A teacher grading system that seems to work for everyone
New Haven's teacher grading system is winning kudos. (AJC file)
If Georgia is looking for models for effective teacher evaluations, New Haven, Ct., may be the place to turn.
According to the New Haven Independent, the school district adopted a new teacher evaluation system last year that made it easier to fire tenured teachers who aren’t performing well.
The evaluation tool won the endorsement of the teachers’ union because it placed the greatest emphasis on helping low-performing teachers get better rather than on getting rid of them. The Independent reports:
As the threat of teacher firings loomed this fall, teachers union president Dave Cicarella waited to see if the grading system would be carried out fairly and whether it would affect tenured as well as non-tenured teachers. On Monday Cicarella announced the process had gone “smoothly” on both counts. “Teachers are much happier because everyone knows what’s expected of them,” Cicarella said.
The old grading system simply rated teachers as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and how the system was used varied from school to school. Now teachers sit down with supervisors to set the terms for their own evaluations. They get more feedback on how they’re doing.
The New Haven program is winning kudos, incuding this New York Times editorial praising the program:
Traditional teacher evaluations typically involve cursory observations by school administrators who visit the classroom once or twice — without taking student achievement into account. In most schools, even the least competent teachers receive positive evaluations. Struggling teachers never get the help they need to improve and are locked into place when they receive tenure.
The New Haven system rates teachers individually and gives them the specific help they need. To do that, it focuses on three areas. It considers growth in student learning, as measured by progress on state and local tests and attainment of academic goals. It examines the teacher’s instructional abilities, as measured by frequent observations by principals and other instructional managers. It rates teachers on professionalism, collegiality and whether they have high expectations for all students. Perhaps most important, the system gives teachers almost constant feedback, so that they are fully aware of where they stand and what they need to do to improve.
Of the 1,846 teachers rated, 75 were notified early in the 2010 school year that they were in danger of being terminated. Of those, 34 resigned or retired without contesting their final evaluations. Fifteen teachers, considered borderline cases, were given more time to improve and allowed to keep their jobs. The most hopeful sign is that nearly 40 percent of the teachers who got off to a poor start managed to improve, thanks to extra help. Some who started out as poor performers were rated as “strong” or “effective” by year’s end. This shows that good teaching can indeed be taught, and that with genuine effort school systems can upgrade the teacher corps in a fairly short period of time.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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69 comments Add your comment
Blame Barns
September 27th, 2011
5:09 am
Let the teacher bashing begin in 3….2…..1……
Cobb Teacher
September 27th, 2011
5:40 am
So Maureen NEVER hesitates to give us her opinion on anything remotely that bashes teachers (and usually it is an anti-teacher opinion) but here is a posting that is somewhat pro-teachers…and we hear NOTHING from her except to introduce the article. Typical Maureen.
Well, well, well
September 27th, 2011
5:54 am
How would that work in Clayton County, where many administrators are incompetent, and central office people have virtually no classroom experience? How are they qualified to evaluate? I just “love” when those I just mentioned criticize an experienced or competent teacher, and give them nonsensical critiques.
Peter Smagorinsky
September 27th, 2011
5:58 am
Typical Maureen–she’s providing us with information and ideas from across the spectrum plus an open forum in which to discuss them.
The New Haven system sounds better than most. I still think that making standardized test scores a major measure of teaching proficiency provides a dubious form of evaluation, but at least they’re including other factors that make sense.
philosopher
September 27th, 2011
6:37 am
I think Maureen’s opinion on this is pretty clear: “here is a teacher evaluation system that just might work”. Any chance that you just don’t like that opinion…or do you just have a problem with the whole idea of being evaluated at all?
justbrowsing
September 27th, 2011
6:47 am
I think that it COULD work if districts are willing to be honest about WHY a teacher may be low performing. Sometimes it is not even about performance.
Poor Boy from Alabama
September 27th, 2011
6:55 am
There’s no way to know how effective New Haven’s performance evaluations are. Many of the elements in their various evaluation frameworks are extremely subjective. Anybody with doubts about this should take a look at the tool for themselves:
http://www.nhps.net/sites/default/files/1__NHPS_TEVALDEV_Introduction_-_Aug_2010.pdf
Given the level of complexity and subjectivity associated with this tool, it will be a challenge to administer it fairly and consistently for each teacher. The fact that only about 2% (34/1,836) of New Haven’s teachers left the system because of performance suggests that either New Haven has a deep pool of outstanding teachers or the evaluation curve is generous.
