In two-year Race to the Top update, feds express serious concerns with Georgia’s lack of progress on teacher evaluations
Troubling news for Georgia today after the U.S. Education Department issued a progress report citing grave concerns about the state’s Race to the Top progress. Here is a link to the newly released 17-page report.
What has the U.S. DOE concerned is Georgia’s struggles with introducing and implementing a new teacher evaluation, a central piece of the state’s $400 million Race to the Top grant.
In a press call Thursday, the US DOE said that while most Race to the Top recipients were progressing satisfactorily, they were concerned with the stumbles in Georgia, the District of Columbia and Maryland.
“Race to the Top has sparked dramatic changes, and in only the second year of the program we’re seeing those results reach the classroom,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “Most states have made tremendous strides and met aggressive timelines on work that has the potential to transform public education for years to come. Comprehensive education reform isn’t easy, and a few states have faced major challenges in implementing their plans. As we reach the halfway point, we need to see every state show results.”
The fed’s focus on Georgia’s stumbles is not a surprise. In July, U.S. Department of Education officials said the $33 million in Georgia’s grant dedicated to the new evaluations is ”at high risk.”
Federal officials feared that Georgia has strayed too far from its original plans to create a teacher/leader evaluation system with four key components: classroom observations, student growth, a reduction in the student achievement gap and student surveys. They also worry that the state is proposing changes before it finds out how well the proposed new evaluations worked. They were tried out in 26 school districts from January to May of last year.
Here is an excerpt from the report:
Georgia experienced significant challenges related to implementation of its educator evaluation system in Year 2 of its Race to the Top grant. The Department is concerned about the overall strategic planning, evaluation, and project management for that system, which include decisions regarding the quality of the tools and measures used during the educator evaluation pilot and the scalability of the supports the State offered to participating LEAs.
For example, during Year 2, the State piloted the educator evaluation system in a portion of schools in its participating LEAs, but did not complete the statistical analyses to determine the degree of correlation between the key components of the system—i.e., student growth percentiles, student surveys, observation protocols—in time to inform the design and roll-out of the evaluation system in subsequent years as originally planned. As a result of these concerns, the Department placed the
educator evaluation projects in the Great Teachers and Leaders section of Georgia’s Race to the Top plan on high-risk status.
Across its Race to the Top plan, Georgia has faced difficulty developing and implementing a comprehensive communications plan that illustrates how all of its Race to the Top projects are complementary and cohesive. In addition, strategic planning across Race to the Top projects was a challenge for the State and affected participating LEAs’ ability to implement key components of the State’s plan, including CCGPS and the educator evaluation system.Further, Georgia must revise its processes for monitoring and assessing the quality of implementation of Race to the Top projects at both the State and LEA levels. The State must amend its Race to the Top Scope of Work to reflect these challenges and their implications. Georgia also experienced delays in implementation among its Race to the Top projects. For example, Georgia released its benchmark assessment request for proposals (RFP) roughly nine months later than planned because it was determining how best to approach the project without duplicating the work of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). As a result, Georgia was several months behind in securing a contract to complete the work for the benchmark assessments. The State was also delayed in the implementation of several STEM activities by over one year.
The second annual report on the recipients of $4 billion in competitive grants under the Obama administration’s signature education redesign program reveals that the majority of winners are struggling in two areas: implementing teacher- and principal-evaluation systems, and building and upgrading sophisticated data systems that will do everything from inform classroom lessons to identify students at risk of academic failure.
And Education Department officials say they are most worried about three recipients for which second-year performance took a nose dive: the District of Columbia, Georgia, and Maryland.
Georgia and Maryland have both struggled with implementing their teacher-evaluation systems, while the District of Columbia’s sluggish pace on school turnarounds means it has only worked with one persistently low-achieving school with its grant funds so far.
“This is really hard work, and there will always be bumps in the road,” said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a call with reporters.
Georgia and the District of Columbia are perhaps in the biggest trouble right now, as department officials say they are encouraged with the new state leadership in Maryland.
