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Hello Dr. Fisher and fellow classmates. I have never used Padlet before, so I hope I am doing this correctly. I am an 8th grade Language Arts teacher in Westfield. I have been teaching for 17 years, and I am getting my supervisor's certification, so I can become a department supervisor in the future. I have three children ages 4, 8, and 10. My husband is a vice principal in the South Bronx. In my free time, I like to read, jog, and cook. I am looking forward to meeting all of you on Thursday.

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Hello Everyone! My name is Josephine El-Raheb. This is my seventh year of teaching. I am a 3rd grade Math and Science teacher in South Bound Brook School District. It is my first year in South Bound Brook and I am enjoying it very much. I taught 4th and 5th grade Literacy in Plainfield School District for six years. I am working towards receiving my degree and certification in Supervisor/Principal so that I can become a Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction and eventually be a principal. When I have free time, I enjoy hikes, bike riding, and traveling.

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Hi, I'm Robin and I'm a Middle School Science teacher Franklin Township (Somerset). This is my 7th year teaching, mostly 8th grade Earth Science, but currently 6th grade Physical Science. I have been to multiple PD's for NGSS and I am fascinated with the new standards and the ways to teach them. My Science supervisor recently retired, but he was a great role model and encouraged me to advance my career to a leadership role. Since I've been writing curriculum for three years now, I'm interested in courses to make sure I'm doing it right since I was never actually taught how to do it.

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Hello all! My name is Lisa Ashraf. I am currently pursuing a certification in Supervision. My educational background is in psychology and counseling. I graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University with my undergraduate degree in Psychology and Caldwell College with my master's degree in Counseling Education with a specialization in School Counseling. I am currently a School Counselor on the middle school level. I have been counseling for approximately five years now and I enjoy it very much. Middle school students are going through a lot of changes, emotionally, physically and socially. This is a 'strange' time for them as they are just leaving elementary school, yet we are now preparing them for high school. As a school counselor, I am able to help students navigate this special time in their lives.

In regards to my family life, I am a new mom and it is the most amazing experience! My son, David, is a sweetheart! My husband, who is also David, is going to be a great help in taking care of the baby as I spend some evenings in class with all of you!

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Hello, everyone!  My name is Shannon, and I am a 4th grade teacher in South Plainfield.  This course will complete my supervisor certificate, but I am looking forward to rounding out my leadership studies here at Kean with the principal certification and MA in Educational Administration.  Twelve years ago I finished my MA in Instruction and Curriculum (also from Kean), but knew that was not going to be the end of my graduate studies... I enjoy being in the classroom, as a teacher and a student, for personal and professional gains- I love learning!!  Since coming back to school, I have found that my classroom instruction has been exponentially enhanced- I love hearing what colleagues in other districts "do" as educators and what their best practices are; like a true teacher, I replicate some of those ideas as my own! :)  I am looking forward to sharing some of my experiences from along the way, but I am more excited to learn from you all.
If I am not at work or in class, you will most likely find me on some softball field, watching my two daughters play ball... if I am not at those locations, I am with a good book and do not wish to be found!

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Hello everyone. My name is Adam Pizzi and I have been a social studies educator for the past 13 years at Westfield High School. I have also served as the school's instructional technology coach for the past 4 years. I am a Google Certified Educator and have a masters degree in Instructional Media. I believe that technology can help facilitate better learning outcomes, but in the end it's all about sound teaching practices and building respect and rapport with your students. Further, I do not believe in a one size fits all approach to teaching. I believe the best teachers are great on their feet, design purposeful projects and lesson, and have a passion for their content area. I look forward to meeting all of you.

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Teacher evaluations-both their role and the mechanics of carrying them out-are a politically fraught subject, and the Every Student Succeeds Act has kicked the dust up once again as states wrestle with how to comply with teacher-quality sections of the new law.

ESSA, which goes into effect this fall, does away with the "highly qualified teacher" mandates under its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act. It also bans the U.S. secretary of education from dictating the ways in which states grade their teachers, a sore spot under the NCLB law.

At the same time, ESSA requires states to provide a single definition of "ineffective teachers" in the plans they submit to the federal government and then describe how they will ensure that poor and minority students aren't being taught by a disproportionate number of them.

This shift in policy has reignited battles over who should stand in front of America's classrooms, whether state or local leaders should make those decisions, and what information about teachers' performance should be reported.

Civil rights advocates and teacher accountability hawks have expressed deep frustration with how some states ignored this portion of the law in the 17 plans submitted so far. They are pushing the Education Department to get tough as those plans undergo peer review before the education secretary rules on them.