Last, but not least, there’s no mention of how evaluations are used to determine compensation, promotional opportunities, tenure, school assignments, contract renewals, etc, An effective evaluation tool should lead to real consequences beyond keeping your job. Employees should feel that they will be rewarded for outstanding performance.
As with most performance evaluation systems, it will take several years before it’s clear whether the New Haven performance evaluation system “worked”.
catlady
September 27th, 2011
6:56 am
I’m under the impression that that is what we do here, minus test scores. I am visited by one or more administrators at least monthly, and frequently more (when they bring out of town visitors around). I get immediate feedback. Many of my peers are on PDPs for things large or small.
Judy
September 27th, 2011
7:03 am
As a former teacher and administrator… I love it… teachers have to be accountable!
BlahBlahBlah
September 27th, 2011
7:08 am
1,846 teachers. 75 poor performers. Less than 4%. I find it hard to believe 96% were doing a satisfactory job. That’s not realistic in any industry. Then again, I guess any bit of progress is good. Wasn’t it NYC who only fired about 10 teachers a year?
BlahBlahBlah
September 27th, 2011
7:11 am
oops, less than 5%. my bad.
MiltonMan
September 27th, 2011
7:18 am
Why are poor teachers hired to begin with??? Good Lord, it is pretty simple to get an education type of degree in college. Is that all that is required? Why are schools not going after math & science majors to teach those subjects in high school?
Glad I Am Retired Teacher
September 27th, 2011
7:18 am
I am amazed that there is one factor in this teacher evaluation system that hardly anyone mentions– the people doing the evaluating. I stayed in the classroom for 31 years. I did not WANT to be an administrator even though I had my Ed.S in Supervision. I witnessed some very poor teachers become administrators. Now, THESE are the folks who are doing the evaluations of the present teachers. What is wrong with this picture?? I never even received a single NI or U so I do not have “an axe to grind”, but the evaluations need to be done by more than one evaluator especially when a teacher is on the verge of being dismissed. The chances that the evaluator is not competent, or that there are personality conflicts involved are too great. I am 100% in favor of holding teachers accountable, but people in the “real world” do not understand what it is like in the trenches. Selah!
Glad I Am Retired Teacher
September 27th, 2011
7:23 am
@Milton Man. Most people who are math and/or science majors cannot/will not stay in the classroom once they get a taste of how difficult it is. I am not telling you this to excuse poor teaching, but rather I am telling you what those some people with those degrees have told me. I have worked with numerous folks who came from the “real business world” into the classroom and got right out of it b/c they couldn’t deal with the crap teachers have to put up with today.
long time educator
September 27th, 2011
7:24 am
Identifying the weak teachers in a building is not the hard part; documenting them is. Principals have many responsibilities, it would help to have a district “instructional manager” come in and help with the documentation process and make sure the PDP is well written and will document the weakness. It needs to be able to hold up in a hearing. In reality, no one has time to write a PDP unless the decision has been made to try to document a teacher out. Principals in Georgia need staff development and assistance in writing PDP’s that work.
seabeau
September 27th, 2011
7:26 am
Get the Federal and State Governments out of Education!! As both their input and control over local school boards increased ,our schools and teachers have suffered.
Ernest
September 27th, 2011
7:33 am
There are going to be good and bad points to any evaluation system. You need to let the evalution be a living instrument that is tweaked regularly to ensure consistency and fairness.
Two things I’d like to see is ’student growth’ as part of the evaluation and retired teachers are part of the evaluation team. As I mentioned earlier, if it is determined these don’t help with the evaluation, they can be eliminated for something better.
Mountain Man
September 27th, 2011
7:34 am
We used to have a student grading system, too. It was called “grades”. Now they don’t mean much because teachers (under pressure from parents) won’t give bad grades for fear of messing up a student’s HOPE scholarship. And when a teacher does give failing grades, it doesn’t mean anything because the student is never held back and forced to repeat a class. Ahh, longing for the good old days when they taught reading, writing, and arithmetic instead of “thinking”.