Part of Georgia’s $400 million Race to the Top grant is on “high-risk status”—an official designation that can lead to losing grant funding—for weaknesses in implementing its teacher-evaluation system. Their second-year performance, in particular, concerned the department.
For their part, Georgia officials said they’re working to straighten things out with federal officials. State education department spokesman Jon Rogers said Georgia has made “quality progress” in four of the five conditions federal officials placed on its grant—which included things like improving the overall management of the teacher-evaluation system. The final condition, which is using feedback and data to improve Georgia’s educator-evaluation systems, will come after teacher and leader evaluations are done this school year, Mr. Rogers said.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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150 comments Add your comment
Private Citizen
February 1st, 2013
11:54 am
One walkthrough this semester got me dinged on a standard that, sure, in the 10 minutes the AP was in the classroom, I wasn’t doing,
Evaluations are used like the teacher is the enemy, used for “gotcha.” It is very disheartening. The whole management culture is completely dishonest and they’re paid double what the teacher is paid, and the teacher has to do extra since there is a complete lack of teaching materials in many subject areas. Having some disconnected disembodied subtly dishonest non-teacher act as your boss and evaluate you is just the supreme buzz kill. Teachers are supposed to be smart. Often, the evaluator is following a formula and is not as smart as the teacher, yet is being paid double the teacher’s pay rate. It is just the supreme buzzkill, like putting Tide detergent in a bong and smoking it. REALLY HARSH.
Yep, I’ll never forget when Mr. Strike a Pose Big Shot who is so moved to make conceptual advice then goes and misspells the content materials on my super-formal evaluation. I mean, F. all of this! WTF?! They’re all in it for the MONEY. I’m not. And that right there is a huge thing because those admin. are all buzzin’ on the “playah” wavelength. Go visit a casino and you’ll find more honest people than career admin with their $100k salaries.
Google "NEA" and "donations"
February 1st, 2013
11:59 am
Meaningless paperwork is part of the price traditional public school teachers pay—for the near-total exclusion of market forces in K-12 education.
beanster
February 1st, 2013
12:04 pm
“I could really care less whether”
Ahem. So you care somewhat about the administrator’s impression of your teaching ability and now you care slightly less than before? Or, you don’t care at all and it’s not possible for you care any less than you do.
You folks are the teachers. Get it right. You could NOT care less.
AS
February 1st, 2013
12:08 pm
All of these programs are great, but when budgets are cut and class sizes increase none of these program work as they were not designed for 30+ students in a class room. Let’s work to reduce class size and maybe some of these programs will actually work. All they are doing right now are frustrating teachers and making them feel worthless.
mountain man
February 1st, 2013
12:09 pm
“I think coaches should take that same tactic. “the score doesn’t matter, I should just be evaluated on how well I know the sport, and how good I am at talking to the players”……”
Oh, so you know Coach Richt, do you.
We don’t pay Coach Rich $60,000 a year, we pay him $3 million a year and he can’t win a SEC championship unless his players play well. So if we evaluated him on his players performance, then he should be fired.
beanster
February 1st, 2013
12:10 pm
Also, Principal Skinner. ALOT is not a word.
Private Citizen
February 1st, 2013
12:13 pm
PS I’m generalising a great deal. “The whole management culture…” That’s not correct, I am just venting some, but I think state-wide their is much inconsitency. I think the formula methods tend to run off good administrators, too. Teachers become dependent on working for a good principal who will protect them from the outside world. When the good principal is gone, who knows what will happen. It is unfortunate that having a workable work environment is so dependent on the personal chemistry a teacher must have with a principal. There is so little autonomy for teachers to do there thing and then go home and have their own life. Surviving in a school can be like having join a cult. Maybe it pays a little more than signing up with the Hari-Krishna, and you don’t have to wear orange and sell flowers at the airport, but it doesn’t a whole lot more in my experience! (not as former Hari Krishna, just seen them in action hari hari, rama rama).
PS There used to be a lot of hari krishna in Atlanta. I think they’ve toned it down some, or been run off or something.
