Chalkbeat

New Jersey lawmakers trying to get — and keep — teachers in schools

2024-03-12T19:02:20+00:00

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More measures designed to fight the teacher shortage in New Jersey schools moved closer to becoming law after the Assembly Education Committee recently cleared five bills that focus on teacher recruitment and retention.

The bills were introduced during the last legislative session but did not make it across the finish line. The measures, moved last week, include removing obstacles to teacher certification, providing scholarships for student teachers and creating a task force to study how and when teachers are evaluated. The bills had widespread support among legislators and representatives of leading education stakeholder groups, who said solving the teacher shortage is a priority.

“Shortages in our educator workforce are damaging to our districts and to the children they serve. It is so important that we fill our educator training pipeline with qualified, motivated individuals who want to become teachers, and want to stay teachers,” Assemblywoman and education committee Chair Pamela Lampitt (D-Camden) said in a statement. “These bills will help school districts and newly certified teachers make meaningful connections, while alleviating some of the financial strain caused by student loans, enabling these educators to focus on their students and giving our youth the education they deserve.”

A survey by the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association found that in August, just before the start of the current school year, only 16.3% of members had fully staffed their classrooms, said Jennie Lamon, assistant director of government relations for the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association.

“School staffing shortages continues to be one of the most significant challenges facing school districts, continues to be one of the most significant obstacles preventing districts from developing or expanding high quality school programs that meet the academic, social, emotional, mental-health needs of their students,” said Jesse Young, a legislative advocate for the New Jersey School Boards Association.

Establish teacher database, ‘Grow Your Own’ program, and more

Here is a look at the teacher shortage bills that moved forward last week:

A-1676 would require the Department of Education and the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to create a database of teachers who are eligible to work, including their employment status, certificates, endorsements, and contact information.

The Department of Education would also be required to host three job fairs each year to connect school districts with novice teachers. The fairs would take place in the north, south and central parts of the state.

The bill does not have a Senate counterpart in the current legislative session.

A-1669 would remove the requirement for teacher candidates to take a basic skills test of reading, writing, and math to obtain a certification of eligibility. This would include removing the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators test, which critics believe is a poor measure of teacher qualifications.

“This is being viewed as dumbing down requirements for teachers and that could not be any further from the truth,” said Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-Sussex), who has been in public education for 18 years. “This bill will eliminate a majorly duplicative test. I know from my teaching certifications.”

An identical bill was introduced in the Senate and referred to the Senate Education Committee.

A-1619 would establish a “Grow Your Own” Teacher Loan Redemption program, which would encourage high school graduates from communities facing teacher shortages to return to their home districts to teach. The Higher Education Assistance Authority would offer loan redemption of up to $10,000 per year for up to five years.

“We’re very concerned not only about staffing shortages but also about the pipeline of educators going forward and this bill package will help address both those issues,” said Fran Pfeffer, associate director of governmental relations at the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

An identical bill was reported from the Senate Education Committee and referred to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee in January.

A-3413 would establish a task force to revisit rules for how and when teachers and principals are evaluated in public schools. The 13-member body would offer recommendations for improvements and changes to the current tenure law. The collection of student growth objectives would be limited while the task force is studying the matter. Student growth objectives, known as SGOs, are long-term academic goals set by teachers in consultation with their supervisors; they’re used as part of the summative evaluation process for teachers.

The bill already passed the Senate. It’s a watered-down version of a bill from the last legislative session that would have extended the time between evaluations.

“This piece of legislation did a one-eighty, I would venture to say, in terms of where we were with the idea of teacher evaluation. I’m really appreciative of the great work we all did to get it to where it is in terms of trying to create a task force to do the evaluation and the real nitty-gritty work to provide the data back to us to determine what is the best next step,” Lampitt said.

A-2362 would establish the New Jersey Student Teacher Scholarship to reduce financial barriers to teacher certification. It would provide scholarships of up to $7,200 to eligible students for each semester of full-time clinical practice completed in a school in the state.

The bill garnered a lot of support from lawmakers and stakeholders, with two groups proposing amendments. Representatives from the New Jersey Speech Language and Hearing Association urged lawmakers to amend the bill to include speech language specialists who are doing student teaching. The College of New Jersey also asked for an amendment to remove the language “in the state” from the bill to include students who do their student teaching in neighboring states or internationally through a global teaching program.

An identical bill was introduced in the Senate and referred to the Senate Higher Education committee.

Hannah Gross covers education and child welfare for NJ Spotlight News via a partnership with Report for America. She covers the full spectrum of education and children’s services in New Jersey and looks especially through the lens of equity and opportunity. This story was first published on NJ Spotlight News, a content partner of Chalkbeat Newark.

Why NYC teacher evaluations don’t yield meaningful feedback

2023-06-23T12:00:00+00:00

It’s my favorite moment during a debriefing with teachers. I ask a probing question; they pause, look off to the side, say, “That’s a good question,” and trail off. In these moments, the teacher is thinking and, in the process, they are becoming a better teacher.

As we head into the end of the school year here in New York City, one of the tasks we, administrators, have to do is have end-of-year conferences with each of our teachers; during these meetings, we reflect on their goals for the year and sign the Measures of Teacher Practice, or MoTP, evaluation summary. I love reflecting with teachers, but I hate the evaluation process.

Jeremy Kaplan

One of the major educational trends in the past decade has been the revamping of teacher evaluations. In New York City, this has meant adopting Charlotte Danielson’s rubric in 2014 and using a four-point scale to evaluate teachers as Ineffective, Developing, Effective, or Highly Effective.

A lot of time, effort, and money is spent by New York City’s education department supporting teacher evaluation. Our superintendent’s team makes periodic visits to our school, and the instructional supervisors have to spend a half-day visiting classes together, “norming” our evaluations.

The premise behind this system and other similar systems is that if we get teacher evaluation right, then teachers will be pushed to develop their practice.

I have come to the conclusion that this premise is wrong. In fact, teacher evaluation makes teacher development more difficult.

Writing in Chalkbeat, Kim Marshall, a leader in teacher evaluation, offered eight criticisms of the current evaluation system back when New York City first adopted it. My experience bears out his concerns.

Evaluation hinders teacher growth. Everyone wants a good grade, and so during an evaluative observation, a teacher goes into defensive mode. They emphasize the positive and minimize the negative, explaining away problems: “That student has been absent for days,” or “You didn’t see the end of the lesson,” or “Those students need basic skills.” The goal is to get a good grade. Improvement be damned.

And then there is the growth stance. When I ask what the teacher thought of the lesson during a non-evaluative observation, they are more likely to be honest about weaknesses and look for ways to improve. When I offer a critical observation, they will often ask what ideas I have to address it. Inviting me to give ideas increases the chance that they will implement it. Sometimes a teacher will ask me to observe something new that they are trying. Taking risks is more likely to happen when evaluation is not in the picture. This is how teachers improve.

One way people grow is by getting feedback, but evaluations yield bad feedback. It is, arguably, not even feedback at all. Grant Wiggins, in his excellent 2012 article “Seven Keys to Effective Feedback,” explains that feedback “is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal.” If you tell a joke, for example, feedback is seeing if people laugh. The best feedback is descriptive, not value judgments. Evaluating teachers using the Danielson rubric is an attempt to be descriptive, but it is the grade that sticks.

As an instructional supervisor, I do as many non-evaluative observations as possible. I simply pop into classes, invited or not, and then have “coaching” debriefs soon after.

My technique comes mainly from David Rock’s excellent 2007 book “Quiet Leadership,” which argues that the best and most efficient way to improve someone’s performance in any field is to facilitate their own thinking, not to tell them what to do. The reason is brain functioning; a person understands an idea only when they form a new synapse in their brain. It can’t be done for them.

Teacher evaluation makes teacher development more difficult.

And so, when debriefing, I mostly ask questions, looking for an “entry-point” to get the teacher to recognize a good thing that can be expanded or a problem that needs a solution. “What do you think you did well? What would you have done differently? Where do you notice gaps in student answers?”

And I can tell when I hit on something meaningful when the teacher says, “Good question,” and stares off to the side. In these moments, they are generating an idea that they can implement.

Evaluation erodes trust. But I have been able to gain the trust of the teachers I supervise — and our end-of-year feedback survey bears this out — by downplaying evaluation in favor of non-rated cycles of observations.

I also invite my teachers to observe my classes and give me feedback — a type of reverse observation. This process enables teachers to see some of the things that I talk about.

And so, at our end-of-year conferences, teachers will sign their Measures of Teacher Practice summary ratings sheet. The number on that sheet is only a very blunt estimation of the quality of a teacher’s practice. But we will also, luckily, have a reflective conversation.

In his Chalkbeat piece from 2014, Kim Marshall argues for a teacher-evaluation system with one evaluative grade at the end of the year, a rating decided collaboratively between teacher and administrator, based on at least 10 unrated observations. Such a system would better support a teacher’s practice and growth.

Why not change the evaluation system to one that actually supports teacher development? That’s a good question.

Jeremy Kaplan is an assistant principal of supervision at High School for Health Professions and Human Services in New York City. He has been a teacher, instructional coach, and assistant principal in New York City since 1994.

Can artificial intelligence help teachers improve? A network of NYC schools wants to find out.

2024-01-02T20:28:53+00:00

A network of small public high schools in New York City is exploring whether artificial intelligence can change the way teachers receive feedback about their classroom instruction.

Urban Assembly, a network of 21 schools, is working with the American Institutes of Research to develop an AI-powered tool that can help instructional coaches analyze videos of teachers delivering lessons and offer feedback, according to network leaders.

Artificial intelligence is already transforming the classroom experience for many New York City students, who say chatbots like ChatGPT can help them understand difficult topics and speed up their research. But the technology has also sparked fierce pushback from some educators and officials worried about its potential to encourage cheating and spread misinformation and bias.

After initially banning ChatGPT on school devices over concerns about academic dishonesty, New York City’s Education Department pledged to teach students to use the technology responsibly, and plans to open an institute to study its applications in schools.

The use of AI in teacher coaching brings up similar questions. Proponents say it could save lots of time for instructional coaches and expand access to feedback that improves the quality of teaching. But some teachers said they still had questions about how accurately the technology can capture subtle classroom interactions, how useful its data will be, and whether it will be skewed by biases.

Judy Cappuccio, a math teacher and instructional coach at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in Downtown Brooklyn, said she’s “open” to the idea of assistance from the AI tool, but has a “healthy amount of skepticism.”

“I would like to see it in action. It would take me some verification at first to trust it,” she said.

Several schools in Urban Assembly’s network are already part of a pilot where educators record themselves teaching and analyze the videos in detail with instructional coaches to improve their practice — a practice Urban Assembly CEO David Adams likened to athletes reviewing game tape.

The problem, Adams said, is that it can take the instructional coaches hours to review a single video, limiting the scale of the program. That means teachers aren’t getting enough feedback, and they’re getting it less often than they should be, he said.

That’s where the new AI-powered tool comes in. At the end of a two-year rollout, project leaders from the American Institutes of Research hope it will be able to measure things like how often students and the teacher are talking, laughing, and yelling, according to a proposal researchers submitted to Urban Assembly.

The tool will initially roll out to the 21 schools in the Urban Assembly network, though Adams hopes to eventually expand its use. It will cost around $500,000 to develop, test, and implement over two years, according to the network.

The tool will also be able to use “natural language processing,” a branch of AI that seeks to understand the meaning of language, to evaluate how “positive,” “respectful,” or “insulting” the teacher’s language is.

Some of the details captured by the AI tool might seem small, but they can offer clues about the climate of a classroom that teachers can learn from, Adams said.

When kids and teachers are laughing together, for example, it can be a sign that they’re “in the same emotional space” and students are better equipped to absorb the lesson, Adams said.

Capturing and documenting those moments on video can help teachers “replicate and grow” them, added Kiri Soares, the principal of Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, one of the schools planning to pilot the new tool.

The tool won’t replace the instructional coaches, but will save them time by pointing them to relevant sections of the video, producing audio transcripts, and quickly gathering data that would take humans hours to compile, Adams said.

Ultimately, the tool could enlarge the program and allow more teachers to benefit, Adams argued.

The tool won’t be used in an evaluative capacity and won’t be tied to performance reviews conducted by the school principal, he added. The program is meant to be supportive and highlight what teachers do well, not just where they need to improve, Adams said.

Project leaders propose using the tool to help schools expand an existing teacher feedback program called CLASS, which taps instructional coaches to evaluate educators on metrics ranging from academic content to their relationships with students, based on video recordings of their classroom lessons.

Using videos rather than live observations can give a more honest glimpse of the classroom, and gives teachers the chance to see themselves in action, proponents said.

Teachers interested in AI proposal but have questions

Liza Backman, a science teacher and instructional coach at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in downtown Brooklyn, said she could see the benefits of having the type of data the AI tool can quickly gather at her fingertips.

“I think it’s a tally that would be interesting,” she said.

Still, she cautioned, those data points are only useful if there’s an instructional coach to help make sense of what they mean within the context of the class.

“Some of the lessons, there would be no laughter because we were talking about a very serious topic,” she noted.

Backman also raised questions about what kinds of school environments would be featured in the videos used to train the AI, and whether any biases could be baked in as a result.

“If you feed it videos from primarily white schools, versus primarily Black and brown schools, how will it navigate names?” she asked.

