Unsatisfactory Teachers or Saving Money?

This month, The Baltimore Sun published a front-page article concerning the number of city schools teachers that received unsatisfactory ratings on their mid-year evaluations. The cause for this spike in unsatisfactory ratings, in a city where the majority (around 60% of teachers) were rated proficient last year, is up for debate and sheds light on the issues of a new progressive contract in a depressed economy. With mistrust from teachers and pressure on city and school administrations to increase student achievement, performance improvement plans or PIPs have angered teachers and called into question the motivation of rating a teacher unsatisfactory.

Without a doubt, the historic ways that teachers have been evaluated is outdated and possibly ineffective. Baltimore City has taken the bold step of approving a new contract that rewards teachers monetarily for being highly effective academic leaders in their classrooms and schools. The distrust that existed prior to the contract’s approval is surfacing again though. Are more teachers unsatisfactory to save money or have the standards been raised? Although many teachers regard PIPs as negative or precursors to termination, they can help struggling teachers receive supports, which theoretically increases all teachers’ effectiveness.

In the end, Baltimore City Public Schools is in the business of doing what is best for our children. By rewarding good teaching, all teachers will aspire to be proficient in their craft. Unfortunately, in some cases the label of having a PIP has spurred a conversation that is not focused on the central point of the issue, which is helping all of Baltimore’s children receive the best possible education we can provide them.

"D.C. Schools Fires More Than 400 Educators" -Huffington Post

As part of Michelle Rhee's legacy, the teacher evaluation system designed by Jason Kamras - called IMPACT - has struck again, this time firing 413 teachers in the District of Columbia Public School system. (For comparison's sake, last year DCPS fired 211 educators.)

Despite being almost finished with The Bee Eater, I was unsure exactly what IMPACT entailed, so I decided to read the New York Times article linked at the bottom of this Huffington Post piece. According to Dillon, 5 observations (3 carried out by the principal and 2 carried out by "master educators" hired from outside the district) decide 75% of a teacher's evaluation. The other 25% is based on student scores on high-stakes tests and "teachers' commitment to their school communities" (how vague). The final verdict, whether a teacher is ineffective on the one extreme or highly effective on the other, will decide the bonus the teacher does or does not receive. (And in this system, teachers can earn up to $25,000, which is a pretty tidy sum.)

I think that what bothers me most about the firing of these teachers is actually not the evaluation system itself, which seems to rely more on teacher observations than test scores (although there was some debate in the NYT article about how useful and objective those "master educator" evaluations were, not to mention the bias that can be inherent in principal evaluations). What bothers me is that Rhee pushed this teacher contract through without input from the union, and while she may have done so with the best of intentions, I think teachers are feeling the sting of not getting to have their say.

This article, while about DCPS, is incredibly applicable to the Baltimore City Public School System and Baltimore County Public Schools. Since Maryland is a recipient of Race to the Top money, we are going to have to implement an evaluation system that ties teacher performance to test scores. D.C. is kind of a guinea pig for the rest of the country as to how such a system might be structured. Whether it's working or not yet is debatable, but one thing is for certain: teachers aren't going to get a "free ride" anymore. We are going to be held much more accountable for the goings-on in our classrooms, and we will have to answer to more than just our students, their parents, and our principals.

I think that I'm ambivalent about all of this change. On the one hand, I think that student achievement should be factored into teacher evaluations. However, I think that standardized test scores should only be one small piece of that puzzle, as there are many other ways student achievement can be measured that should be taken into account. On the other hand, I'm concerned about the implementation of any new evaluation system. There will undoubtedly be a period when things are being "ironed out" and I wonder if there would be an opportunity to amend any evaluation system put into place once we see how it works on the ground. Maryland has already approved a system tying 50% of a teacher's evaluation to student performance, while ignoring the teachers on the panel who decried it. If they won't even value the opinions of strong teachers in determining the evaluation system, what hope is there that they would seek our advice in revising it?

Stop the Blame Game and take some responsibility

On Monday, Maryland voted 13-7 to approve a new teacher evaluation system that bases 50% of a teacher's evaluation on student achievement. While the details are being worked out, I find it notable that every teacher on the panel voted AGAINST this evaluation system. While the Baltimore Sun article does not suggest any reasoning for the strong teacher disapproval, I have a couple ideas.

First of all, perhaps the issue in approving this evaluation system is the same one many teachers had in approving the new contract: its all very vague right now. There's going to be some data from standardized tests, and maybe some projects or portfolios, but nothing definitive yet. I strongly believe that some portion of our teacher evaluation should involve student data, but just as I want to know where a plane is going when I buy a ticket, I want to know exactly how I'm being evaluated before I give my approval. If you don't have a clear plan, I'm not very confident that I should trust you to evaluate me (particularly when my evaluation is linked to my pay).

It seems to me that we should be doing a lot more to get the major players on-board with reforms. By approving a system that teachers (at least those on the panel) cannot get behind, MD is basically saying "we want you to change, because we believe teacher quality is an important factor in increasing student achievement, but we don't really care if you agree or not". Maybe this evaluation system could be a step in the right direction, but failing to get teacher support is skipping a crucial step.

As we've learned in class, real reform requires community support. Teachers have to buy into this! Whether I am evaluated or not, if I don't BELIEVE that the way I teach impacts student performance, I'm not going to work hard to be a better teacher. Consider the standpoint of veteran teachers. If I've been rated proficient every evaluation of a 10+ year career, and every one of those years I've only been able to get a handful of students to score Proficient on a test, how will I react when suddenly that test data is taking MY rating from Proficient to Satisfactory? Will I believe that I've suddenly become a worse teacher? Will I imagine that actually all of these years I was only truly a Satisfactory teacher? Not if you never got me to believe that the way I teach impacts student achievement.

Recent opinion headlines from the Baltimore Sun, such as "Rating Teachers: Parents are the ones who determine student performance" and "Stop blaming teachers for poor student performance" tell us that not only teachers, but community members as well, do not want to see teachers carry this much responsibility for student achievement. Blame the families. Blame the communities. Blame the administration. Blame the unions. Blame the money. Blame the students. No one wants to be blamed for failures (though they're real quick to take credit for successes), and they would all like to blame someone else.

Frankly, it is irresponsible. No ONE part of this mess of a system is to blame-we are ALL responsible. Systematic change is what is needed: a partnership of teachers, students, administrators, families, communities, unions, and funders. If each of us could own up to the part we've played in making some schools successful and others not, we might actually get some real results.