Private Citizen
February 1st, 2013
12:14 pm
beanster, ha ha ha. You’re killin’ me.
mountain man
February 1st, 2013
12:15 pm
“Baffling how anyone would think that a teacher is not responsible for a students actual performance”
So, DC, here is your assignment. I am going to give you a classroom full if inner-city students. Half of these kids will miss more than a month of instruction time. You are not allowed to give them failing grades for any days they missed or do anything about their attendance. You constantly have to interrupt your teaching to call down the discipline problems in the back of the room who are enjoying disrupting your class. yuou send them to the office, who sends them right back and tells you they are your responsibility. You are not allowed to spank them or keep them after school.
These kids will take an EOCT. If they fail, you will lose your job.
Good luck.
joke
February 1st, 2013
12:18 pm
The whole evaluation system is a joke as is our President who put the crap in.
Private Citizen
February 1st, 2013
12:21 pm
their / there / they’re. yah yah yah
dclark
February 1st, 2013
12:23 pm
The federal department of education should take its multi-billion dollar budget and divide it equally among all classroom teachers for two years then go out of business completely. “Arbitrary, mandatory and counter-productive” describes most programs they push, race to the top, TKE’S SLO’S etc. Give the teachers the money – they are doing the work !
Principal Skinner
February 1st, 2013
12:24 pm
beanster,
You missed my doouble “ii.”
Sorry but your self-appointed position as, Blog Grammerian has been eliminated due to your lack of attention to detail.
-Sincerely,
Everyone
dc
February 1st, 2013
12:28 pm
so mountain man, let’s just close all urban schools. why pay teachers, if they have no chance of making a difference. And re Richt, yes, he gets evaluated on results regularly.
Oh, and coaches of “non-athlete” schools shouldn’t ever be measured on the game score…since they are working with zero talent and have no chance. Yeah, that makes sense.
mountain man
February 1st, 2013
12:33 pm
“Oh, and coaches of “non-athlete” schools shouldn’t ever be measured on the game score…since they are working with zero talent and have no chance.”
They aren’t. Otherwise, all of the bottom 50% would be firing their coaches every year.
MoFaux
February 1st, 2013
12:37 pm
My wife’s a private teacher and she gets evaluated by a VERY experienced level coordinator who spends a lot time meeting and observing her classes, giving her feedback weekly. At the end of the year, her raise (a measly 1.5-2%) is a combination of the coordinator’s review, her own self-review, the director’s own opinion (definitely more involved than a principal is) and maybe a student survey (can’t remember for sure on the latter). Why can’t we employ this very simple idea into our public school system, to have experienced coordinators that actually know what is going on in the class rooms and have them do that actual reviewing, if principals and vice principals are too busy? Most of us workers have supervisors that do our reviews and teachers should be no different. Fire the bad ones, promote the good ones. I don’t understand why this stuff is so hard to implement.
beanster
February 1st, 2013
12:38 pm
Make fun of it as much as you want. I don’t consider typos to be bad grammar usage. If our educators cannot and are not doing it correctly, how on earth can we expect it of our students?
S
February 1st, 2013
12:42 pm
Ignorance is bliss in this state. Wait until all these private (charter) schools start sucking all that Government money from the public schools.. Can you say race to the bottom, oops, were already on the bottom, well almost, thank goodness for Mississippi. Republican run state Governments, aren’t they just special…NOT!
living in an outdated ed system
February 1st, 2013
12:46 pm
This is VERY disconcerting. I can tell you that my feeling is that Georgia’s “structural” deficiencies are a big part of the problem. Why do we have an elected State School Superintendent? It should be appointed by the Governor. Because of this, we have dual departments – GOSA and the DoE that are not aligned on agenda and strategy.
The same goes for urban school districts, where the Superintendent should be appointed by the Mayor, like in DC and NYC. Again, we need to amend our constitution whose flaws are exposed for the world to see…..
It would be shameful if we lost part of the RT3 grant due to something that was controllable.