Adams said the tool in development for Urban Assembly schools would be trained at other Urban Assembly schools with similar demographics.

There are other potential downsides.

The AI-powered tool may miss out on meaningful moments from a classroom video that don’t fit cleanly into one of the categories it’s meant to track — moments an instructional coach would’ve caught if they’d been watching, said Soares, the principal of Urban Assembly Institute.

But that’s a worthwhile tradeoff if she can expand the number of teachers participating in the program, she said.

“Yes, we might miss out on some of those moments,” she said. “But more people will get more things.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

IPS board approves new teacher contract with average of 3% raises

2023-11-15T01:04:36+00:00

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The Indianapolis Public Schools board unanimously approved a new two-year labor contract on Tuesday that gives teachers an average of 3% in raises plus more time off.

The contract, which Indianapolis Education Association members voted to ratify last month, bumps starting pay in the district from $50,400 to $51,900 in 2023-24, and raises it again to $53,460 in 2024-25. Current teachers can also increase their base salary based on their educator evaluation ratings, their years of service in IPS, and whether they serve in high-need subject areas.

Those pay increases range from $1,850 to $2,790 for 2023-24, and $1,900 to $2,870 for 2024-25. Teachers who were rated as ineffective or needing improvement, however, are not eligible for an increase.

Teachers will also receive two floating holidays each academic year that can be used at their discretion. These holidays are designed to benefit those employees whose religious holidays are not recognized on the traditional school calendar.

The agreement, heralded by both IPS and the IEA as a positive collaborative effort, will guide compensation and bonus pay at a critical time for the district, which will shift teachers to different schools next school year when IPS breaks up its K-8 schools.

“I’m extremely proud of the agreement that we were able to build together by working collaboratively to find solutions to the fiscal and logistical obstacles that we face as a district,” Tina Ahlgren, the bargaining chair for the IEA, said at the meeting.

A new pilot program in the contract will allow teachers to receive additional pay if they are forced to give up their preparation periods to cover for an absent teacher in another class. Teachers can receive $25 per hour under this new provision.

Teachers can also receive that extra pay if principals increase their class size by at least 30% because of another teacher’s absence.

“We are both proud of and grateful for the collaboration that we’ve had with our partners at IEA to get to this point this evening,” Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said at the meeting. “Thank you to the team, both the bargaining team as well as my administrative team, who really did engage in this deep collaboration, positive conversations and discussion.”

The contract also provides new pay for staff who serve as certified school psychologists, social workers, or teachers of English as a new language.

Teachers who are approved to serve as long-term substitutes in addition to their regular teaching roles can also get additional compensation under the new contract.

The contract increases the payout for unused sick time that teachers can cash out upon retirement, from $35 for every seven hours to $50. That payout had not changed in over 15 years.

The district, however, will no longer pay for long-term disability insurance. Teachers can opt in to the insurance but will pay premiums on their own.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

How Michigan teacher evaluations would change under proposed reforms

2023-10-30T10:30:00+00:00

Proposed legislation in Michigan that would eliminate student test scores as a factor in teacher evaluations would represent a victory for teachers if it passes, and a turnabout in an education reform effort that began nearly a decade ago.

Current state law requires that student scores on standardized tests count for 40% of a teacher’s performance rating. Under two proposed bills that passed the Senate last week, that requirement would go away, and the districts would be able to use their own criteria for evaluating teachers, such as classroom observations, samples of student work, rubrics, and lesson plans.

The bills would also de-emphasize evaluations as a factor in districts’ decisions to fire or demote teachers or deny them tenure. But they would require districts to take action against teachers who don’t improve after repeated interventions.

The House Education Committee is expected to take up the bills on Tuesday.

Here’s some background on the current law, and highlights of the new proposals:

Michigan law followed a push for more accountability

Michigan’s law on test scores and evaluations grew out of a push for greater accountability in education that began in the 2000s. Some advocacy groups theorized that more rigorous reviews would generate detailed feedback that could be used to improve teachers’ performance.

In 2009, under the Obama administration, the federal government offered money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to states that made policy changes, including revamping teacher evaluations to include test scores.

In response, Michigan passed a law in 2015 requiring that teacher evaluations be 25% based on student growth, as measured by changes in test scores from one year to the next. The requirement went up to 40% at the start of the 2018-19 school year.

Skepticism of test-based evaluations has grown

Teachers have long argued that growth in test scores is an unfair way to measure their job performance, because it compares the performance of two different cohorts of students.

And in recent years, many education experts and policy analysts have become more vocal in questioning the changes that were made in the 2010s.

By 2019, nine states had stopped requiring that test scores be considered in teacher evaluations. Many other states have considered making the same change.

Proponents of returning to the old evaluation method say there is no evidence to suggest the current system benefits students, and that tying ratings to test scores contributes to burnout amid persistent teacher shortages.

Critics are concerned that de-emphasizing student test scores could lower standards for teachers while students are still struggling to recover from pandemic learning loss and need high-quality instruction.

How the proposals would change teacher evaluations

The bills proposed in Michigan would be a return to the system that was used before 2015. Districts would have more power to set their own standards to decide how and when teachers are evaluated.

But the proposals would still require districts to set up a common rating system, and they prescribe some consequences for teachers who don’t measure up.

School districts would have to start using teacher and administrator rating systems by July 1, 2024, that include four possible ratings: “highly effective,” “effective,” “minimally effective,” and “ineffective.” After that, districts would have to add “developing” and “needing support” ratings as well.

Teachers rated “needing support” would get individualized development plans from their districts to improve their performance within 180 days.

Districts would not be allowed to fire, deny tenure to, or withhold full certification from teachers rated “ineffective.” But they would be required to terminate teachers or administrators who are rated “needing support” three years in a row. Those who receive that rating could request reviews of their evaluations.

Staff who conduct evaluations would have to take “rater reliability training” from their districts.

A Senate analysis of the proposals said local districts might face some new costs to update teacher and school administrator evaluations and to incorporate collective bargaining agreements as part of that process.

On the other hand, it says, schools could save money by not having to calculate testing data, and by evaluating consistently effective teachers less often.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

With Democrats in control in Michigan, teachers win back key bargaining rights

2023-07-26T20:43:46+00:00

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Wednesday that restores teacher bargaining rights that were legislated away more than a decade ago. It’s a big win for unions that have argued the laws put in place under Republican control limited the voices of school employees.

The governor’s signing comes during a year in which Democrats took control of both the Michigan Legislature and the governor’s office. And it came a week after Whitmer signed legislation that invested heavily in Michigan schools, especially in the state’s most vulnerable students.

The legislation, which received widespread support from teachers unions but was largely opposed by groups representing school administrators and school boards, would allow teachers to once again be able to bargain on issues such as performance evaluations, staff reductions, teacher placements, discipline, and classroom observations.

“We are sending a clear message that we value and respect them,” said Michigan Rep. Regina Weiss, a Democrat from Oak Park. “Teachers in Michigan will now once again have a voice in determining important employment conditions that impact their jobs and their classrooms, which will lead to stronger schools and improved student outcomes.”

Among the groups that advocated against the legislation was the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents school districts in southeast Michigan. In a statement last month, the organization urged Whitmer to veto the legislation, saying it “makes it difficult for school administrators to effectively staff their schools and ultimately hurts students.”

House Republican Leader Matt Hall called the legislation “radical” in a statement after Whitmer endorsed it.

“Democrats are dismantling accountability metrics that help parents and teachers keep kids on track,” said Hall, a Republican from Richland Township. “They’re giving union bosses free rein to lord over the most important decisions at our schools. Teacher placement, performance evaluations, and communication with parents are all vital to creating an effective learning environment and fostering good working relationships with families.”

Whitmer also signed a handful of additional bills that are related to teachers. In a statement, she said that as a whole, all of the bills signed Wednesday will help Michigan recruit and retain skilled educators and counselors.

Here’s a breakdown of what several of those bills will do:

It will be easier for teachers from other states to be eligible to teach in Michigan. They would need to have met certain requirements, such as teaching successfully for three years in the state from which they’re moving. Another bill makes it easier for out-of-state counselors to receive licenses in Michigan.
Language requiring teachers in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to be evaluated solely based on student performance, was struck. Advocates had argued that DPSCD teachers should be held to the same criteria as other teachers in the state whose evaluations are based on several factors, one of which is student performance.
While seniority cannot be used as a sole factor in decisions regarding filling vacancies, it can be used as a tie-breaker if a personnel decision involves two or more employees for the position and “all other factors distinguishing those employees from each other are equal.” The legislation also requires “clear and transparent procedures” for all personnel decisions.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Merit-based pay clause for Detroit teachers would be eased under Senate bill

2023-06-06T23:42:18+00:00

Performance evaluations would no longer be the deciding factor in salary increases for newly hired employees in the Detroit school district, under proposed legislation that seeks to remove a distinction between recent and earlier hires and make the criteria uniform across Michigan.

A bill introduced in the state Senate last month would remove provisions in the Revised School Code that say all teachers and staff in the Detroit Public Schools Community District hired after September 2019 must have their compensation based primarily on job performance, rather than seniority or educational credentials.

Supporters of the bill say that removing the language would make it easier for the Detroit Federation of Teachers to bargain for all of its members — newer hires and veterans — equally, and bring Detroit’s district in line with all other districts in the state.

For those districts, the Revised School Code says job performance should be considered a “significant” factor in determining staff pay, but doesn’t specify “primary” factor.

“This bill simply seeks to address an inconsistency in the law, where all educators across the state are able to collectively bargain certain topics except for, right now, educators in the Detroit Public Schools Community District,” said state Sen. Stephanie Chang, the bill’s sponsor, at a Senate Education Committee hearing on Tuesday.

The proposed change “doesn’t necessarily lessen, or de-emphasize in any way, performance,” said Chang, a Democrat from Detroit. “It simply just is saying we’ve got to consider other factors.”

The current law effectively says that for teachers hired after Sept. 1, 2019, DPSCD may not use the length of service or achievement of an advanced degree as a factor in determining their pay, except for teachers with a secondary-level teaching certificate or an advanced degree in elementary education.

The stricter language referring to Detroit’s district was added by a then-Republican-led Legislature in a 2016 package of bills that sought to address the debt crisis facing Detroit Public Schools, and ultimately created the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Teachers union leaders opposed the bills at the time.

Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said the current law sets a different standard for new hires compared with those hired before September 2019, regardless of how much experience they have.

For the earlier hires, “the union negotiated salary schedule is based upon time,” she said. “We do have some merit-based compensation, however moving on the salary scale is not dependent on merit.”

But some lawmakers say student academic performance and teacher effectiveness should remain a priority in districts like Detroit that have long struggled academically.

“When disadvantaged students are less likely to be taught by highly effective teachers, why should the teacher’s ability to ensure adequate student academic growth not be the No. 1, the primary factor, in determining the teacher’s effectiveness?” asked Sen. Ruth Johnson, a Republican from Holly, during the committee hearing.

Teachers unions and other opponents of the current law argue that current measures of teacher job performance rely too heavily on student scores on standardized tests. Their Democratic allies in the Legislature are working on bills to delink student scores from teacher evaluations.

Wilson-Lumpkins told Chalkbeat that the current provision has become a “deterrent” for current and prospective district teachers.

“This legislation is not only causing educators to choose other districts, but it is causing the new hires who have come in and learned about this legislation on the back end … to consider leaving,” Wilson-Lumpkins said. “And the children in Detroit deserve to have quality education the same as all the children across the state of Michigan.”

Nastassia Szpaichler, a middle school special ed teacher at DPSCD, said in a statement read to the Senate Education Committee that she found out about the Revised School Code provision only after she was hired.

The performance-based evaluation puts undue stress on new hires, she said.

“When I was hired fresh out of college, Detroit was offering me the highest pay for first year teachers at $51,071,” Szpaichler said.

“What I did learn was that my compensation would not be based on my years of experience that I gained, which is what literally every other district does, but based on my job performance and my job accomplishments,” she said. “This truly was frightening to me.”

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti did not respond to a request for comment about the Senate bill, but he has previously argued that Detroit teachers should be among the highest-paid educators in the state, and he has made increasing pay a priority — especially for newly hired teachers. Their starting salary of roughly $51,000 is now among the highest in the region.

The DFT is currently negotiating a new contract with the district, Wilson-Lumpkins said, with a focus on its union members affected by the district’s budget cuts, including kindergarten paraprofessionals, school culture facilitators, and college transition advisers.

The last contract negotiations, ahead of the 2021-22 school year, resulted in an annual 4% salary increase across the board for Detroit educators, with additional raises for veteran and special education teachers.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s teacher evaluation system is set to change. Here’s how.

2022-06-01T01:09:25+00:00

Teacher evaluation is getting an update in Colorado, more than a decade after the state last overhauled its system.

Starting with the 2023-24 school year, students’ standardized test scores will play a smaller role in teachers’ ratings, rubrics will be more specialized to reflect different jobs, and teachers with consistently high scores will face less scrutiny.

If it works as supporters hope, the system will focus more on helping teachers grow and improve. That contrasts with the current system, which many educators perceive as punitive and which hasn’t improved student achievement much — at least as measured by test scores.

With the updated evaluation system in Senate Bill 70, signed last week, Colorado joins a growing list of states moving away from practices the Obama administration hoped would improve schools.

