quality Core tests will count for 10% and the shared attribution will be 40% of the 50% of their evaluation.
What about SLOs? Using shared attribution means that we get to practice using SLOs for a year before they become part of our evaluations showing student growth. This will allow us to build capacity as a district in writing, reviewing, and understanding SLOs relieving the pressure of having to build that particular airplane while flying it.
How will this affect evaluations? The state of Ohio has four different categories for teachers based on the two halves of the evaluation: Accomplished, Skilled (changed from Proficient), Developing, and Ineffective. This decision will make it so that our teachers for 2013-14, during this learning year, will probably all be either Skilled or Developing.
“But I wanna be Accomplished!” If you read through the rubric it is assumed that only a very small percentage of teachers will be able to reach the “accomplished” label. The system is really not set up for people to reach the highest label (or the lowest label). In addition, since our new contract only differentiates between “ineffective” and everyone else for the purposes of reduction in force it really does not make an employment difference if you are labeled Accomplished versus Developing.
Teachers are accustomed to being high achievers, so ARC’s decision might rub you the wrong way. I do not put a lot of stock in state ratings either good or bad. I hope that you realize that the way the state has set this up ensures teachers will look mediocre at best. The use of SGMs is not logical or reasonable. It is meant to make teachers, especially ones who choose to teach in urban or areas with high poverty, look bad. It has always been about politics, getting and maintaining campaign donors, weakening unions, and diverting our tax dollars to corporations instead of our students. Who benefits from making us jump through all these hoops and still look bad? Testing companies, charter school operators, charter school suppliers, and much more – follow the money. We might like to believe that playing this game of over-testing and following rules that change every week to be “accountable” will allow us to prove our worth, but it is just not so. Perhaps this system could be changed to actually show something important about teaching and learning, but that is not its purpose. In the meantime, I believe ARC is making the right decision to help us focus on more important issues for the upcoming year.
To make these changes easier to understand, ARC is developing a manual that we hope will answer your questions. You will be given a copy of your manual sometime during the first few days of school.
In Union,
Ari Klein
CHTU President