Mitch
February 1st, 2013
12:49 pm
I have serious concerns with the Feds of just about everything so that should make us even.
gdfo
February 1st, 2013
12:51 pm
Dekalb County School Board needs to read this article.
Yes! I have taught my son and am now teaching my grandchildren not only reading and writing skills, but other things too. My mother actuall read to me when I very young, and I learned to read at HOME.
My parents were actively involved in my early years. That said.
The Georgia school system is good at protecting its own interests. Are they Luddites? (look it up)
This is not just a question of evaluating teachers. The whole system needs improvement. The public schools need real LEADERSHIP not opinion polls. Leadership sometimes does involve things that can be unpopuluar but important. Leadership means having a Vision and pursuing the means to accomplish that Vision.
And YES!! YOU the tax payers are paying people to protect their own self interests and failed programs and teaching techniques. How do you feel about that? Do you feel cheated?
Private Citizen
February 1st, 2013
12:56 pm
but P Skinner, he’s right! “a lot” is never ever one word!!! It wasn’t until I was neck deep in university that a kind professor pointed out to me the difference in “it’s” and “its.” The grammar basics really are an indicator of being educated and as professionals, it is appropriate to attend to the basics. He is doing you a favor. You would most definitely not want to publish “Alot of what you are doing is good…” on someone’s evaluation. PS Standard English also does not use contractions. Just an FYI, if you want to writer proper.
Hey, here’s a curve. Some of the clearest strongest writing I’ve seen in the last year is from an interview transcript with typed answers from the Korean music artist “PSY” (music hit: “Gangnam Style”). That guy is no peasant and had some superb education. His writing in English is incredibly elegant and crisp. Not sure about the cover songs, drag outfit and cone boobs. I guess it works in Korea – they are a little isolated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrlr5K8aguY I tell you, though, dead serious, that guy was taught Standard English as good as I have seen anywhere.
Hall County Teacher
February 1st, 2013
12:56 pm
There are several problems with the new TKES. The first problem that I have with it is, it has already failed in other states. Why do we think that it will work in Ga? Much like the high school math curriculum (math I, II, II, IV), if it’s already failed once, isn’t that a good indication that it won’t be very good here? Another problem is timing. This is a big undertaking – as is rolling out CCGPS (ANOTHER new curriculum…) at the same time. IMHO, the GPS standards had just gotten going, why change them without seeing more than a 5-6 year period? Once you put the two of these going at the same time it creates a very stressful work environment for both teachers and administrators alike. Also, the training given to administrators was insufficent at best. I can blame the state department for this one. The TKES was rolled out with little to no knowledge on how to train our administrators on how the system works. In my personal situation, our admisitrators are still not quite sure how to best utilize the system. With that being said, some of them could really care less. There is a large population of administrators that are riding out the final few years before retirement. For them, this is just another hoop to jump through before sailing off into the educational sunset. They are not putting foth the time or the effort to efficently learn the system. The most effective way to get teachers to improve is to do away with tenure. I take pride in the way that I teach and that pride and self motivation is enough for me to do my best job. However, there is a large portion (maybe even a slight majority) of teachers who are 8-4 folks and once they get tenure could care less about rules. In today’s PC society, they are smart enough to know that it takes an act of congress to dismiss someone from his/her employment. In my building there are teachers who are 15-20 minutes late daily and leave 10-15 minutes late on the daily basis. No big deal right? What is 15 minutes going to hurt. Well, do the math. 30 minutes a day equates to 2 1/2 hours a week. That’s an entire work day per month and almost 2 weeks a year that these people are getting paid for and they are not working for it. That is stealing tax payer money!! However, these folks know that our admin. have bigger fish to fry than to monitor when someone is coming and going. To wrap up my rambling, if people actually feared for their jobs then there would be no use for a teacher evaluation system at all.
Neal Boortz
February 1st, 2013
1:00 pm
“From Pres. Obama on down, leading Democrats school their kids in private schools far, far from the influence of unionized teachers or the economic underclass. ”
Typical liberals ! They want your children to go to the government indoctrination centers but send their darlings to private school so they can be productive citizens. They don’t want school vouchers so you can be given the option of sending your kid to a better school where he or she might have a chance for a better life.
