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process. Most districts will be bargaining these issues
with their teacher associations in the PERA Joint
Committee. The new caveat in this process is that the
new law now prescribes that any part of student
growth not agreed to at the PERA Joint Committee
level will fall back to the state default plan and/or
process.
As districts and teacher associations learn these
new processes together I think it is good for school
administrators to remember that you are setting new
precedent and making teacher contractual collective
bargaining decisions that will affect your
administrators, teachers and students for years to
come. Once you agree on the many elements that
will be required to use student growth for teacher
evaluation it will be very hard to change any decision
that ends up being beneficial for teachers but not for
administrators and/or students.
For example, I have heard of districts agreeing to
use the whole district growth score for NWEA math
and reading or ACT composite scores as the primary
factor for determining growth for all teachers. When
districts do this, they marginalize the student growth
score so that all teachers receive the same student
growth weight. This makes student growth
insignificant for individual teachers.
While I do feel that the research for using student
growth to evaluate individual teachers needs more
research and improvement, I think the use of student
growth scores over time (three to four years
composite scores) does indicate a trend. Combining
the student growth scores with the teacher practice
evaluation adds creditability to the summative
evaluation.
I predict that there will be a push from teachers to
weigh teacher-made assessments as the primary
indicator of student growth. Administrators need to
question the validity and reliability of teacher-made
assessments and combine these with Type I and II
Assessments. Type I examples are NWEA and MAP
tests. Type II examples are collaboratively developed
common assessments such as curriculum tests and
assessments designed by textbook publishers.
District administrators need to concentrate on making
the performance-based teacher evaluation processes
valid and reliable for the final rating of the teacher,
not for each individual assessment.
(Continued from page 21)
ISDLAF+ January 2014 Monthly Update
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view the January 2014 ISDLAF+ rates, economic indicators
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Time to put ’Accountability’ in teacher evaluation
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