The previous law, known as Senate Bill 191, called for teachers’ job performance to be measured half by student academic growth and half by classroom observation of professional practices such as showing a strong understanding of the content and delivering effective instruction.

Districts could use various academic data to show student growth, but at least 1% of every teacher’s evaluation had to be linked to standardized test scores. Often it was much higher than that. Teachers particularly resented the use of collective measures, in which an art teacher might be rated based on how students at her school or in her district did on reading and math tests.

For years, groups representing teachers and school districts have called for changes, but supporters of education reform, including Gov. Jared Polis, resisted.

Colorado suspended teacher evaluation for two years during the pandemic. Standardized testing returned this spring, and the state also has a plan to resume school ratings. That helped set the stage for changes to teacher evaluation.

The new law makes several key changes:

30% of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on student academic growth, rather than the current 50%.
No more than 10% of a teacher’s evaluation can be based on collective measures, and those scores must come from students who attend their school. Teachers who are new to a school cannot be graded based on data from years they weren’t there.
Teachers who are rated highly effective three years in a row will have simplified rubrics and evaluations.
People who evaluate teachers will get more training on how to assess performance and provide feedback.
The Colorado Department of Education will develop specialized rubrics to grade educators in specialized fields.
School districts will be encouraged to experiment with using peers and teacher coaches to do evaluations and provide feedback.

“This bill shifts the emphasis of teacher evaluation to supporting teacher development,” bill sponsor state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, said on the Senate floor. “Even the best teachers want to improve.”

The law allocates more than $500,000 to develop new rubrics, guidelines, and training around evaluation.

Most education groups see the changes as an improvement on current law, but not everyone thought this was the right year to undertake an overhaul — nor that this set of changes go far enough.

State Sen. Tammy Story, a Conifer Democrat, ran two competing bills. One that would have eliminated the use of test scores entirely died in committee, despite a long list of Democratic sponsors. The second would have suspended the use of test scores during periods of disrupted learning, but she had to amend it substantially to secure passage.

That bill, which hasn’t been signed by the governor yet, suspends the use of student academic growth in teacher evaluation for the next two school years.

Story told fellow lawmakers that Colorado was behind other states that have dropped the use of test score data entirely.

“Colorado needs to do the same,” she said. “We need to leave behind the use of standardized growth score testing for evaluating educators because it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t work.”

As long as Polis is governor, he’s unlikely to entertain proposals that don’t give some weight to test scores, but some education groups still want bigger changes.

“This doesn’t change our overall perspective that we need a large-scale re-examination of [teacher evaluation],” said Bret Miles, who leads the Colorado Association of School Executives. “We’re saying, let’s look at the big picture.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s teacher evaluation system could see big changes

2022-02-11T02:32:10+00:00

Colorado’s controversial teacher evaluation system could get an overhaul this year, with less weight given to standardized test scores and more focus placed on helping teachers improve.

For years, revamping teacher evaluation has been a top legislative priority for the state’s teachers unions and school districts, but supporters of education reform and test-based accountability balked at proposed changes.

Now, supporters of accountability say there’s a proposal they can get behind that also addresses educators’ concerns about the current system.

Senate Bill 70, sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, would reduce the weight given to measures of student academic growth from 50% to 30% of an educators’ evaluation, provide more training for people who conduct evaluations, encourage local innovation, and put more emphasis on teachers’ professional development.

The bill, which received initial approval Thursday in the Senate Education Committee, also suspends the use of standardized test scores in teacher evaluation until the 2023-24 school year to give schools more time to recover from the pandemic and develop new systems.

Critically, the bill has the support of Gov. Jared Polis.

Jen Walmer, state director for Democrats for Education Reform, called it a comprehensive solution to long-standing complaints about Colorado’s teacher effectiveness law.

“The goal has always been to help develop and support excellent teachers,” she said. “The time is now to help streamline the system, make it less burdensome, restart the evaluation system, and set up the evaluation system to really help teachers grow.”

But groups representing educators aren’t cheering the changes. With schools still reeling from the pandemic, they say it’s the wrong time to do a major reform. They do want short-term relief so that teachers aren’t judged against test scores in the midst of ongoing disruptions.

“What’s happening on a daily basis is that central office people who are in charge of data and evaluations and assessments are substituting [in classrooms]. Superintendents are substituting,” said Bret Miles, head of the Colorado Association of School Executives. “We do not have the bandwidth to sit down and support major changes to education policy.”

Many states are relying less on test scores

Colorado adopted its teacher effectiveness law, still commonly known by its bill number, Senate Bill 191, in 2010. It was part of the federal “Race to the Top” program, which aimed to identify great teachers and reward them, help other teachers improve, and weed out those who didn’t belong in the classroom.

Colorado’s law calls for teachers’ job performance to be measured half by student academic growth and half by classroom observation of professional practices such as showing a strong understanding of the content and delivering effective instruction.

Districts can use a range of academic data to show student growth, but at least 1% of every teacher’s evaluation must be tied to standardized test scores. Often it’s much higher than that. Many districts assign school or districtwide scores to every teacher. These collective measures can make up an especially high portion of the rating for teachers of non-tested subjects, like art, music, and physical education.

Though the vast majority of teachers are rated effective or highly effective, many of them resent the system, while many administrators find it burdensome.

In recent years, due to changes in federal law, many states have reduced the weight given to student academic growth, making Colorado unusual in its reliance on test scores. Meanwhile, studies of teacher evaluation systems have not found any effect on student achievement, with a few exceptions, such as the Washington, D.C., school system.

Evaluation systems are supposed to both hold teachers accountable and help them grow, purposes that often are in tension with each other, said Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University.

“If I had a magic wand and could go back in time, we would have been better off avoiding the debate about using student test scores,” Kraft said. “It’s been so polarizing and distracting and gotten us away from the very reasonable proposition that teacher performance in the classroom matters.”

Any questions people ask about the validity of test scores should also be asked about classroom observations, Kraft said, with studies finding they have the potential to introduce bias. But observations create more opportunity for constructive feedback when done well, he said.

With limited resources, students might be best served if administrators focused their attention on supporting the teachers who struggle most while providing better pay and leadership opportunities like coaching for the highest performers, Kraft said. Professional development for the rest of the educator workforce could be separated from the evaluation process.

Teacher evaluation presents another pandemic challenge

Three years ago, state Sen. Tammy Story, a Conifer Democrat, sponsored a bill with the backing of the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, that would have reduced the weight given to student growth measures to 30% — just as Bridges’ bill would this year. The bill failed to advance out of the education committee after reform organizations raised concerns that it was too drastic a change.

Gov. Polis, who has close ties to education reform, also opposed the bill but agreed that teacher evaluation needed reform. His office convened education advocacy groups to work on a compromise. The following spring, COVID hit, and Polis suspended teacher evaluations along with state assessments by executive order. Reform legislation never materialized — until now.

Bridges and the governor’s office describe Senate Bill 70 as implementing recommendations agreed to by that group. Miles, who represents superintendents, and Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association, say that group never reached a firm consensus.

Story, meanwhile, has a new proposal to change teacher evaluation. Senate Bill 44 prohibits giving student growth scores any formal weight in teacher evaluation, though that information would still be incorporated into the feedback that teachers get.

“Many, many teachers that I have spoken to talk about how this process is so insulting and demeaning to them as a professional because there are so many factors that go into how a student tests on any given day,” Story said.

The bill has the support of the Colorado Association of School Boards and the American Federation of Teachers Colorado chapter, but not the support of other key education advocacy and interest groups on either side of the debate.

But CASE and CEA are supporting a different proposal, Senate Bill 69, also sponsored by Story, that would suspend the use of test data in teacher evaluations when there are major disruptions to student learning, such as fires, floods, and pandemics.

“The unfortunate reality is we’ve had multiple school years where we’ve seen big natural disasters that impacted particular communities and school districts,” Baca-Oehlert said. “We’ve had fires and pandemics at the same time.”

Opponents, including the organizations backing Bridges’ proposal, say the bill’s definition of a disruption is so broad it could apply for years at a time in most parts of the state, effectively gutting any coherent teacher evaluation system. Polis is unlikely to sign either of the alternative bills if they make it to his desk.

Kara Powell, a spokeswoman for Polis, described Senate Bill 70 as making “common-sense improvements” based on input from stakeholders while addressing pandemic circumstances, and said Polis has concerns about any proposal that “takes a blanket approach to suspending student growth.”

Several years ago, a group of Teach Plus Colorado fellows surveyed educators and found that most teachers thought test scores mattered but accounted for too much of their own evaluation, that they wanted to be evaluated by people who understood their content area, and that they wanted more opportunity to keep improving, even if they were already rated effective.

Teach Plus Colorado Policy Director Mark Sass said Senate Bill 70 incorporates many of these recommendations, and importantly, allocates state money to train evaluators and develop better guidance for observations.

“It’s committing the resources necessary to make this work,” he said.

Senate Bill 70 passed the Senate Education Committee in a 6-1 vote Feb. 10. Sen. Story voted no. Senate Bills 44 and 69 are scheduled for a hearing on Feb. 17.

5 education issues to watch as Tennessee lawmakers return this week

2022-01-10T12:00:00+00:00

One year after tackling pandemic-related school challenges during a special legislative session called by Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee lawmakers return to the Capitol this week with another major focus on students: how to fund public education.

Lee wants to overhaul the 30-year-old formula that determines how much money the state distributes to school systems, as well as how much local governmental agencies should contribute. He’s expected to work with fellow GOP leaders to offer a legislative proposal this month.

But some say the legislature shouldn’t rush that discussion, especially since it took years to come up with the current formula known as the Basic Education Program, or BEP.

“It’s OK to hold this and keep working on it if we need to,” said Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican from Maury County. “Let’s get this right.”

Lawmakers also aren’t inclined toward a lengthy session during an election year. They’ll look to pass a budget and wrap up by mid-April, if possible, so they can return home to campaign.

Until then, here are five issues to watch:

Funding reform

Since October when Lee called for a review of the state’s funding formula, Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn has spearheaded the process that included eight town halls and dozens of meetings with policymakers and education leaders.

Last week, she called the issue “the biggest policy decision we make” and said Tennessee should seize this “moment in time.” She also hinted a draft proposal will be unveiled early this week.

“There is funding that is potentially available, there is momentum. We see need across the state,” she told a forum hosted by Tennesseans for Quality Early Education.

The review, which aims to shift Tennessee to a more student-centered funding approach, has drawn public praise but generated private concerns about its intent. Many public school advocates worry the goal is to pave the way for a new private school voucher program halted by ongoing litigation, though the governor has denied that.

“I’m trying to keep an open mind and not draw conclusions before getting all the information,” said Sen. Ferrell Haile, a Gallatin Republican who is on Lee’s 12-member review committee to create a new strategy.

Schwinn said any future formula must factor in the needs of individual children. That includes students who have disabilities, are English language learners, or come from low-income families.

Currently, enrollment is the main component of the BEP, a formula with 46 components that determine how much school systems receive to pay for teacher salaries and other needs like textbooks, technology, and bus transportation. But districts have flexibility on how to spend that money, which explains why the BEP is considered a funding formula, not a spending plan.

“We want to put more money into education, but we want to make sure the money is being spent well,” said Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs a House education committee and supports forging a new formula this year. “Let’s give it our best shot.”

More school nurses, counselors, pre-K

Whether the state revises its funding formula this year or not, the legislature must pass a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 — and is flush with cash. Tax collections during the pandemic’s economic rebound were higher than projected. The state also is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants intended to help working low-income families.

Meanwhile, Tennessee ranks 44th in the nation for student funding, according to the Education Law Center, which gave the state Fs last year for its funding level and funding effort.

The state’s BEP review committee, an influential panel of policymakers and education leaders, has urged the governor to prioritize more funding for school nurses and counselors to get Tennessee to nationally recommended ratios. A $110-million annual investment would fund 1 nurse for every 750 students instead of the current 1:3,000, and 1 counselor for every 250 students instead of the current ratios of 1:500 and 1:350 for elementary and secondary schools, respectively.

In addition to perennial discussions about raising teacher pay, there’s talk about expanding Tennessee’s pre-K program, which serves a fifth of the state’s 4-year-olds. Most districts have waiting lists.

During the pandemic, consensus has grown that pre-K and early grades are the best places for impactful interventions to address learning lag and social-emotional challenges.

“It’s a timely topic that is deserving of deep discussions,” Haile said.

Supplemental teaching materials

A controversial proposal to limit which supplemental materials teachers can use advanced last year in two House panels before stalling in the Senate Education Committee.

Sen. Janice Bowling, a Republican from Tullahoma, promised to bring her bill back for consideration this year and address worries that “good” materials from organizations like the Tennessee Farm Bureau could be excluded.

The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver of Lancaster, would prohibit teachers from using materials that supplant state-approved textbooks unless district leaders approve those materials in advance. Any approved print or electronic materials would be listed on district websites.

“We absolutely need to do something,” agreed Sen. Brian Kelsey, a Republican from Germantown, “but we need to do it in a way that doesn’t have unintended consequences.”

The president of the state’s largest teachers organization called the proposal “demoralizing” for teachers and logistically impossible for school districts. For instance, a teacher couldn’t use yesterday’s newspaper in a current events class.