After what happened at Newtown and Price Middle I hope your children are wearing bullett-proof vests along with their backpacks!
Neal Boortz
February 1st, 2013
1:02 pm
“Ignorance is bliss in this state. Wait until all these private (charter) schools start sucking all that Government money from the public schools.. Can you say race to the bottom, oops, were already on the bottom, well almost, thank goodness for Mississippi. Republican run state Governments, aren’t they just special…NOT!” – S
S,
Were things really better under Democrat rule in Georgia and other parts of the South ?
I didn’t think so.
Math Teacher
February 1st, 2013
1:10 pm
dc – If you are going to use that flawed analogy involving coaches and teachers, let me let you in on something. Coaches get to cut players who are not up to par. Teachers have to teach whomever is on his/her roster! If I got to try out my students and cut them when they don’t perform, I’d always have a winning team!
Sick of government
February 1st, 2013
1:19 pm
Look to government to solve all of our problems.
You see what that has gotten us !
who cares
February 1st, 2013
1:24 pm
At most jobs, the end product is a direct reflection of your job performance. Why are teachers not wanting test results to be a part of the evaluation process? Yes, there are different levels of learning ability, but testing the subject knowledge being taught has to be a major component of teacher evaluations.
Ashley
February 1st, 2013
1:26 pm
Race to the Top Money is just wasted. This is money that is not spent on teachers, students, or classrooms. It is not worth one extra sheet of paperwork.
BRING BACK ZELL
February 1st, 2013
1:28 pm
Zell Miller is the ONLY governor who ever supported teachers.
Dr. Beverly Hall
February 1st, 2013
1:28 pm
Who was it, Zell Miller or Roy Barnes, both Democrats, that promised Georgians he would be the “education governor”? No progress has been evidenced after all these years.
You parents are complicit in producing such half-wit offspring !
No wonder I had my teachers rig those test scores !
Your kids are as stupid as the parents !
Obama doesn’t have enough stimulus dollars to make your brats any smarter !
paulo977
February 1st, 2013
1:29 pm
dclark….”Give the teachers the money – they are doing the work !”
________________________________________________
Thought everthing would change after NCLB ….Unfortunately RTTT continues the ‘devastation’!!!
Fled
February 1st, 2013
1:42 pm
Teachers, my heart goes out to you. I know that you all have put heart and soul into what is coming to seem like a more and more futile endeavor. Education in Georgia is a lost cause, and there is nothing you can do about it. Before you quit teaching, however, let me suggest that you consider changing the place where you teach.
All around the world, there are places where you would be valued and appreciated for the very things that you are being excoriated daily by ignorant folks like those who post on this blog. If you want to teach, there are ways to do it so that you will be respected, valued, and compensated more than fairly. True, you might have to make some sacrifices, especially at the beginning. It is not easy, but teaching is never easy, is it?
Maybe the problem is where you teach, not you. I went through long bouts of soul-searching over an extended time before fleeing, but I have never regretted doing so. Every time I read this blog, I am glad that I left.
Had enough yet, teachers? Give up. Throw in the towel. Flee.
Tony Geasley
February 1st, 2013
1:43 pm
If quailty teachers are important enough to make evaluation a majoy part of the system then why rush in to a system that would promote and demote teachers that is untried and very suspect. no know seems to know what the evaluation is or how it is calculated. My class is compared to some ghost class that some formula says is simmular but no one seems to know what the formula is. That is no way to improve education
start the litigation
February 1st, 2013
1:43 pm
This witch hunt is not turning out as they had hoped. Let the money go and leave the teachers alone
retiredPh.D.
February 1st, 2013
1:46 pm
Teacher evaluation is hard for a lot of reasons such as different styles, different kids in classes, different levels of experience and training, etc. This is complicated by pressures from the teacher unions/associations and the tenure issue.
