"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?