“This is a move toward completely scripted lessons,” said Beth Brown of the Tennessee Education Association, noting that a new Tennessee law already restricts what teachers can discuss in their classes about racism, white privilege, and unconscious bias.

Testing

State testing went well last year, with a 95% participation rate despite the pandemic. But lawmakers are still expected to bring several proposals to change when and how tests are administered.

Expect one proposal to require that testing occur during the last 20 days of the school year, instead of the earlier testing window set by the education department.

“That’s going to give our teachers an extra 30 days of instruction time, which is a lot,” said Cepicky.

Other likely legislation would require students in grades 3-8 to continue testing on paper, while local school systems could opt to move students in higher grades to online exams.

This school year, Tennessee high schoolers are taking their exams online under the state’s plan to transition back to computerized testing after several years of technical snafus.

Teacher evaluations

Should teachers be judged on how much their students know — or how much they grow?

Tennessee has mostly focused on the latter when evaluating their educators and schools through an academic growth model that measures learning over time, regardless of whether students are proficient.

But the complexity and opaqueness of the state’s statistical growth method, combined with increasing frustration over low student proficiency, could renew that debate among lawmakers this year.

“We’ve been doing this for 10 years, and where are we?” asked Cepicky, complaining that only a third of the state’s third graders are reading on grade level.

“Meanwhile, we’ve created an evaluation system where a teacher can get an A in academic growth even if their students aren’t proficient readers. We’ve got to get that commitment back to getting our kids proficient,” he said.

Such a move would mark a dramatic change for Tennessee, considered a pioneer in using “value-added” measurements to judge teachers and schools. For a decade, the guiding principle has been that all students can advance, regardless of out-of-school factors like poverty that might hold them back.

Other issues are sure to surface before this year’s legislature, including more funding for charter school facilities and how to address the state’s worsening teacher shortage. The statistics on the teacher supply is especially troubling, with thousands of Tennessee educators expected to retire by 2024 and fewer candidates entering teacher training programs.

“We’ve got to be creating multiple pathways to teaching in our state, and we’ve got to have a competitive wage,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee.

The 2022 session of the 112th General Assembly convenes at noon Central Time on Tuesday. Visit the legislature’s website to track legislation, livestream meetings, and contact legislators.

Tennessee study: Blacks, males score lower in teacher observations

2022-01-03T22:28:40+00:00

Black and male teachers in Tennessee have received lower classroom observation scores than their white and female peers every year since the state launched its teacher evaluation system in 2011, says a new study.

The same gaps show up even when comparing similarly qualified teachers whose students achieve similar test score gains.

The findings, released Monday and mirroring national research, raise important questions about the reliability and fairness of the state’s teacher evaluation system. They also highlight concerns that the observation experiences could drive Black and male teachers out of the profession at a time when Tennessee seeks to diversify its teacher workforce.

Tennessee was among the first states to adopt comprehensive teacher evaluations to help educators and schools improve as part of state and national reforms. The high-stakes results inform decisions by school administrators about compensation, retention, and other personnel matters.

Classroom observation scores are the most important component and comprise up to 70% of a teacher’s final score, which also incorporates student achievement data. The resulting rating of 1 to 5 aims to gauge a teacher’s level of effectiveness, with 5 being the most effective.

The system has always been controversial, especially Tennessee’s early use of student test data to help rate teachers. More recent attention has focused on the quality of classroom observations.

“We want observation scores to give accurate information about teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom and not to reflect other factors beyond the teacher’s control,” said Jason A. Grissom, one of the authors of the new study from the Tennessee Education Research Alliance, a partnership of Vanderbilt University and the Tennessee Department of Education.

The president of the state’s largest teacher organization said the data isn’t surprising.

“This should force a much-needed conversation about unconscious bias in our evaluation system,” said Beth Brown of the Tennessee Education Association, which has called for an annual review.

The study offers few clues on what’s driving the gender gap in observation scores. However, the magnitude of the race gap is influenced by several factors, including the racial composition of the school’s faculty, differing characteristics of students who are assigned to Black and white teachers, and the race of the teacher’s observer.

Black teachers receive slightly lower ratings from white evaluators, and the gaps are larger in schools where a Black teacher has fewer Black colleagues.

Also, the study found that Black teachers are assigned higher numbers of students with a history of disciplinary problems, lower attendance, and lower achievement.

A national study in 2018 found similar results and suggested that evaluations are one reason teachers may be deterred from working in classrooms where students lag farthest behind. It also raised questions about whether teachers of color — who often work most frequently with students of color — are getting a fair shot, especially when a growing body of research shows that a racially and ethnically diverse teaching force can have positive impacts academically, socially, and emotionally on students of all races.

This school year, Tennessee began requiring school districts to set goals and strategies to get more teachers of color in front of students. The new policy prompted the research alliance to dig deeper into observation score data broken down by race and gender.

“As we work to increase teacher diversity in Tennessee, it is critical that we understand more about the causes of these systematic differences so we can begin to address them,” said Erin O’Hara, the alliance’s executive director. “Are there potential changes needed in the observation rubrics, for example, or in training of evaluators?”

Tennessee trains mostly school principals and assistant principals to observe and score their teachers. A state-approved scoring guide focuses on instruction, planning, professionalism, and classroom environment.

The researchers say school leaders should receive regular training on potential sources of biases in their teacher evaluations. They also recommend administrators examine school-level data on student placement to guard against systematically assigning lower-achieving students and those with disciplinary challenges to Black educators.

New York may soon ditch its controversial teacher certification exam

2021-12-17T17:47:33+00:00

New York’s prospective teachers may no longer be required to take a controversial national assessment to get certified, according to a state proposal unveiled this week.

State education officials are proposing to remove the exam known as the edTPA, and would instead require teacher preparation programs to come up with a replacement.

The edTPA aims to assess the skills needed for high quality instruction based on a portfolio of work from would-be educators, including video recordings of them teaching, their lesson plans, analyses of their students’ learning progress, and reflections of their classroom practices. The exam, administered by testing company Pearson, comes with a $300 fee.

The exam’s critics worry it is a barrier to diversifying the teaching workforce and is exacerbating teacher shortages. New York state officials said Black test takers were nearly twice as likely to fail the edTPA compared to their white or Hispanic peers, Chalkbeat reported in 2017. (At the time, a Chalkbeat analysis found that people of color also disproportionately failed other certification tests.) Hispanic teacher candidates in Washington state — which was first, along with New York, to require the edTPA — were more than three times as likely to fail the exam when compared to white candidates, a 2016 study found.

New York officials declined to provide the latest pass-fail data for the edTPA.

If the Board of Regents approves the proposal, teacher preparation programs must come up with an assessment that has multiple ways of showing that candidates are meeting state teaching and learning standards, based on the grades and subject area they want to teach. Programs can still opt to use the edTPA.

“I think this is a very good move,” said Regent Kathleen Cashin, who is from New York City and has long raised concerns about the certification exam. “We’re also keeping choices on it — they can keep it if they want to keep it.”

The proposal, lauded by the state teachers union, is the latest way the state has tried to reform teacher certification in recent years. State officials stressed that it is not meant to water down the requirements for becoming a teacher, but rather, to give teacher prep programs the chance to “customize” assessments while still meeting state standards.

The Regents likely won’t vote on the proposal — which is now out for public comment — until April, at the earliest. If the proposal passes, educator preparation programs must choose or develop a new assessment by September 2023.

Issues with the exam have cropped up for years since New York first made it a requirement in 2014. Teacher preparation program leaders and school district officials criticized the test for becoming “the primary focus” of student teaching, drawing attention away from other parts of their programs.

It is also too expensive for many students, said William Murphy, the state education department’s deputy commissioner of higher education.

State officials also found that some students, who often take months to prepare for the exam, are unable to complete the test before they’ve finished their program.

“There are a number of different challenges associated with this model,” Murphy told the board.

The Regents have made some changes over the years to ease the edTPA requirement, including lowering the passing score for the exam and allowing out-of-state teachers one year to take the test. But the pandemic highlighted the issue further. In response to the public health crisis, the state education department allowed teaching candidates to take a written exam in lieu of the edTPA. It was a change that teacher prep program leaders embraced, leading them to ask for the removal of the test requirement, Murphy said.

Dan Goldhaber, one of the authors of the 2016 Washington study, said there were also concerns the test might deepen teacher shortages in particular subject areas.

Goldhaber’s study had mixed evidence on the edTPA’s ability to predict how effective a teacher was. There was no correlation between edTPA scores and that teacher’s effectiveness in reading instruction, measured by their students’ state test scores in reading. However, the study did find a link between higher edTPA scores and effectiveness in math instruction.

The study also found that the scores on the exam are “highly predictive” of whether a test taker remains a teacher the following year — the higher the score, the more likely it was that a teacher stayed.

Goldhaber said it was unclear whether New York’s approach would lead to better qualified teachers, since the assessments would vary from program to program. State oversight of the programs will remain important, he suggested.

“The cynical take is that this is a compliance exercise, and it’s just about guaranteeing to the public that there is a pre-service assessment, and that teacher candidates who are in the workforce have all passed it,” Goldhaber said.

New York’s Office of College and University Evaluation is charged with ensuring the state’s teacher preparation programs are meeting regulations and standards, according to a department spokesperson.

Teaching candidates will still be required to complete the rest of the requirements for earning their certifications, including coursework, other exams, and student teaching. Exam pass rates are considered one indicator of how effective a teaching program is, a state education spokesperson said.

Tennessee governor unveils summer school and tutoring proposals, promises teacher pay hike

2021-01-15T00:25:13+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday proposed new summer school and tutoring programs to catch students up from learning disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

He promised a pay hike for teachers, but did not specify an amount.

The governor also wants state testing to happen this spring — but only to determine how much students know after a year of uneven teaching and learning, not to hold teachers and schools accountable for the results. And he is asking for a new statewide emphasis on phonics-based reading instruction.

The details came in the first wave of bills filed in advance of a Jan. 19 special legislative session focusing on K-12 education.

“Educators across the state are working tirelessly to turn the tide for their students and help them regain critical math and reading skills,” Lee said in a statement. “We believe they should be compensated for their efforts and look forward to working with the General Assembly to provide funding for our teachers.”

The governor is expected on Friday to ask lawmakers for more money for teacher pay, likely by about 4%. That increase would match what Lee proposed a year ago but rolled back after the pandemic emerged and the state’s economy sputtered. He’s also expected to propose the same level of funding next year for schools that saw their enrollment decline this year.

The decisions will set the state’s policy agenda for students, educators, and schools for at least the rest of the public health emergency.

The summer school and tutoring proposals aim to help struggling students catch up on learning if they can’t read on grade level or are identified as needing intense academic help based on the state’s screening and intervention system launched in 2014.

“COVID-19 has disrupted every aspect of education, and we are on the cusp of severe consequences for our students if we don’t act now,” Lee said.

The six-week summer school program, for kindergarteners through grade eight, would begin by June through local school districts and be staffed by teachers getting paid a minimum of $1,000 per week. A second six-week program is proposed for summer of 2022. And in subsequent years, the program would shift to four weeks for grades four through eight.

“This pandemic has highlighted the importance of continuity and additional supports for students who need it,” said Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, adding that the additional summer learning time would be for full days, and provide transportation, too.

While school systems would have flexibility to run their own programs, they would be required to emphasize reading and math. “And I feel strongly that we need to include play as well, especially for young children in the summer,” Schwinn said.

The after-school tutoring program would launch in the fall, staffed by a corps of trained tutors that could include teachers or college students. Three days a week, tutors would work with students at a ratio of one to five in the elementary grades and one to eight for older students.

“This reflects the best practices we’ve seen,” Schwinn said.

The learning program legislation would strengthen a 2011 Tennessee law that allows schools to retain struggling readers in third grade. Currently, few students are actually held back.

By 2023, Schwinn said, a student who is not reading at grade level by the end of third grade would be retained, retested, or required to participate in the extra learning programs.

“We’ve had this retention law on the books. It would now be strengthened with this proposal,” she said, “and it comes with significant state funding.”

The cost for the new learning programs — estimated at about $90 million annually for the first two years of summer school and an undetermined amount for the tutoring — would be covered through a combination of federal and state funds, plus matches from local districts.

“It’s a big commitment and investment in the future of students, and I think it is one of the things we hope other states do as we all come out of the pandemic,” Schwinn said.

And because reading proficiency is the foundation for all learning and only a third of Tennessee third graders are reading on grade level, the governor wants to require all 147 school districts to adopt high-quality literacy programs that are based on phonics. That proposal aims to work alongside the state’s new Reading 360 initiative, which will invest $100 million of one-time federal funds in phonics-based reading programs, including new reading instruction training for teachers in the early grades.

New Jersey won’t require tests to graduate or rate teachers on student growth as pandemic rages

2021-01-11T23:37:56+00:00

New Jersey will not require high school seniors to pass any tests in order to graduate this year, and teachers will not be rated on students’ academic growth, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday, nodding to the ongoing disruption of the still-raging pandemic.

Twelfth graders must still meet credit and attendance requirements in order to earn diplomas this year, but they don’t need to pass exit exams, according to Murphy’s new executive order. And teachers will not be rated on student test scores or other academic measures this year, leaving classroom observations — whether in person or virtual — as the sole measure of teacher effectiveness.