I think there is another way to approach teacher evaluations relative to an attempt to improve our schools. Eliminate mandates/guidelines from the state and feds altogether. Instead, evaluate the progress of the school as a whole, as well as the unique populations within a school(special ed or exceptional children and ’slow learners’) and make it the basis for retaining or keeping a principal. Included in the evaluation of the principal should be imput from staff and parents. In return, the principal should be given complete control of hiring and dismissing staff members. If a tenure option remains due to political pressure from the union/associations, then tenure should only give the dissmissed staff member the right to consideration at another school in the system instead of a guranteed job. Furthemore, in order to increase the ability of our principals to be more effective managers, then they should be given greater freedom to remove intractible students from the school. Requiring schools to serve disruptive students has been the greatest undoing of public education. Presently, schools end up classifying these kids as having an emotional/behavioral disorder and doing their best to maintain them in special education classes. The problems related to this are enormous and the topic of a book, not a post on a website. When possible, they also send these kids to alternative environments. Our society has to get real about the problems we have created in our attempts to protect the rights of these children and their parents. What we have ended up with is a system which allows behavioral and emotional disorders to incubate until the child becomes an adolescent and is no longer a candidate for viable treatment even if it were available. Our ‘nanny’ state has removed parents from the equation in dealing with these students and this has to change. One of these kids being ‘mainstreamed’ in a regular classroom presents enormous challenges for any teacher and most teachers have 4 or 5 of these children in their classes. The school systems have to stop being considered a closed loop whereby total responsibility of these children are placed with them. Communities have to involve all agencies, particularly law enforcement, to make sure parents are doing their part, in getting these kinds of kids appropriate help. Principals need to have the flexibility to manage a reasonable situation for their teachers as opposed to expecting improvement from teachers who are overwhelmed with children beyond even the most talented specialists’ abilities, and yes, there are many children who meet this criteria. The end result is that management, principals, will have the authority to pursue their vision of managment, just as businesses in a free economy have this flexibility in deciding how to make money. I think we will find that exceptional managers will rise to the top and that school environments will reflect their individual visions as opposed to a regimented, cookie cutter state model. We may end up with the Steve Jobs as principals instead of stressed out control feaks who are too scared to try anything novel.
James
February 1st, 2013
1:47 pm
In teacher evaluations I am most concerned about comparing apples with oranges. In our volatile economy students (along with parent’s jobs) are very mobile. What happens when a teacher gets three “problem” students in his/her class from a transfer? What happens when 10 discipline students from the alternative school return to regular school and 5 of them land in one teacher’s class? That teacher’s classroom test scores certainly can’t equal her peers. And what about the alternative teacher. Students are sent to alternative school because of discipline problems. Often times teachers in the regular classroom cannot adequately with these students in the room. How can an an alternative teacher be held to the same teacher evaluation standards?
William Casey
February 1st, 2013
1:50 pm
MOUNTAIN MAN @11:37 nailed what should be evaluated: subject matter knowledge and ability to deliver instruction.
Here’s how to do it at the high school level. Get administrators out of the evaluation business. They are managers and can’t possibly have the subject matter knowledge necessary to do a good job. Evaluations should be done by an outside agency to prevent bias. Evaluators could be retired teachers. Evaluations should be based on at least 10 observations and several conferences. Evaluations would be required every third or fourth year. This might actually improve education. I think that quite a few retired teachers would do this for their normal teacher rate of pay. Of course, you would have to train them as evaluators.
woodrow
February 1st, 2013
2:01 pm
The problem here is clear to me. A federal program places contingencies on education funding. This is more an issue of federal control than it is education.
There is no such thing as tenure in Ga.
February 1st, 2013
2:20 pm
Can we please understand this point; a. teachers are not given “tenure” we are not guaranteed a job, we sign one year contracts. What we are afforded after we sign the 4th contract is a fair dismissal hearing. Teachers can be fired for cause, if the administration is strong enough to document and actually follow through with the firing.