"We are disappointed at the extent to which some states have taken the opportunity, with the absence of strong regulations, to really include a very minimal amount of information about what they're doing to close equity gaps," said Elizabeth Ross, the managing director of state policy for the National Council on Teacher Quality, or NCTQ, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. "From our read, some states failed to provide even the most minimal definitions, statutory terms, and data. No state is getting this perfect across the board. "

State education officials, meanwhile, say they struggle to collect teacher quality information from districts, many of which have different evaluation systems. Many states are navigating a myriad of privacy laws that can make collecting and analyzing teacher quality information challenging.

Further complicating things, district administrators, union officials, and state politicians often disagree over what indicators, including test scores, should be considered when deciding a teacher is ineffective. Navigating these political and technical hurdles is difficult for state departments, said Holly Boffy, the program director of teacher and leader development for the Council of Chief State School Officers.

"I believe, if we're successful, we're going to see incredible improvement for our kids that ESSA is intended to serve," Boffy said, referring to defining and tracking ineffective teachers. "I'm excited about this push in the law because it influences the way we think about how we support teachers."

Early Signs

About a third of the states have submitted their ESSA plans so far, and their approaches in this area vary widely.

Oregon and the District of Columbia did not explicitly define ineffective teachers, saying they will do so at a later date.

Michael J. Kirst, the chairman of California's state board of education, said that the state will likely punt the decision to the legislature.

Connecticut, which has a clear definition of ineffective teachers, said it does not track where those educators work since state law prohibits that information from being made available to the public.

North Dakota will calculate how much ineffective teaching occurs in schools, rather than how many ineffective teachers work at a school.

Vermont will name every teacher who has a teacher certification as effective.

In North Dakota and Vermont, the majority of schools are so tiny that merely identifying schools with ineffective teachers would place names and faces on teachers who need help, which amounts to public shaming, department officials in those states say.

"We don't have the ability to look at the individual context and determine whether teachers are doing the best of their ability based on what's going on in that classroom," said Patrick Halladay, Vermont's ESSA project manager.

And during the reporting process of this story, after questions from Education Week and NCTQ, Michigan officials realized they erroneously left that part out of their submitted plan. They revised and resubmitted the plan to the department.

Clash of Views

Teacher union officials in some states say ESSA contradicts itself by both banning federal meddling in teacher evaluations and asking states to define what an ineffective teacher is-essentially forcing the state to determine who does and doesn't belong in the classroom.

"When I think back to a good teacher, the thing that might have made the biggest difference, I look back and say, 'Can you really have measured that?' " said Ray Rossomando, the research and policy development specialist at the Connecticut Education Association. "Therein lies the difficulty. What's beneficial is a reliance on observations and what's grown to be rich conversations between supervisors and teachers."

Civil rights activists, however, say the data collection piece is what will make ESSA effective in closing the nation's stubborn achievement gap.

They say that by knowing and tracking where ineffective teachers are clustered, state agencies and local districts can more specifically tailor federal resources to schools most in need, and the public can more closely hold their school board members accountable.

"You can't plausibly say you're going to close gaps without addressing fundamental, longstanding allocation of resources and, principal among those things is great teaching," said Liz King, the senior policy analyst and director of education policy of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Role of Data

In 2015, most states with waivers from the NCLB law held high-profile, sometimes-raucous meetings with teachers' unions over how to comply with the federal requirement to include standardized test scores in teacher evaluations.

States also in recent years have begun collecting statewide data on things such as teacher experience, how long teachers stay at schools and where they attended college. These are clues states can use to help come up with a single definition for an "ineffective teacher," said Brennan McMahon Parton, the associate director of state policy and advocacy for the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that works with state policymakers to improve data collection and use.

"No state is starting from scratch, and that's why we were so disappointed to see that some didn't even include the minimal amount of information in their plans," Ross said.

In several submitted plans, state officials, in sometimes very plain language, say that what makes for an ineffective teacher is still an unsettled debate. (By contrast, there's wide consensus in policy circles on what qualifies as an out-of-field and inexperienced teacher.)

Among those that have yet to submit a definition, the reasons vary.

The District of Columbia, for example, says in its submitted plan that the state doesn't want to intrude on the autonomy of its many charter school operators. More than 40 percent of the city's students attend more than 118 charter schools. District officials didn't respond to several requests for an interview.

Oregon will hold a series of statewide meetings this summer to figure out how to define an ineffective teacher in a state where the evaluation models vary widely among the 213 districts, and where the state legislature has voted to remove the use of test scores in teacher evaluations.