“As we’ve said from moment one, this is not a normal or regular school year,” Murphy said Monday. “We have to be more flexible and more understanding.”

The pandemic forced Murphy to make similar changes last spring after school closures canceled the annual standardized tests that students take. Following the rule change, Newark’s unaudited graduation rate jumped to 81% last school year — the highest it’s been in decades, district officials said.

Ten months into the coronavirus crisis, New Jersey students are learning fully remotely in 337 school districts, while they are coming into classrooms at least a few days a week in 430 other districts.

The evaluation change is likely to come as a relief to many educators, including those in Newark, where the district issued guidelines this fall saying teachers’ ratings would be based partly on students’ improvement on standardized tests. Those “student growth objectives” would have made up 15% of teachers’ overall ratings, which can determine whether they earn tenure or keep their jobs.

Newark teachers raised several objections. They questioned the reliability of online tests that students took from home, and said it was unfair to expect students to make a typical amount of academic progress during remote learning.

Murphy’s decision settles that argument by removing student academic goals from teacher evaluations this year. The Newark Teachers Union welcomed the change, while also asking for greater flexibility around remote teacher observations — a matter the union has been negotiating with the district.

“A good start!” the union posted on Facebook Monday. “But what about more evaluation guidance? Where is the flexibility and understanding when it comes to teachers?”

Murphy’s executive order also eased restrictions on substitute teachers in response to the nationwide teacher shortage wrought by the pandemic. Now, substitute teachers who are still trying to become certified and those who are teaching outside of their areas of certification can remain in their positions longer.

While New Jersey can lower the stakes of testing, it can’t unilaterally cancel the annual tests that students must take under federal law. The incoming Biden administration has yet to make a decision on whether to require testing this spring, even as advocates on both sides of the issue voice their concerns.

New Jersey’s acting education commissioner, Dr. Angelica Allen-McMillan, said Monday that the state is moving forward with plans to administer the tests this spring until federal officials say otherwise.

“If there is a change with the incoming administration,” she added, “we will weigh all of our options at that time.”

Is it fair to rate teachers based on student scores during the pandemic? Newark teachers raise concerns.

2020-12-09T19:04:31+00:00

School buildings are closed and some students are having a hard time attending online classes — yet Newark teachers are still on the hook for improving student test scores.

Despite the disruptions in student learning caused by the pandemic, the Newark school district will continue to rate teachers this school year based partly on how well their students perform on standardized tests. Now, some educators who already were wary of test-based accountability are raising new concerns about attaching high stakes to tests during remote learning.

Some question the reliability of online tests that students took from home this fall, while others object to setting academic goals based on typical student progress under normal conditions. Still others oppose tying teacher ratings to student scores at all when the usual means of teaching and learning have been thoroughly upended.

“So much has happened and our world has changed,” said Elisabeth Yucis, an official in the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. “Using an old yardstick to measure a new world I’m not sure is going to get us anywhere.”

The Newark Teachers Union, which is not affiliated with the state union, recently filed a grievance claiming the district violated contract terms related to teacher evaluations, union officials said. An arbitration hearing was held Monday.

One source of tension is the district’s decision to continue factoring test scores into teacher ratings this year, said Newark Teachers Union President John Abeigon.

“There is zero professional dialogue or professional courtesy when it comes to discussions of that nature,” he said.

District spokeswoman Nancy Deering did not respond to questions about the union’s grievance or the district’s teacher evaluation policy.

How to evaluate teachers has long been one of the most contentious questions in education.

Many educators oppose factoring test scores into their annual ratings, which can determine whether teachers earn tenure and keep their jobs. Critics contend that tests cannot fully measure student learning nor isolate teachers’ impact.

Now, the pandemic has thrown a wrench into states’ evaluation systems, raising the possibility of fresh controversies.

In most states, classroom observations are the biggest factor in teachers’ ratings. (In New Jersey, they now account for 85% of teachers’ annual rating.) Some districts, including Newark, have started conducting virtual observations this fall while classrooms remain closed.

Test scores have typically been a smaller but more divisive component of most states’ teacher ratings. The pandemic complicated matters because students did not take state tests this spring and may not take them in 2021.

As a result, of the 21 states that typically factor test scores into teacher ratings and have updated their policies, nine dropped that component this school year, according to a database compiled by the National Council on Teacher Quality. Another 11 kept some measure of student academic growth but made adjustments.

Included in that group is New Jersey, which scrapped one portion of its teacher evaluation system that relied on test scores but kept another portion called “student growth objectives.” Each teacher must set two of those goals, which will count for a combined 15% of his or her rating.

Under state law, teachers must develop the student learning goals “in consultation with” their supervisors. The goals can be based on teacher-made assessments, such as essays or projects, or districtwide tests.

In Newark, the district told teachers that one of their goals must be based on the MAP Growth test, a computer-based assessment created by the nonprofit NWEA that is taken by millions of students nationwide.

“Ultimately, every teacher that gets a rating has to have their students take this test,” Superintendent Roger León said during an online forum in October.

Union leaders have raised two major concerns about basing goals on the MAP test, which Newark students took this fall and will take again this winter and spring.

First, they say students might have received help or used reference materials when they took the online test from home, inflating their baseline scores. Second, district guidance suggests that teachers use NWEA’s projections of students’ likely end-of-year scores to set their goals. The projections are based on a nationally representative sample of students who took the test in prior years — before the pandemic. Union leaders say it’s unreasonable to expect students to make the typical amount of growth when their learning has been so disrupted.

“Setting teachers up for failure in evaluations is one of the key reasons that so many teachers in the district don’t trust administrators,” Christopher Canik, a high school math teacher and union vice president, told the school board last month.

NWEA itself has urged caution about using its tests, which are meant to track student progress, to evaluate teachers.

In a 2013 blog post, an NWEA researcher wrote that rating teachers based on whether students meet their growth projections is “not the intended use of this statistic” and may put some teachers “at an unfair disadvantage” because the projections cannot account for individual students’ circumstances. In a presentation this July, the same researcher, Nate Jensen, noted that NWEA’s projections are based on “normal” student progress, but “this coming fall will not be normal.”

In response to concerns about the reliability of this fall’s test scores, NWEA spokesperson Simona Beattie said score trends were consistent for in-person and remote tests taken by students in grades 3-8. She added that the organization recommends using multiple measures to evaluate teachers.

“This has not been a typical year, and so typical approaches to teacher evaluations based on test scores are not enough to judge how teachers are addressing learning during the pandemic,” she said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

To be sure, New Jersey’s teacher evaluation system does rely on multiple metrics and gives much more weight to classroom observations than assessments. Even Abeigon, the Newark Teachers Union president, said the portion of teacher evaluations based on student progress is “not a major concern” because of its limited impact on teachers’ overall ratings.

Even during the pandemic, teachers should still be expected to help students advance academically, said Shannon Holston, director of teacher policy at the National Council on Teacher Quality, which advocates for the use of test scores as one component of teacher evaluations. But she added that the student growth goals used to rate teachers must be reasonable.

“Teachers should be accountable for that,” she said. “On the other hand, this is a very difficult time for a lot of people and this is not a typical school year.”

Tennessee governor may call special legislative session focused on education during pandemic

2020-12-09T01:45:52+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee is reportedly mulling whether to call a special legislative session on education as he looks to tackle a growing list of challenges facing Tennessee students whose learning has been disrupted by the pandemic for a second straight school year.

The Tennessean reported Tuesday that the Republican governor is considering a special session to prioritize education issues escalated by the coronavirus, based on conversations with “multiple legislative officials.”

A spokesman for the governor would not confirm that report but said education is a priority for Lee.

“The Governor is weighing a number of options to ensure that students and educators have the resources and supports they need to succeed in the most challenging school year in Tennessee’s history,” press secretary Gillum Ferguson said in a statement. “We’ll continue to work with the General Assembly to chart the most appropriate path forward on this critical issue.”

Education is already expected to be front and center of the regular session that’s scheduled to convene on Jan. 12. A special session would likely happen that same month and focus solely on education.

Among decisions awaiting lawmakers: a literacy proposal left over from the last session, ways to address learning loss, funding schools as enrollment declines, how to handle state assessments scheduled for next spring, and whether those test results should be used to hold students, teachers, and schools accountable.

“Ultimately, it’s the governor’s call,” House Speaker Cameron Sexton told Chalkbeat. “If Gov. Lee decides to call a special session, he has that authority, and we will work with him.”

Lee has ordered a special session before. In August, lawmakers convened for a week to pass protections to businesses from lawsuits arising from the coronavirus and new penalties for protesters camped on state property to demand racial justice.

Asked if the governor has spoken with him about convening another special session, Sexton said: “There’s always conversations going on. Whether they pan out is a whole different discussion.”

As leader of the House, the Crossville Republican said any conversations about education in the legislature need to include ways to incentivize districts to reopen their classrooms. He cited recent statements by Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that schools and classrooms should be open during the pandemic.

“So my expectation is that Tennessee classrooms should be open,” Sexton said, “and there needs to be a discussion about how to hold them harmless for enrollment declines to receive the same level of state funding for schools.”

Cameron Sexton is the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

The speaker singled out the state’s largest school system in Memphis, which announced last month that school employees will receive a 1% salary increase with money saved by shifting to online classes.

“Shelby County Schools decided to take the money they saved by not opening classrooms and used it to give their teachers pay raises. That’s fine to do. But if school systems aren’t opening classrooms and they’re not spending all their money, should they be held harmless when we set BEP funding for next year?” he said.

Superintendent Joris Ray has kept school buildings closed to Memphis students this fall despite pressure from the state to reopen after COVID-19 cases surged in July. He has said his plan to reopen classrooms in January could be delayed if community spread worsens.

On Monday, the district released the results of a survey of parents and teachers showing less than a third of students are expected to return to in-person learning with the new year. Of teachers, 83% have chosen to continue teaching virtually.

“Shelby County Schools remains committed to flexibility as we base our reopening decisions on feedback from our school board, science, and guidance from health officials,” the district said in a statement.

All other school districts in Tennessee have at least partially reopened school buildings, though many have intermittently closed when COVID-19 has caused staffing shortages.

In remote-learning era, Newark teacher evaluations go virtual

2020-10-06T18:34:47+00:00

This fall, Newark principals will peer into classrooms through computer screens to watch teachers give online lessons.

The virtual visits reflect the need to update classroom observations for the remote-learning era. Now, the district will judge teachers in part on the quality of their live video lessons and the online assignments they post. The online observations, which are new this school year, carry significant weight.

Observations are the primary factor in teachers’ annual ratings, which help determine whether new teachers earn tenure and veterans keep their jobs. Because of the high stakes, the Newark Teachers Union negotiated with the district to revamp how administrators score teachers during observations to account for the constraints of online instruction.

Observing lessons also gives educators valuable feedback, officials say. The support might be welcome for the many Newark teachers who only dipped their toes in virtual instruction during the chaotic shift to remote learning this spring, and are now giving daily video lessons for the first time.

With the ongoing pandemic forcing many students to continue learning from home, Newark is one of many school districts adapting its teacher evaluation system for online learning, said Shannon Holston, director of teacher policy at the National Council on Teacher Quality.

“Observation and feedback is always important for our teachers,” she said, adding that such support may be even more critical now. “Many of them are embarking on a new version of teaching.”

New Jersey law requires teachers to be evaluated each year. Teachers who earn low ratings over multiple years without improving can lose tenure or their jobs. Still, the vast majority of teachers statewide receive favorable ratings, and Newark rated about 93% of its teachers “effective” or “highly effective” in the 2018-19 school year.

After school buildings closed in March, New Jersey made several emergency changes to its evaluation rules.

Student test scores, which accounted for a tiny portion of teachers’ ratings, could not be used because the spring exams were canceled. The state allowed districts to skip evaluations for tenured teachers, and to rate non-tenured teachers based entirely on classroom observations that occurred before the closures.

This school year, the rules are different. Now, the state wants districts to observe all teachers. The observations count for 85% of teachers’ annual ratings.

Observations should occur in person at any schools where students have returned to classrooms at least part-time, according to new guidelines the state issued last month. Districts that have postponed in-person learning, as Newark has, can ask teachers to compile “portfolios” with evidence of their work in place of observations. The evidence can include recorded lessons, written student work, or observations of live video lessons.

However, the Newark Teachers Union opposed having teachers create portfolios, which some educators considered a daunting task amid all their other remote-teaching duties.

“You heard about Portfolios?” the union said on Facebook. “They are Dead On Arrival.”

The district agreed not to use portfolios, union officials said. Instead, administrators will rate teachers’ online lessons using a scoring guide called “the framework for effective teaching.”

A committee of union and district representatives spent the past year revising the framework, which tells administrators what to look for when observing teachers. Last month, the committee reconvened to adapt the new framework for virtual observations. The changes involved removing some effective teaching practices that could be hard to pull off remotely, such as getting students to assist their peers.

The union worked to “strip out any indicator from the evaluation framework that could not be accurately measured during remote learning,” Newark Teachers Union President John Abeigon said in a message to members on Friday, adding that “we are proud to report that the district has begun sharing this revised framework with administrators.”

The union also helped create new guidelines that spell out what effective teaching can look like in a virtual classroom.