Mountain Man
September 27th, 2011
7:37 am
I think the key to APS’ problem is just to hire better teachers. They should only hire teachers from top universities who graduate with a minimum of Cum Laude (usually 3.5 GPA). Teachers whose life dreams are to work in the ghettoes of Atlanta and deal with students who don’t show up for class and bring guns to school. Good luck with that.
Mountain Man
September 27th, 2011
7:40 am
Milton Man – why are poor teachers hired to teach in APS – the good teachers go to private schools or at least to Cobb County or North Fulton Schools. Or they work briefly in teaching, find out what it is like, and switch fields into the private sector. Only the worst of the worst stay put and keep teaching in APS.
Ernest
September 27th, 2011
7:43 am
Milton Man, adding to what Glad I Am Retired Teacher posted, how do you know ANY interviewee will be a poor employee? If you know of a fool proof system that allows you to know at the time of the interview whether someone will be a poor employee, please share it.
In the business world and with the exception of executive level postions, I see many employees hired by internal references. The logic being an employee would not refer a ‘dud’ for a job because it could ultimately reflect poorly on the referring person if the new hire does not work out. It can also be cheaper to hire referrals and pay a referral fee after 6 months of active employment rather than going through an expensive search firm. Given the high turnover rate of teachers every year, teacher layoffs around the country and the number of graduates coming out of colleges, I would think it is a ‘buyers market’ for school systems in hiring teachers these days.
HR Recruiter
September 27th, 2011
7:44 am
APS Recruiter
Would the below person please apply to work with our special needs students:
An Athens elementary school aide accused of covering a kindergartner’s mouth with duct tape to keep the student quiet no longer works for the school district, an official told the AJC Monday.
We need your talent and not to worry, you’ll never get fired at APS…..only bonuses!
Former APS Teacher
September 27th, 2011
7:44 am
The problem is that all these evaluations are meaningless if the people conducting them aren’t themselves competent individuals who know what good teaching looks like, and are committed to good teaching, and not to promoting family members and friends. No teacher evaluation system is going to improve Atlanta schools because the evaluators themselves are incompetent and corrupt.
Jack
September 27th, 2011
7:53 am
I know some retired teachers that volunteered for ghetto duty and have regretted it ever since. It was an up-hill battle for them and they say they should have recd combat pay. A teacher can’t correct problems that begin in the home.
Inman Park Boy
September 27th, 2011
7:54 am
Student achievement is the key. Any teacher who would balk at that probably isn’t getting the job done.
Mark
September 27th, 2011
7:57 am
Enter your comments here
no win
September 27th, 2011
8:01 am
So, if you have less than 5% “poor” the system isn’t good enough. But, others wonder why “poor” teachers were hired to begin with. What’s wrong with “subjective” judgement – there is NO objective judgement. Test scores? Who decides what test to use? Who decides what problems are good enough to be on the test? Who decides what scores are good enough? Student achievement? How do you decide “achievement”? How much is a good enough achievement? Everything is subjective. That’s the reason we should use collect many data from different angles, and make (subjective) judgement based on data.
philosopher
September 27th, 2011
8:05 am
Welcome to the real world. Incompetent employees, incompetent managers, unfair evaluations, backstabbing colleagues that affect your evaluations, difficult customers that affect one’s abilities to work… but you are evaluated despite that…it’s LIFE. The evaluation process is never perfect but it needs to happen and teachers should be no exception.
Tad Jackson
September 27th, 2011
8:14 am
Later in the day I got an e-mail from my principal, Lurlene, about my recent announcement about how you’d get an automatic F if you forgot to bring in a writing utensil on the day of a test or quiz that I thought was a real super great idea that promoted responsibility under pressure.
Here’s her e-mail message …
Employee:
I would like for you to reconsider the policy you have for automatically giving a student an “F” on a test or quiz for forgetting to bring a writing utensil to class on the day of a test or quiz. That strikes me as outside our mission and too punitive. I think the smarter and less negative approach would be to reflect the lack of materials on their daily performance sheet, which is what it is for. I am uncomfortable with the idea of tying a grade to no pencil. Either just have a stack of pencils or let them return to their lockers. If you have someone who is a constant offender, then let’s deal with that person individually. Remember, if you, as an adult, needed a pencil, I would give you one without penalty. Please feel free to discuss this with me further until you see it my way.