"I think, somewhere along the lines, we kind of messed it all up," said Timothy Boyd, the state department's director of the office of teaching, learning, and assessment. "We've created a bit of high-stakes scenario where [teachers] have to pass the evaluation rather than being reflective on what they need to work on and how do we give them the right tools to get better."

Published in Print: May 31, 2017, as States Struggle to Define 'Ineffective Teachers'
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States Struggle to Define 'Ineffective Teachers' Under ESSA

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Teacher evaluations-both their role and the mechanics of carrying them out-are a politically fraught subject, and the Every Student Succeeds Act has kicked the dust up once again as states wrestle with how to comply with teacher-quality sections of the new law.

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https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ESSA_Summary_011416.jpg

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https://principalsmonth.org/igx_temp/essa/ESSA_Overview.pdf

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While the U.S. child poverty rate is higher today than ever before, its impact is compounded by education policies that fail to address poverty-related impediments to teaching and learning. At a recent panel discussion held at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and sponsored by the organization, Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA), panelists called for policy reforms to address the impact of poverty on schools, students, families, and neighborhoods.

The Broader, Bolder Approach campaign originally launched in 2008 to call attention to the root causes of inequity in education. As the core of BBA's policy agenda - early childhood education, support for health care and nutrition, after school and summer enrichment programs - has become more prominent in the national debate, the organization relaunched its mission this month to help draw even more attention to these important initiatives.

"Policy members are now addressing in-school and out-of-school barriers to success," said Elaine Weiss, BBA's national coordinator.

Now that Congress has replaced the disastrous test-driven No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law with the promise of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state and district policy agendas can now more effectively mitigate poverty's impact.

"ESSA claws back some of the most problematic federal accountability requirements, and it emphasizes the need for social and emotional, as well as traditional academic, measures of student success," Weiss said. "It also sets aside new money for investments in quality pre-kindergarten and for wraparound supports that help provide disadvantaged students equal opportunities to learn."

"This is the perfect time to work with states," said Helen Ladd, a professor of public policy at Duke University. "ESSA presents new opportunities for states to set up their own accountability systems in moving forward... Disadvantage matters. It affects the ability of children to learn.""

Before passage of ESSA in 2015, Ladd said "there was no way schools alone could succeed and help children flourish as long as we had this narrow focus on test scores."

Panelist Paul Reville, a Harvard University professor and former Massachusetts Secretary of Education, said a primary goal in Massachusetts during his tenure as secretary was to tackle poverty-related barriers to teaching and learning while ensuring all children had opportunities to learn and build the foundations for healthy, productive lives.

"Our motto was, 'all means all,'" said Reville. "This is an audacious goal. We had the right strategies but insufficient funds to get things done."

When talk turned to educational equity, panelists stressed the need for comprehensive school reform which incorporates academics with school safety measures, curricula that encourages teachers to operate creatively, policies that promote safe local housing, particularly when involving children under age 5.

"Some people who care for our children are living in poverty themselves," said Miriam Calderon, director of special projects for Washington-based BUILD. "We know that relationships with adults matter in those early years."

Calderon said learning begins before kindergarten and that it would take a 50-state strategy to build a birth-to-5 system that aligns quality services for those children.

"Interventions for young children and parents are working, she said. "But we don't have a combined early-learning system, but rather a patchwork of systems."

Joshua Starr, former superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland and current CEO of Phi Delta Kappa International, called for aligning agencies at all levels of government to help meet the needs of students and schools.

"Connectedness and engagement between different elements of the system is vital," said Starr, who posed a series of questions.

"Who are the kids most vulnerable," he asked. "What caused them to be dysfunctional? And what can we do on a day to day basis to help?"

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ESSA Puts Equity Front + Center - My School My Voice

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While the U.S. child poverty rate is higher today than ever before, its impact is compounded by education policies that fail to address poverty-related impediments to teaching and learning. At a recent panel discussion held at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and sponsored by the organization, Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA), panelists called for...

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Evidence for ESSA - Find Evidence-Based PK-12 Programs

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Your new standard for the most up-to-date and reliable information on programs that meet ESSA evidence standards.
Learn More About ESSA

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For information and guidance about obtaining evidence or if you have a study you would like us to review, please contact us at EvidenceforESSA@jhu.edu.

Who We Are

This web site was created by the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with a distinguished Technical Work Group.

Partner Organizations

Evidence for ESSA works with membership organizations representing leaders of America's states, districts, schools and classrooms, and professionals involved in education policy.

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This web site was created by the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with a distinguished Technical Work Group.

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https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/essa/essatransitionfaqs11817.pdf

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