For instance, a teacher might ask students to work together in online “breakout rooms,” which allow small groups to meet over video. The teacher could assign students who are struggling with the same concept to one breakout room so she can teach them a brief lesson, the guidelines say. The teacher might also pop in and out of the virtual meeting spaces to check on the groups, and call everyone back together if she notices a common misunderstanding.

During online lessons, teachers can display their screens so students can see examples of high-quality work, the guidelines say. Teachers can also post prompts that spark rich written discussions among students.

As during last school year, the state has prohibited using students’ state test scores in teacher evaluations. However, 15% of each teacher’s rating will still be based on student learning as measured by “student growth objectives.” These learning goals, which are set by teachers and administrators, can include a certain percentage of students passing a particular test or moving to a higher reading level.

Newark is still working to set those goals, union officials said. One challenge is that students did not take year-end assessments this spring, complicating efforts to determine reasonable learning goals for this year.

Schools districts nationwide have negotiated with local teachers unions to revise their contracts and evaluation policies in the wake of this year’s school closures. About half of the 20 district-union agreements analyzed by the National Council on Teacher Quality allow for online teacher observations.

However, some also set limits on virtual observations. For instance, every Seattle teacher will be rated “proficient” in online instruction unless a “preponderance of evidence” suggests otherwise. And administrators in Broward County Public Schools can conduct “virtual walkthroughs” but cannot use them to evaluate teachers.

More changes to teacher evaluations are likely as the pandemic — and remote learning — drag on, said Holston, the policy analyst at the National Council on Teacher Quality.

“We hope it doesn’t last forever,” she said, “but who knows.”

Indiana lawmakers promised teachers wouldn’t be judged by test scores. But they still are.

2020-09-17T21:49:02+00:00

Earlier this year, Indiana lawmakers scrapped the requirement that school districts consider student test scores to evaluate teachers.

Or so it seemed.

In fact, how students perform on standardized tests could still contribute to their teachers’ annual reviews.

Lawmakers left in a provision that would penalize teachers if students show low growth on state test results — what it calls a “negative impact.”

But education leaders say the stipulation is too confusing: Many feel it goes against the intent of removing test scores from teacher evaluations.

Some are calling on lawmakers or the State Board of Education to redefine negative impact with a measure that isn’t tied to test scores.

Without a change, education officials say teachers who would otherwise rate as “effective” or “highly effective” could be blocked from receiving positive evaluations if they are deemed to negatively affect student growth — which could keep them from receiving state-funded bonuses or pay raises through their local contracts.

“All of us seem to agree that evaluating people in this manner is not the appropriate thing to be doing,” said Jennifer Smith-Margraf, vice president of the Indiana State Teachers Association. “This whole thing has been very confusing to a lot of us.”

“All of us seem to agree that evaluating people in this manner is not the appropriate thing to be doing,” said Jennifer Smith-Margraf, vice president of the Indiana State Teachers Association. “This whole thing has been very confusing to a lot of us.”

Smith-Margraf said she believes still including test scores amounts to a “misinterpretation” of the recent change in law, which marked a step away from the tough accountability practices popular in the previous decade.

It’s not clear how the state would determine that a teacher is negatively affecting students, and almost all Indiana teachers rank in the top two categories anyway. Just 1.2% of teachers were deemed to need improvement in 2018-19, according to state data, and 0.2% were rated “ineffective.”

As districts this fall outline how they will evaluate teachers, the state provision will also likely have little effect because the state temporarily suspended how it uses standardized tests for accountability. The suspension, known as a “hold harmless” measure, prevented schools and teachers from being affected by lower test scores in the past two school years due to the introduction of a new test, ILEARN. Students also didn’t take tests this past spring during the pandemic.

The education department is discussing how this measure could affect teacher evaluations after next spring’s tests, spokesman Adam Baker said.

Sally Sloan, the executive director of Indiana’s American Federation of Teachers union, said that until recently, she thought the law separated student test scores from teacher evaluations.

“To be honest, I can’t wrap my mind around all of that,” Sloan said.

She said the union will push for legislation to change the language. But she’s unsure if legislators actually want to change it.

State board spokeswoman Molly Craft said the board’s staff attorneys do not see a conflict with the definition of negative impact and the law.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick said Tuesday she’s hoping for a fix down the road to fully remove test scores from teacher evaluations.

“It looked great on paper, but we told them early on that it didn’t really solve the problem,” she said.

Tennessee teacher evaluations should be dropped this year, say several legislators

2020-09-16T22:19:25+00:00

Teachers are under so much stress doing their jobs during a pandemic that they shouldn’t also have to worry about being evaluated as required by Tennessee law, several legislators said on Wednesday.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers voiced concerns about teacher evaluations and student testing while quizzing state education officials about COVID-19 disruptions to schooling for a second straight academic year.

The brief but impassioned discussion by members of the joint Government Operations Committee offered an early glimpse at hot-button education issues that newly elected lawmakers are expected to take up when the next legislative session begins in January.

“Evaluating kids or teachers – adding that stress – it just seems ludicrous to take time out to do those things,” said Rep. Gloria Johnson, a Knoxville Democrat and retired educator.

For almost a decade, Tennessee has relied heavily on student test scores to determine teacher pay raises and decide when to intervene in low-performing schools. Critics blame the process for an exodus of teachers from the profession.

For now, Gov. Bill Lee’s administration is more open to reassessing the state’s teacher evaluation system than canceling the annual student assessment known as TNReady for a second straight year.

“To go two school years without a sense of student progress and a snapshot of where our students are at would be a real challenge, I think, for our districts and students after we’ve experienced these periods of school closure,” said Charlie Bufalino, the education department’s legislative and policy liaison. “I think there’s an opening and an ongoing conversation around the accountability metrics.”

In Tennessee, only the legislature has authority to scuttle the state’s testing and evaluation mandates. However, the U.S. Department of Education has a say when deciding whether to grant waivers on such programs. In a letter earlier this month to chief state school officers, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said states should not count on getting the same blanket waivers on testing that her department granted last spring.

“My interpretation of that letter is that states should not expect a waiver of the assessment requirement,” Bufalino said, “but the federal government is willing to have conservations about waivers on the accountability side.”

Sen. Janice Bowling, a Republican from Tullahoma, questioned the practicality of administering tests this school year during a public health emergency. She noted that schools are pivoting frequently among multiple learning models — online, in class, or a hybrid of the two — while trying to ensure the health and safety of students and staff.

“It’s going to be very disruptive in a very disrupted year to utilize precious time and to try to get an accurate representation of maybe where the student is,” Bowling said.

If tests are administered, Bowling sought assurances that the scores will be used only to assess student progress instead of holding teachers or schools accountable for the results.

Bufalino could not make promises.

“The reason why is that any action to that extent would have to be taken by the General Assembly based on what current state laws are and would require a waiver from the federal government. We are certainly open to having those discussions,” he said.

Because of the unprecedented disruption to American schooling, many state and local education officials across the nation are pushing for canceling federally required testing in 2020-21.

In Tennessee, numerous superintendents, including Joris Ray in Memphis, have written the governor urging the cancelation of TNReady or, at the least, pausing again on accountability measures.

The issues likely will be brought up again next Tuesday when Commissioner Penny Schwinn and a handful of superintendents are scheduled to appear before the House Education Committee.

Cuomo waives state teacher and principal evaluations amid pandemic

2020-06-08T19:30:38+00:00

After months of uncertainty, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has waived requirements for teacher and principal evaluations for this school year.

State law mandates school and district leaders assess teachers and principals using the so-called Annual Professional Performance Reviews, or APPR. The evaluations, which include classroom observations and student performance data, can influence tenure decisions and trigger firings.

In an executive order issued Sunday, Cuomo will not require the reviews for the 2019-2020 academic year, since the coronavirus pandemic has kept school buildings closed across the state. The order also allows districts to grant tenure to educators who have met all other requirements for it and have been evaluated in the past, but have not been reviewed this school year. Under the order, districts can also choose to postpone tenure decisions for another year.

Cuomo’s executive order comes just weeks before the end of the school year and nearly two months after the state education department asked for such a waiver, given that in-person visits to evaluate educators became impossible amid coronavirus closures.

State officials were also concerned about the cancellation of grades 3-8 reading and math tests, which districts can consider when evaluating teachers. New York City schools can choose from a list of alternative student assessments and performance measures that do not include state test scores in reading and math.

Although the question over evaluations remained open for months, it was hardly top-of-mind for many New York City educators, who were busy making the transition to distance learning.

The city’s education department told schools “that they should provide supportive feedback so that teachers can focus on delivering the highest quality remote instruction for our students,” Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement Friday, before the governor issued his executive order. City officials were planning to provide schools with more guidance as the department itself awaited word from the state.

Anthony Cosentino, principal of P.S. 21 in Staten Island, said that since school buildings closed in mid-March, his school has been busy meeting students’ immediate needs. Cosentino and a couple teachers drove around to deliver laptops and hotspots to students and to offer them technical support. In addition, more than a dozen P.S. 21 teachers, working with a community-based organization, volunteered to help bag and deliver groceries to families who need it.

“We’re all anxious, we’re all stressed, we’re all traumatized about what’s going on around us, and with the support of the superintendent and the direction of the DOE, we put our focus on our priorities, which is not teacher evaluations at this time,” Cosentino said before the governor’s decision came down.

Andy Pallotta, president of the state teachers union, said the governor’s decision “rightly” allows districts to make tenure decisions. But the governor’s months-long delay in issuing a waiver has left school leaders in the dark, said Bob Lowry, deputy director for advocacy and communication at the state’s Council of School Superintendents.

“Districts have already had to begin making tenure decisions,” Lowry said. “Some have entered into agreements to extend teachers’ probationary periods for a year, assuming that they could not grant tenure without a rating this year.”

New York state education department wants Cuomo to cancel teacher evaluations

2020-04-13T22:12:25+00:00

State education officials want Gov. Andrew Cuomo to waive teacher and principal evaluations this year, as the coronavirus has forced extended school closures that could last through June.

Every year, school and district leaders are required by state law to observe and review teachers and principals, and these evaluations can affect tenure decisions and trigger firings.

Classroom observations and school visits are factored in. So too is student performance on grades 3-8 state tests, though as of last year, districts can instead use other approved measures of achievement. (New York City schools can choose from a list of alternative student assessments and performance measures that do not include reading and math state test scores.)

But campus closures across the state could make these reviews impossible to complete, “since state assessments have been suspended this year and many observations may not be able to be conducted before the end of the school year,” state officials wrote last week in a memo to the Board of Regents.

First reported by Spectrum News, the state education department is asking Cuomo to sign an executive order waiving the reviews, known formally as Annual Professional Performance Reviews.

The governor’s office did not immediately comment. On Monday, an education department official said the agency is not aware of the governor signing such an order yet.

Waiving the review could be welcome news for educators and their supervisors in New York City, who are in their fourth week of navigating an unprecedented transition to remote teaching and learning, with teachers and students adapting to online lessons and to changing guidance about which communications platforms they’re allowed to use.

The state and city’s teachers unions support suspending evaluations this year, according to officials from both unions.

“I think many, many teachers are not even in a place where they are remotely thinking about being observed right now,” said Kim Dempsey, a chemistry teacher at East Side Community High School in the East Village.

But those who strongly support evaluating teachers based on student performance could see things differently. Some may “expect that accountability to continue even in the absence of state tests,” said David Bloomfield, an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Reviewing teachers virtually could be tricky, and would require figuring out what school leaders would observe. Teachers would rather spend time figuring out how to provide services for families — such as counseling for a nonverbal child with autism — than adapt to a virtual evaluation system, said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents city educators.

Bloomfield wondered how a principal would determine a teacher’s effectiveness “or lack of.”

“I think that becomes even more difficult in an online environment where we don’t have data points, and the Danielson rubric doesn’t work,” Bloomfield said, referring to the model used to evaluate teachers.

Chirstina Veiga contributed to this report.

Indiana allows schools to alter teacher evaluations amid coronavirus closures

2020-04-10T14:34:24+00:00

Indiana has changed the requirements for evaluating teachers this year, offering districts unprecedented flexibility as school buildings remain closed because of the coronavirus.

In an executive order signed Friday morning, Gov. Eric Holcomb gave district leaders two options. Teachers can keep their evaluation from 2018-19, as long as they aren’t on an improvement plan. Or, administrators can give teachers a new evaluation that will skip a few requirements that would be difficult or impossible to complete given the closures.

According to the order, new evaluations cannot include student scores on state tests or local assessments that weren’t finished and observations by principals that weren’t conducted before campuses closed.

The stakes for teachers are high because evaluations determine whether they are eligible for a raise and the state’s $37 million teacher appreciation bonus. Most of the state’s more than 78,000 full-time teachers earned the top two evaluation ratings for the last school year. Only 1.4% were rated as ineffective or “improvement necessary,” according to state data.

Earlier this week, the Indiana State Teachers Association called on state officials to waive teacher evaluations entirely this year, asking that all teachers be rated “effective” so they can receive a raise or bonus.

While the order doesn’t go that far, it does offer an unprecedented amount of flexibility for schools. While the exact formulas for evaluations are determined locally, state statute outlines what pieces are required to be included in these evaluations, so it took an executive order from the governor to make a change.

This would have been the last year teacher evaluations in Indiana were required to include state standardized test scores. Lawmakers decoupled the two starting next year. Coronavirus closures prompted the state to cancel standardized tests this year.

