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1. Annotation and Voice Over of This Week's Research:

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1. Annotation and Voice Over of This Week's Research:

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Make sure you view this short summary of the research before moving into the recap, it is necessary for the following recap to make sense!

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Teacher's do not typically reflect their effectiveness in improving student performance:

Teachers vary markedly in their effectiveness in helping students learn

Teachers are the most important school-based determinant of student learning as measured by standardized tests

Differences in teacher effectiveness have important consequences for students:

Repeated assignment to a stronger teacher seems to have a cumulative positive effect

The way in which teachers are currently rewarded bears little relation to their effectiveness in raising students' tested achievement

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Somewhere along the years, that notion was built into the staff's morale.

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Somewhere along the years, that notion was built into the staff's morale.

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When teachers don't take standardized testing seriously, there is no consequence for the teacher...But there is consequences for the students, the district, and the town.

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Study Finds Teacher Evaluations Inaccurate

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Study Finds Teacher Evaluations Inaccurate

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How does this impact our systems?
- On the job evaluations, typically based on formal observation in teachers' classrooms, have failed to reflect the variation in teachers' ability to raise student achievement.
- Many districts have more than 99% of teachers receiving satisfactory ratings, with fewer than 1% unsatisfactory. 94% of teachers recieved the top two available ratings (if you use Danielson that would be "Excellent" and "Proficient").
- Only about 1.5% of teachers are reported incompetent, despite believing that about 5% were ineffective.
- Philanthropists have contributed to the move toward evaluating teachers for their performance. Thus creating a mindset that data and scores do matter.

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How would this effect teachers?
- In my district, and commonly Unit 5, during a typical evaluation year (or during all of the years before tenure) we have: 2 SLOs, 2 formal observations (with pre-conference and post-conference forms), 2 informal observations (surprise!), and we also use artifacts.
- RANDs study found that multi-measure systems improve the accuracy and stability of teachers evaluations, while also reducing the likelihood that teachers will engage in excessive test preparation or other forms of test-focused instruction.
- This brings us to Popham's stress on the 4 T's: Teaching to the Test.

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How do we prevent teachers from TTTT if we are evaluating them WITH the test?

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How do we prevent teachers from TTTT if we are evaluating them WITH the test?

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Let's take a look at 3 schools that currently use student achievement- based teacher evaluation:

Denver, CO:

"The program stood out in the education world for its unique mission to pay teachers based on their performance rather than just the typical seniority and educational level system." (From this recent article on Denver's current state with their ProComp system)

Denver adopted a system that "linked incentives in four categories:" knowledge and skills (including incentives for PD), comprehensive professional evaluation (principal evaluations), market incentives (area-based), and student growth. Sounds familiar, right?

Fellow educator Phil Gonring chimed into their system by saying, “It’s criminal what we pay teachers in this country,” Gonring said. “I was a teacher in DPS a long time ago … and I’ve gone on to make a ton of money through my career now in comparison, but I never worked so hard in my life than when I was a teacher, and I will never have the impact on the world more than I did when I was a high school teacher. We need to pay these folks more, but on the other hand … we can’t pay everybody the same amount of money just because they’re a year older or get a degree. There has to be something in there that is about meeting organizational objectives. That’s what ProComp was about.”

A satisfactory rating also earns a bonus of $376 to $1,127.

Teachers who meet goals they set under the state achievement tests, receive a 1% salary bonus

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Hillsborough County Public School District

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Hillsborough County Public School District

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Their Teacher Evaluation Handbook

They have been performing "pay-for-performance" initiatives since 2006

Florida's Special Teachers Are Rewarded (STAR plan) has principal evaluations and students' standardized test performance are equally weighted in teacher evaluations

Merit Award Program (MAP) has 40% principal evaluation and 60% students' standardized test performance

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Is it much different than where we are now?

- I'm a part of a 4th grade teacher group on Facebook with 16.2 thousand members all over the nation (and international), and the consensus from conversation there is that since the incentives are based on district goals, the norm is based on district results, and the monetary value is motivating; they don't have complaints on this evaluation system.
- The research study found some non-negotiable policy recommendations for districts thinking of adopting this evaluation system that seem reasonable.

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Full report with annotations for your viewing pleasure!

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Full report with annotations for your viewing pleasure!