Your Boss, Lurlene Brownlow, Principal, All Knowing and Always Right
I stared at the e-mail a long time. Then I blinked. Then I laughed. Then I felt swoonish.
Now, just three days of school are in the history books and I’m already wondering about the quirky academic motivations of certain kids, and the subtle, sneaky wittiness of my principled boss. She really does know how to write memorable performance reviews.
But at this early point in my rookie teaching career I honestly don’t feel like I’m in control of anything yet, except turning the classroom lights off.
Before I run out.
http://www.adixiediary.com
Mark
September 27th, 2011
8:15 am
This is a very complex issue but I feel the one glitch in our educational system is not in the classroom but everything outside the classroom. My observation is many/most of those this article says should do the evaluating have found a way to escape the classroom or never have been there. Way too much discussion on how to create another overly complex and administrative burdened system to rate a teacher and not get to all the cancer outside the classsroom. Fix those areas and the evaluation issue will be easy.
carlosgvv
September 27th, 2011
8:31 am
The New Haven system looks like a good, efficient way to grade and improve our teachers. Unfortunately, Georgia’s teacher problems are a witches’ brew of race and politics so don’t look for any improvement here.
Jennifer
September 27th, 2011
8:34 am
Gee – not so different than what goes on in good corporations every year. The only problem is that it will take a good deal of time to employ these techniques. But hey, – admins should spend more time doing HR evaluations on teachers as opposed to sending kids off to alternative schools for stupid and age typical behavior. Maybe we will even see an improvement in classroom management skills. Good God – a win – win – win. Unheard of in Georgia’s schools.
November 6, 2012
September 27th, 2011
8:58 am
Maureen, once again you’re “beating a dead horse to death”. This will never work and when all is said and done, evaluations will be made on what is “Politically Correct”, how well connected the teacher is and whether the teacher is a member of a teacher’s union. Brick and mortar public schools will be mostly dead in ten years, except for the truly exceptional ones and the privates. Online teaching/learning will then be the rule, not the exception.
Hmmmm....
September 27th, 2011
9:01 am
I wonder how that system would work in the APS…….knowing how honest and dignified those administrators are/were…
Another Math Teacher
September 27th, 2011
9:12 am
MiltonMan:
“Why are schools not going after math & science majors to teach those subjects in high school?”
Not only do they not go after these majors (most schools,) many teachers with education degrees tend to look down on teachers with real degrees. “Oh, your degree is in Math? They allow you to teach when you aren’t qualified?”
As for leaving the public high school setting…horrible administrators. Imagine Office Space, but in a high school. I had 1 principal, 4 A.P.s, 1 department head, 2 administrative assistants, 1 central office subject (Math,) advisor, and 1 central office administrator all telling me what I needed to do and how to do it. Many times they disagreed with each other and directly told me to ignore what another was saying. Lots of Pointy Haired Bosses where I was.
As for evaluation systems, the best I’ve seen is a good principal that knew what was going on in the building and got rid of bad teachers. The system of having multiple administrators doing evaluations would work if you had a school full of competent admins. I’ve heard of such places but have not seen it myself.
Fericita
September 27th, 2011
9:19 am
From the article: ‘In most schools, even the least competent teachers receive positive evaluations.”
So how do we know the teachers are bad if their evaluations are positive? Sounds to me like this is a problem with the evaluators, not those being evaluated. Instead of sending teachers to pointless professional development on topics like The Computer and How to Use It, we should send the evaluators to professional development on How to Evaluate By Doing More Than A Ten Minute Observation and Judging a Teacher Based on Bulletin Boards.
da bear
September 27th, 2011
9:25 am
As a teacher preparing to retire, I think this system can work. It evaluates teachers, gives them solid info on how to improve, and the time to do so. If they do not do so after that, they NEED to go.
teacher&mom
September 27th, 2011
9:28 am
@Maureen: Perhaps you should look into the Class Keys and compare it to the New Haven evaluation instrument.
mystery poster
September 27th, 2011
9:37 am
One important point that no one has mentioned:
New Haven teachers have a union. This means that if they feel they have been evaluated unfairly, there is a grievance procedure in place for them to go through. As was mentioned by others, evaluations can often be colored by personality conflicts or other subjective criteria.