New Tennessee rules could mean no more grades, no required attendance, no teacher effectiveness scores

2020-04-07T23:40:27+00:00

Teacher effectiveness scores would be officially shelved this school year and high school students would receive their semester grades as of March 20 under a slew of emergency rules drafted for Tennessee schools because of the pandemic.

Staff for the state Board of Education also recommended Tuesday that districts can take attendance for students thrust into remote learning mode this spring, but that schools can’t issue unexcused absences or report students as truant for failing to participate.

The nine-member board is expected to approve the recommendations on Thursday during a special conference call meeting.

The proposed rules tackle a range of difficult policy questions that all states are grappling with due to the unprecedented disruption to public education by the coronavirus. With schools shuttered for weeks to months, the issues range from what to do about an estimated 71,433 seniors in Tennessee’s Class of 2020 to state requirements regarding students who are English language learners or in special education.

“We’ve been trying to balance the need for flexibility at the local level and the need for uniformity at the state level,” said Executive Director Sara Morrison, noting that the board’s troubleshooting work is likely to continue.

“We absolutely expect to come together multiple times over the next few months to hammer out more issues as the situation evolves,” she said.

The board has authority to address those issues under an emergency law signed last week by Gov. Bill Lee. The law already stipulates that districts do not have to administer state tests or provide the required 180 days of instruction.

Here are summaries of some of the proposed rules:

Teacher evaluations. While Tennessee has one of the nation’s most comprehensive systems for holding educators accountable, teachers would generally get a pass this year, since the legislature was clear that they should be held harmless for events beyond their control. The state would not generate scores to gauge their overall effectiveness, and uncompleted classroom observations would be waived. Districts would have discretion whether to use existing evaluation data for personnel-related decisions, or just to give feedback.

Calculating grades. High school students would receive their spring semester grades as of March 20, the date when all Tennessee schools were closed at the governor’s urging. However, students in districts that are providing remote learning would have the opportunity to improve their grades. “They could only move forward, not backward,” Morrison said. The state’s uniform grading policy is for the purpose of determining college-level admission, placement, and scholarships. The new rule would not affect local grading policies used to issue report cards and determine awards for students in all grades.

High school graduation. The state-calculated grades would be used to determine if a senior has met Tennessee’s graduation requirements. Another recommendation reduces the number of required credits from 22 to 20 to accommodate about 5,000 seniors on non-traditional “block” schedules. Those students had not begun those final classes when schools closed in March. In addition, seniors who did not take their required ACT or SAT college entrance exams would not be penalized. “We’ve really tried to partner on a fast timeline with our higher ed partners,” Morrison said of those recommendations. “Everyone understands the position that our seniors are in.”

Attendance. Districts could take attendance during their remote learning programs in order to engage students and gauge the success of those programs. However, lack of attendance could not be used punitively.

Special education. Current rule gives districts 60 days to complete the initial evaluation of a student for special education services. The new rule would extend that deadline by the length of the stay-at-home order that a district is under. Districts also could ask the state education department for 30 more days beyond that.

English language learners. Districts would have more flexibility to determine what level of specialized instruction that students should receive if they’re from non-English speaking homes and not proficient in English, as well as when those students could exit the basic language-learning program for this school year. Currently, those decisions are based on the results of an annual language assessment that was to be conducted between Feb. 18 and April 3. However, many of those students did not complete the four-part test because it takes multiple days to administer. Under the proposed rule, decisions for those students could be made based on existing data and individual learning plans.

Teacher licensure. Colleges of education and other educator prep programs could recommend licensure for candidates even if they did not complete their required 15 weeks of classroom teaching time. And because testing centers are closed indefinitely, prospective educators who could not complete their licensure exams could receive a one-year license that would expire in August of 2021, giving them more than a year to fulfill that requirement. Tennessee’s teacher training programs produce from 3,000 to 3,500 educators each year.

Indiana officials mull how to evaluate 78,000 teachers as coronavirus shutters schools

2020-04-07T16:55:15+00:00

Indiana teachers are still waiting to find out how they will be evaluated with school buildings closed through the end of the academic year because of the coronavirus.

During a Tuesday webinar, State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick said the state is currently not planning to cancel this year’s evaluations, but said they are “going to have to look differently.”

The stakes for teachers are high because evaluations determine whether they are eligible for a raise or the state’s $37 million teacher appreciation grant money next year. Most of the state’s more than 78,000 full-time teachers earned the top two evaluation ratings for the last school year. Only 1.4 percent were rated as ineffective or “improvement necessary,” according to state data.

The Indiana State Teachers Association is calling on the state to waive this year’s evaluation requirements and rate all teachers as effective so they can receive raises and the state grant. Improvement plans could be tabled until schools reopen, said ISTA president Keith Gambill.

“The focus now should be on students, rather than on creating portfolios of work, scheduling online observations and measuring teacher adherence to goals and standards,” Gambill said in an email statement. “Given that nearly a third of the teaching year has been disrupted, it’s hard to imagine how any annual review process would be meaningful to anyone or serve as a fair basis for high-stakes decisions.”

Each district determines how its teachers are evaluated, but state law does lay out general requirements. Typically, teacher evaluations rely heavily on observations by principals, which will be difficult this year as schools have moved to remote learning or e-learning. Many teachers had to scramble to adapt their lessons into online assignments or paper packets.

This is the last year state law will require schools to base a teacher’s performance score significantly on their students’ test results. Schools can change their rubric after lawmakers decoupled evaluations from test scores, following concerns about whether low state test results are an accurate reflection of students’ knowledge.

Schools and teachers will hopefully get more guidance this week, McCormick said. Making a temporary change to evaluations in response to coronavirus closures will require an executive order from Gov. Eric Holcomb, McCormick said. The Department of Education submitted its recommendation to Holcomb and the State Board of Education a couple weeks ago, and all are working to find a middle ground.

“That teacher evaluation piece is huge,” McCormick said. “We are working with the governor’s office and State Board of Education to provide the most flexibility possible.”

Colorado districts won’t be required to conduct teacher evaluations this year

2020-04-02T21:00:00+00:00

As Colorado educators grapple with the unprecedented challenge of teaching remotely, Gov. Jared Polis has suspended the requirement that they be evaluated every year.

That doesn’t necessarily mean teacher evaluations are canceled. School districts could still go ahead with them if they want, though the statewide teachers union is urging that they don’t.

Many school districts have said they’re still considering their options or waiting on guidance from state education officials.

“We really need to know what the state expects from us,” David Bell, the chief human resources officer for Jeffco Public Schools, the state’s second largest district, said earlier Wednesday.

Polis included the change in an amended executive order issued Wednesday that also extends statewide school closures at least through April 30. Most schools in the state have been closed since March 16, and officials say it’s unlikely that in-person classes will resume this school year.

The executive order suspends requirements in state law regarding the “frequency and duration of employment performance evaluations” for teachers, special service providers, principals, and administrators “to enable schools and districts to focus on providing alternative learning opportunities to students.”

Colorado’s controversial educator effectiveness law requires that all teachers be evaluated every year, with the evaluation to be based on a combination of student performance on standardized tests and classroom observations of the teacher. Teachers also need to have a certain number of observations each year, depending on how long they’ve been on the job.

Colleen O’Neil, the state’s associate commissioner of educator talent, said the order provides flexibility for decisions to be made at the local level.

“Much of the direction now will be made at the district level,” O’Neil said in a statement. “The lack of state requirements is not an indicator that evaluation and professional growth do not matter. It is an indicator that flexibility in requirements is needed for districts to focus their work as they see is needed to support their students and teachers.”

As many districts canceled classes, the Colorado Department of Education announced it would not conduct standardized tests this year, a decision that was supported by the governor. The department also announced that tracking of low-performing districts and schools, with the possibility of state intervention, would be put on hold.

However, the department had not put out clear guidance on how to handle educator evaluations. Many superintendents said they needed direction because the evaluations are required by state law, though some had already said they would not use the uncharted territory of online instruction as a basis for evaluations.

A website published by the department answers questions about the new flexibility for evaluations, but leaves a lot of room for districts to make their own decisions.

One big consideration that districts may have to work out with their teachers unions involves teachers with “probationary” status. Teachers in this status, usually in their first three years of teaching, can be fired without cause. To move into “non-probationary” status, which brings more job protections, teachers need three years of effective teacher ratings. The state’s guidance says that districts may still choose to do an evaluation “of any teacher” and may want to do so for educators in this category.

In Jeffco, Bell said that informal observations, like a principal popping into a classroom — even a virtual one — may still be happening as educators try to improve how they are teaching remotely. But those observations aren’t being documented for a formal evaluation.

John Ford, president of the Jeffco teachers union, said he will propose a memorandum of understanding between the union and the district to address how teacher ratings might be handled this year.

In Denver, the state’s largest district, spokesperson Will Jones said earlier Wednesday that district human resource officials feel there are too many unknowns to have a clear plan for observations and evaluations. The district plans to work on that after remote learning launches Tuesday.

The state teachers union, the Colorado Education Association, has called for evaluations to be suspended.

In a statement, union President Amie Baca-Oehlert praised the governor’s decision but said it still left too much discretion to school districts. Unless evaluations were completed while school was still in session, all districts should suspend them for the 2019-20 school year, she said.

“Educators are resolutely focused on making distance learning a success for their students,” she said. “This includes not just their academic success, but also their social-emotional and physical health and safety. Educators need to be given the time to maintain relationships with their students, not worry about evaluations during this challenging time.”

Chalkbeat reporter Yesenia Robles contributed to this report.

Sweeping Tennessee legislation filed to drop TNReady tests, allow fewer instructional days as schools close due to COVID-19

2020-03-18T01:25:05+00:00

Tennessee legislative leaders filed a proposal Tuesday to drop state testing and waive the required 180 days of classroom instruction this year as schools shutter statewide without certainty of when they’ll reopen amid a public health emergency.

The proposal aims to lift the burden of testing and other state mandates from public school communities disrupted by the ongoing spread of COVID-19, as well as deadly twisters that shredded parts of Middle Tennessee earlier this month.

The sweeping measure was filed after two days of talks by leaders of the General Assembly, the Department of Education, and school districts.

“We’re trying to cover everything we can think of,” said House Education Committee Chairman Mark White, who is carrying the legislation in his chamber. “This is uncharted territory, and we just don’t know where we’re going.”

The first votes will come Wednesday in committees as the General Assembly seeks to handle essential business before recessing by Saturday.

Schools are shutting down statewide this week at the encouragement of Gov. Bill Lee, who asked Monday that all in-person classes be canceled through the end of the month.

The legislation says the health and safety risks from COVID-19 “are not fully understood and may necessitate school closures beyond March 31.”

White hopes students will be back in school in April but acknowledged that may not happen.

Among pressing issues are required state tests scheduled to start in mid-April unless the legislature acts to halt them due to two state emergencies prompting school closures. In anticipation of that action, Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn requested a waiver Monday from the U.S. Department of Education on federal testing requirements.

Tennessee tests that would be scrapped include TNReady for grades 3-8 and end-of-course assessments for high school students, as well as others for English learners and several alternate assessments.

Schools or districts could still voluntarily test their students, but the results would be excluded from students’ final grades, teacher evaluations, and A-F letter grades being given to schools this year for the first time — unless they result in higher scores and grades.

“The General Assembly seeks to ensure that school districts, schools, teachers, and students are held harmless from testing requirements and accountability measures to provide some relief to Tennesseans during these difficult and uncertain times,” the legislation reads.

In addition, teachers in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and non-tested grades and subjects would not be evaluated using “portfolio” or alternative models this school year — again unless they result in higher evaluation scores. White said ongoing problems with those models led to that addition in the legislation.

For the 2019-20 school year, other provisions of the proposal would:

Ensure that districts receive full state funding for the school year, even if students cannot be present;
Drop the requirement that high school students must pass a civics test to graduate;
Drop the requirement that 11th-graders take an exam to assess their readiness for college;
Require the state Board of Education to revise requirements so that no senior who is on track and eligible would be prevented from graduating on time because of school closings.

Early reaction to the proposal was positive.

“I think this resolves a lot of concerns by students and educators,” said JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee.

You can read the full proposal below:

In a stark reversal, Indiana lawmakers may decouple teacher evaluations from test scores

2020-02-04T23:38:54+00:00

Indiana lawmakers may soon stop requiring students’ test scores in teacher evaluations, a move that would mark a significant shift away from the state’s tough accountability era.

A bill that would remove the requirement garnered support from Republican leaders, unanimously passing through the Indiana House last month.

It’s a surprising pivot for the state’s Republican party, which once was aggressively reform-minded. Back in 2011, lawmakers mandated that test scores account for a “significant” portion of teacher evaluations, amid other sweeping education policy changes. But nearly a decade later, enthusiasm for those policies is waning, after a yearslong teacher shortage and ongoing concerns about whether low state test results are an accurate reflection of students’ knowledge.

Growing unrest among Indiana teachers culminated in thousands joining the national Red For Ed movement — rallying at the statehouse in November to demand greater support for public schools.

“It appears to me that the pressure that has been placed on legislators up until now, and the pressure that came about for Red For Ed… has helped legislators see things from a different perspective,” said Andy Downs, a political scientist from Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Lawmakers have already moved to protect teachers and schools from test scores in the short-term — passing a two-year, hold-harmless exemption on Monday. The move came after just one-third of Indiana’s students passed both the math and English portions of the state’s new ILEARN exam in 2019. The exemption renders schools’ A-F grades essentially meaningless.

