• Washington Superintendents Call for Reforms to Teacher and Principal Evaluation
  
• Making the Case for Student Growth in Teacher Evaluation

Washington Superintendents Call for Reforms to Teacher and Principal Evaluation

Yesterday, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and 38 school district superintendents from across the state sent a strong message to the state legislature: support bold Race to the Top education reforms by overhauling Washington's teacher and principal evaluation system to include student growth data. 

The letter outlines specific reforms the state needs to approve in order to compete for its share of the Obama Administration's $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant and, more importantly, increase student performance, close the achievement gap and prepare our kids for college, work and life.

View the letter

Making the Case for Student Growth in Teacher Evaluation

Great schools cannot exist without great teachers. In fact, research increasingly confirms that an effective teacher is the single most important factor in increasing student achievement. If Washington wants to ensure that every student graduates ready for college and the workplace, our state must ensure that every public school classroom is staffed with an effective teacher that increases student achievement.   

But, what is an effective teacher and how can “effectiveness” be identified? Education leaders across the nation, including Education Secretary Arne Duncan, agree that the key measure of an effective teacher is the ability to drive growth in student achievement over time. By incorporating student growth measures in principal and teacher evaluation, teacher effectiveness data becomes readily available.

As Washington considers the role student growth will have in the development of a new, statewide teacher evaluation system, lawmakers must consider the current condition of teacher evaluation in our state.

In theory, teacher evaluations are critical sources of information throughout a teacher’s career. In practice, however, evaluations are often meaningless actions that do not support a teacher’s development or credibly differentiate the various performance levels of teachers. Not only do struggling teachers slip through the cracks, but excellent teachers receive no meaningful recognition. Meanwhile, districts miss important opportunities to communicate to their newest teachers a culture of high expectations and standards. Our weak evaluation system disrespects the hard work and dedication of Washington’s teachers and turns a blind eye on the real and urgent academic needs of our students, many of whom continue to fail to meet basic academic standards every year.

While there is no existing perfect system for Washington to look toward, waiting for that perfect design to be developed and implemented will only guarantee that we continue to provide inadequate education to students for years to come. It’s time for Washington to take bold and ambitious steps to do things differently.

This spirit is present in the priorities of the Obama administration, particularly, in the Race to the Top competition,  and in emerging news about the direction of Title I funding and the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. The federal government is setting a vision and direction to vastly improve public education and, by doing so, has created a safe space to have conversations once regarded as difficult or impossible. And states, whether unionized or right-to-work, southern or midwest, are acting on this vision and committing to develop a better system that focuses on what we know matters most – teachers and school leaders.

In Illinois, a state with strong representation from the Illinios Education Association (IEA), Governor Pat Quinn passed a bill addressing these reforms in January 2010, in time to support the state’s Race to the Top application. Senate Bill 315 requires school districts to make student performance at least 50 percent of the teacher evaluation criteria and it prohibits school districts from seeking to waive or modify the use of student performance data. Districts will be charged to develop new ways to evaluate teachers together with their local unions, however, if agreement on a new system cannot be reached within 180 days (90 for Chicago Public Schools) districts will be required to use the state-designed model.

In Tennessee, Governor Phil Bredesen led through the legislature Senate Bill 7005, which requires teacher evaluations to be comprised of 50 percent student growth data. Through a collaborative process with the Governor,  school district leaders and the Tennessee Education Association a common vision, goal and commitment to improving teacher effectiveness was established. With shared leadership, the state was able to successfully pass one of the most rigorous evaluation models in the nation.

The work done in Illinois and Tennessee offers a roadmap for states like Washington that are still debating the use of student growth data in teacher evaluations. Both states have demonstrated that, through collaboration and a willingness to be bold, common ground can be found among institutions historically thought to be at odds.

At the end of the day, we must remember what reforms to teacher evaluation are all about: establishing a stronger and improved education system.  Washington’s students deserve no less.

To learn more about what other states are doing to reform teacher and principal evaluation, please read this summary and the visit the U.S. Department of Education Website to view the Race to Top applications of other states.

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