Former APS Teacher
September 27th, 2011
9:58 am
There is so much discussion of late regarding teacher quality, teacher evaluation, etc., but little to no conversation about the quality of those people who evaluate teachers. And yet, it is a well known and accepted fact among educators that the least competent teachers are typically (though not always) the ones promoted to administration. I think it is fair to inquire into administrative quality & evaluation. It is nearly impossible to teach well in a poorly run school. Weak administration results in student behavioral problems, poor communication, chaos, lack of home-school communication, etc. When will we start talking about the kind of environment our good teachers needs to use their skills and professional knowledge to the fullest?
Former APS Teacher
September 27th, 2011
9:59 am
*need, not needs
William Casey
September 27th, 2011
10:03 am
@ GLAD I AM A RETIRED TEACHER: Your experience and observations almost exactly match mine. Well said.
The New Haven plan seems to be a step in the right direction. Teacher evaluation should be conducted as follows:
1. It should be done by individuals with more than ten years experience in teaching the specific subject.
2. It should be done by people outside the schools. Trained retirees would work well as evaluaters.
3. It should be based on at least ten observations.
4. It should include close examination of the teacher’s plans and materials.
simple answer
September 27th, 2011
10:16 am
Simple Answer to the posters who compare corporate world to education world: the difference is that in the corporate world you are dealing with ADULTS
Question
September 27th, 2011
10:19 am
How are we going to pay for all the extra administrators in order to do this? Our school has 1 principal, 1 Asst principal and about 75 teachers and 1000 students. That is a lot of observing and meeting on top of everything else.
simple answer
September 27th, 2011
10:22 am
Adults can get fired for poor performance. In the education world we are dealing with children. I can not control what happens in a child’s home before and after school. I can’t fire them if they don’t perform. I can’t give them (or their parents) a poor evaluation if they don’t eat breakfast, go to bed on time, do their homework, etc. In the corporate world you can fire your employees for poor performance. How can I fire my students for poor performance? I can’t. And yet, THEIR performance reflects on me. It’s like a lawyer having a guilty client (and knowing it) and yet they must defend them. I have a school full of ‘guilty clients’ that I am trying to defend (teach) and yet I know it’s impossible. I have children fall asleep in my class, curse at me, interrupt constantly and perform at 0%. No matter what I do almost 50% of my kids won’t graduate from high school. And that’s MY fault? I think not. You simply can not tie test scores to teacher’s evaluations UNLESS every teacher is teaching students who come from good, supportive homes where the parents are involved. It’s really not rocket science – give me a good ‘client’ and we will perform. Give me a ‘bad’ client and I’ll still do my best – but sometimes my best isn’t even close to what these kids need to succeed in life.
teacher&mom
September 27th, 2011
11:10 am
Teacher quality is important but teacher retention is also critical….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44505094/ns/today-education_nation/
Lee
September 27th, 2011
11:17 am
Any teacher evaluation tool will be incomplete if it does not include feedback from parents. Businesses do it all the time – ever hear of customer surveys?
Likewise, teachers should be able to provide feedback regarding their administrators.
AlreadySheared
September 27th, 2011
11:28 am
@MiltonMan – what everyone else has told you.
If schools want to “go after” math and science majors, they had better bring a net. Comparatively easy (relative to, say, English teachers) for these folks to find non-education jobs that are easier than teaching, take less time, and pay more money. “Half” (as hard) and “double” (the money) are words that come to mind.
William Casey
September 27th, 2011
11:41 am
I agree with Lee that feedback from parents is important. I would add feedback from students as well.
Beverly Fraud
September 27th, 2011
12:00 pm
“Typical Maureen–she’s providing us with information and ideas from across the spectrum plus an open forum in which to discuss them.”
Sorry Peter, much as you like to shill for Maureen, the other posters have a point.
This is the same Maureen who after all said discipline is not a “pressing issue” in the schools and cases of retaliation against teachers are infrequent they are really worth discussing.
And of course, completely and totally advocated for Beverly Hall, even going so far as to say, long after the cheating scandal was exposed that Beverly Hall should remain in place, to provide “stability” for the system.