Dr. Shaquitta Jackson-Lee King
February 1st, 2013
2:34 pm
Perhaps we should revisit the teaching of Ebonics in our inner-city schools as a way to bridge the gap between urbanization and Mother Afrika for our troubled youth. I’m sure Congressman John Lewis could procure stimulus money from the Obama administration for such a worthy project.
Maude
February 1st, 2013
2:57 pm
I am a teacher and my students were to be tested at the beginning of the year and then again at the end of the year to measure the growth for my evaluation. However, the beginning of the year test was given in December. Will I still be responsible for a full years growth at the end of the year or will they look for the 4 1/2 months growth left after the first test?
d
February 1st, 2013
3:37 pm
@Maude – at least it is a test over the same material – I have to show growth between two completely unrelated subjects. How is that fair?
jus'livin in da 'hood
February 1st, 2013
4:36 pm
if y’all so smart why yo so dis’respected an underpayed?
Georgia gets new pressure to start teacher evaluations «
February 1st, 2013
5:20 pm
[...] Read more about the federal report on the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Get Schooled blog here. [...]
atlmom
February 1st, 2013
5:28 pm
another program, hailed by those at the top, that well, is designed by people who have no idea what they are doing.
I mean, seriously, in my kid’s classrooms, they are implementing yet another math program because it’s ‘better’ than the last one. and they do that every few years. it only confuses the kids MORE. I think it’s more telling for math, but really – each kid learns math differently, so when you implement yet ANOTHER program, some will do okay, some will excel, and still some will do awful. While some kids will learn something like math no matter what – all kids can be put into any of those categories, depending on how it’s taught. and the kids don’t know how they learn ‘best.’
How long will this be out before we see how much money we’ve wasted on administration that could have actually gone to education? or Gd forbid – not be spent at all because it’s a waste of time and money?
NTLB
February 1st, 2013
6:46 pm
Dear Feds,
The administrators and teachers in Georgia do not understand the whats and hows of this senseless teacher evaluation system.
Sincerely,
A “Proficient” Teacher
Mikey D.
February 1st, 2013
7:11 pm
It still baffles me that Georgia ever signed on to this ridiculous boondoggle anyway. (Good ol’ Sonny’s outstanding educational “leadership” in action!) For a relatively tiny amount of money, our state chose to cede total control to the feds, and now you have an ignorant beaurocrat like Duncan calling all the shots. We should tell Duncan and Obama where they can stick their bribe money, but of course we won’t. That’d make too much sense and that goes against our southern values. BTW, I thought republicans were against the overstepping of federal authority. I guess Sonny was absent when they taught that lesson at conservative school??
ChristieS
February 1st, 2013
8:22 pm
@DC “Baffling how anyone would think that a teacher is not responsible for a students actual performance. Only in the academic world…wow.
I think coaches should take that same tactic. “the score doesn’t matter, I should just be evaluated on how well I know the sport, and how good I am at talking to the players”……hilarious, and idiotic, all rolled up into one.”
Well DC, as soon as my students have to try out for my class, I’ll be happy to be held accountable for their learning. I should only be held accountable for my TEACHING. Learning is an ACTIVE process, not a passive one. It requires a great deal of effort on the part of the student. I cannot pop the top of their heads up and dump in knowledge. The teacher is only half of the equation in a classroom.
Lloyd
February 1st, 2013
11:10 pm
The new teacher/leader evaluation system is intended to be fair and to allow for growth over time for teachers and administrators with the new expectations. I can speak from experience that it does take a lot of time and effort with the new work but the only way anyone gets better is to receive fair and honest feedback. The student achievement piece of the evaluation is very important as we try to move all students to college and career readiness. Without checking for results, most will not move. All of this is new and many teachers and administrators are struggling with the expectation but given the time and support we will have better teachers and leaders. The results will be better educated students who have a chance to do the things they want with their life.
Without education, the students do not have a chance and the real losers after the students will be the respective counties and the State of Georgia. Parents need to get in their school, support their students and demand that school do what is necessary for their students. While in the school, support the teachers and administrators because we all want the same thing for the students of Georgia