Coupled with the State Board of Education’s January vote to return four state takeover schools to their original districts, these changes mark a quiet move away from the ideas that swept the state — and nation — a decade ago.

“Accountability is … an easy place to address a significant concern of teachers without having to do much fiscally,” Downs said.

Some accountability advocates have cautioned state leaders against abandoning standardized test scores. The National Council on Teacher Quality opposed both the hold harmless and the potential change affecting evaluations. The group has said there’s no evidence that ILEARN results fail to accurately reflect what students know. Scores increase the validity of teacher evaluations, the council’s president, Kate Walsh, said in an email statement.

“These measures provide educational leaders and teachers, themselves, with critical information about how and where improvements in teacher practice are necessary to ensure that all students have equitable access to excellent teachers,” the statement said.

Educators, however, argue that test scores aren’t a fair metric by which to judge teacher effectiveness, in part because outside factors, such as poverty and race, have been shown to correlate with student scores.

“I think we get hung up on data,” said Tim McRoberts, associate director of the Indiana Association of School Principals. “We start to worry too much on results and we don’t focus enough on process. The most important thing that goes on in a school everyday is what happens in the classroom.”

Indiana first tied evaluations to test scores during the height of the idea’s popularity, nationally, when schools could receive federal dollars for enacting policies favored by the Obama administration, including linking test scores and evaluations.

Using the objective measure was meant to more accurately distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. But a 2017 study found that the majority of teachers nationwide are still rated effective or better. The number of states requiring that test scores be factored into evaluations has slowly fallen, reaching 34 last year after peaking at 43 in 2015.

In Indiana, districts were left to decide how to implement the vague requirement, so how teachers are evaluated currently depends on where they work. Most districts have made test scores account for around 10% of evaluations, McRoberts said. Teachers whose grade or subject isn’t directly tied to the state test are often evaluated based on their schools’ scores.

“Maybe that doesn’t make as much sense as it seemed to 20 years ago,” Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said in November.

The decision is high-stakes for teachers, whose pay is tied to whether or not they earn a top rating. If passed, districts could create evaluation templates that are largely based on observations from principals and how teachers progress toward meeting their personal goals for the year.

“I am excited that passage of this bill acknowledges that student knowledge is demonstrated in a number of different ways,” Rep. Tony Cook, R-Cicero, said during his testimony in January. “And measuring teacher effectiveness based on students’ performance on a single exam is not in their best interest.”

The teacher evaluation bill, filed by Cook next goes to the Senate.

Detroit board OKs student input on teacher evaluations, but reduces its impact

2019-11-13T22:39:15+00:00

The Detroit school board approved a plan to have student survey results factor into some teacher evaluations, but the feedback from children will carry less weight than district officials had intended.

Even with that change, union officials voiced opposition, and so did some teachers at a school board meeting Tuesday night.

The feedback from students in grades 3-12 is among the features of a new teacher evaluation system, called Thrive for Teachers, that the Detroit Public Schools Community District will begin using during the 2020-21 school year.

When the plan was first presented to board members last month, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the survey results would count towards 10% of a teacher’s evaluation. Another 40% will be based on the amount of improvement students have on standardized exams, with 40% based on classroom observations and 10% based on teachers’ commitment to the school community.

Angelique Peterson-Mayberry, vice president of the board, raised concerns Tuesday night and successfully got the student input lowered to 5%. it was unclear how the change would affect the weight distribution for the other categories.

Peterson-Mayberry said she tested the survey questions on several young relatives who are in grades 3-5.

“It required a lot of engagement for them to really understand what it was I was trying to get at with them,” Peterson-Mayberry said.

She said she’s concerned about bias and believes that 10% was too much weight.

“I just think we should put the best product forward if you’re talking about a teacher being evaluated in the space they’re being held accountable for.”

Vitti said the surveys would be more about asking students about their experiences in the classroom, and not about asking them to weigh in as experts on teaching.

“We often talk about honoring student voice,” Vitti said. “This is just a way to empower students to give feedback.”

Research has found that student survey results can generally predict student performance. But at least one study found that teachers who are good at raising test scores are worse at making kids happy in class.

Teachers who spoke during the public comment period of Tuesday’s meeting said they want and value feedback from students. But they questioned whether that feedback should factor into their evaluations.

“They’re not going to be genuine or authentic,” said Nicole Conaway, a teacher at Communication & Media Arts High School. “It’s to create a veneer of acting like you’re collecting voices.”

Terrence Martin, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, also spoke in opposition, saying that having student survey results included in an evaluation that affects a teacher’s career is unfair.

“This is … a process that hasn’t been tested,” Martin said.

Support for TNReady rebounds after problem-free testing year, says new poll

2019-10-11T15:00:40+00:00

Three years of technical problems and controversy surrounding Tennessee’s testing program don’t appear to have dampened Tennesseans’ support for giving students annual tests to measure their learning, according to a new statewide poll released Friday.

Fully 85% of registered Tennessee voters who were surveyed believe it’s important to test students each year to know they’re meeting the state’s standards. And eight out of 10 said those results should be used to hold teachers and public schools accountable, says the poll commissioned by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, also known as SCORE, a nonprofit group that researches and advocates for best practices in Tennessee schools.

The findings come as Tennessee administered its first trouble-free TNReady test last school year after three straight years of headaches under two different testing companies. Pearson was hired to take over administration this year after widespread technical problems under Questar and previous vendor Measurement Inc. shook public confidence in TNReady results and put at risk an accountability system that many state leaders believe have led to gains on national tests.

About 69% of those polled support continuing to use TNReady in Tennessee schools, a jump of 10 percentage points over this time last year.

Pollsters also delved into the state’s use of growth scores — which measure learning over time, regardless of whether those students are proficient — in evaluating its teachers and schools. More than half of voters favored using academic growth in teacher evaluations, and more than three-fourths approved of that approach for grading schools.

As Tennessee prepares to give schools their first A-F letter grades next year, 80% of voters said they favored such measures, as well as state intervention, teacher evaluation, and other policies designed to increase transparency about education quality. And more than half said they were less likely to support a legislator who votes to ease off of those kinds of measures.

“There is clear support among all voter groups for robust accountability in K-12 education,” said pollster Robert Blizzard of Public Opinion Strategies.

Blizzard’s group asked a series of questions about K-12 and postsecondary education to 500 voters that are representative of the state based on geography, gender, and party affiliation. Consistent with other surveys commissioned by SCORE since 2015, voters identified education as one of the top issues facing state government, ranking below health care but above jobs and the economy.

Three-fourths favored increasing choice in public schools via charter or magnet schools. And they overwhelmingly agreed that students need an education beyond high school — whether it’s a technical certificate, community college, or a four-year degree — if they want to achieve economic success.

“It’s clear that Tennesseans agree that it is essential to prepare all students to succeed in college, career, and life,” said SCORE President and CEO David Mansouri.

SCORE was established in 2009 by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, a physician and Republican from Tennessee, and has become one of the state’s most influential voices on education policy and practice. The group recently expanded its focus beyond K-12 education to include college and career.

Its most recent poll did not include questions about education vouchers, a perennially hot-button issue that SCORE has steered clear of but was at the forefront of legislative debate this spring as lawmakers approved Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account plan. That controversial program is scheduled to launch next school year.

The poll showed 58% of Tennesseans believe that Tennessee is generally headed in the right direction. Lee’s approval rating was 61%, while the legislature’s was 53%.

One in three Tennessee teachers wants to leave the profession, survey says

2019-08-22T04:01:27+00:00

A third of Tennessee teachers say they would leave the profession for a higher-paying job and also would choose a different career if given a do-over, according to the results of a new statewide survey.

At the same time, three-fourths of teachers who responded to the survey reported feeling positively about the way their school runs, and nearly 90% said they would recommend their school to parents.

Results from the latest Tennessee Educator Survey, released late Wednesday, are both troubling and encouraging in a reform-minded state that has fostered gains on national student tests but also is seeing a gradual decline in its number of teacher candidates. Research is clear that effective teachers are the most important factor contributing to student achievement.

Despite significant state investments to increase teacher pay, including $71 million this year under Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee’s average annual classroom salary stands at $53,980, well below the national average but in the top half of states in the Southeast. Minimum pay is $36,000 with a bachelor’s degree and no teaching experience.

But pay is just one factor in teacher satisfaction, and the survey offers clear, actionable lessons for school leaders to retain their top teachers.

“They’re more likely to stay if their planning time is protected, student discipline is being handled effectively by their administrators, and there’s an open and trusting culture with school leadership,” said Erin O’Hara, executive director of the Tennessee Education Research Alliance at Vanderbilt University, which conducted the survey in partnership with the state Education Department.

Many teachers, especially in urban districts, reported they didn’t get sufficient individual or collaborative planning time on a regular basis. But the more they received, the happier they were. Two and a half to three hours of protected individual planning time a week seemed to satisfy most teachers.

“I would rather have more [planning] time than any other resource,” one teacher commented anonymously.

About 69% of teachers surveyed said their administrators managed behavioral issues well — allowing instructional time to be maximized in the classroom — and more than three-fourths reported feeling comfortable raising issues with their school leaders.

But 45% — the same percentage as last year — said they still felt pulled in many directions in terms of what to teach and how to teach it.

Results of the ninth annual survey are especially important because more educators participated than ever before. More than 45,000 teachers and administrators, or about 62%, weighed in, compared with 58% last year and 25% in 2012 when the first survey was conducted across the state’s public schools.

“Policy folks want to hear from teachers; they want to know what teachers think,” O’Hara said.

Higher participation adds credibility to the data, which state officials say is critical to Tennessee’s ongoing research and strategies on issues such as teacher and leader effectiveness, development, and retention.

“I’ve personally reviewed the comments that were submitted, and we are already using this feedback to drive decisions at the department,” Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn said in a statement.

The latest survey, conducted this spring in the weeks prior to state testing, continued to track feedback on hot-button issues like TNReady assessments and teacher evaluations. Responses to those questions deviated little from last year.

Only 29% of teachers said information generated by the state’s annual TNReady tests was worth the investment of time and effort. And about three-fourths said their annual evaluations helped them to be a more effective teacher, indicating that educators were continuing to warm to the state’s controversial rating system.

However, significantly fewer school administrators felt positively toward TNReady when compared with the previous year. Only 47% of principals and assistant principals saw the test as a good investment, down 11% from 2018.

Recruiting, retaining, and developing effective teachers have become front-burner issues in Tennessee as droves of experienced educators are expected to retire in the next decade and districts struggle to find enough teachers for special education, English language learners, and high school math and science. Rural districts face unique challenges in attracting high-quality faculty. Another concern is lagging diversity among teacher candidates, only 15% of whom are people of color, compared with 35% of the state’s student population.

“It’s definitely a challenge for us,” acknowledged Rep. Mark White, the Memphis Republican who chairs the House Education Committee. “It’s regretful that one out of three educators would leave the profession for higher pay, but we’ve got to keep moving the ball on standards and accountability. The world is changing fast and the demands are high in every field, education included.”

You can find the full results of the 2019 survey here and previous surveys here.

Merit pay was the heart of a ‘revolutionary’ teachers contract in Newark. Now the Cory Booker-era policy is disappearing.

2019-08-20T16:52:00+00:00

In 2012, Newark teachers agreed to a controversial new contract that linked their pay to student achievement — a stark departure from the way most teachers across the country are paid.

The idea was to reward teachers for excellent performance, rather than how many years they spent in the district or degrees they attained. Under the new contract, teachers could earn bonuses and raises only if they received satisfactory or better ratings, and advanced degrees would no longer elevate teachers to a higher pay scale.

The changes were considered a major victory for the so-called “education reform” movement, which sought to inject corporate-style accountability and compensation practices into public education. And they were championed by an unlikely trio: New Jersey’s Republican governor, the Democratic-aligned leader of the nation’s second-largest teachers union, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who had allocated half of his $100 million gift to Newark’s schools to fund a new teachers contract.

“In my heart, this is what I was hoping for: that Newark would lead a transformational change in education in America,” then-Gov. Chris Christie said in Nov. 2012 after the contract was ratified.

Seven years later, those changes have been erased.

Last week, negotiators for the Newark Teachers Union and the district struck a deal for a new contract that scraps the bonuses for top-rated teachers, allows low-rated teachers to earn raises, and gives teachers with advanced degrees more pay. It also eliminates other provisions of the 2012 contract, which were continued in a follow-up agreement in 2017, including longer hours for low-performing schools.

“All vestiges of corporate reform have been removed,” declared a union document describing the deal.

The new contract highlights the waning popularity of many ideas associated with the education reform movement, including performance-based pay, and the success of educators across the country in demanding higher pay for all teachers — not just top-performers.

But the downfall of the 2012 contract — once touted as “groundbreaking” and “revolutionary” — also reflects conditions unique to Newark. The contract relied on a finite pool of private money, which helped fund the changes and convince skeptical teachers to sign on. And many educators remained wary of the contract even after it was approved, with a majority of teachers saying in a 2015 survey that they did not consider the new compensation system to be fair.

“It was a rigged system,” said a Newark high school teacher, who declined to give his name Wednesday as he left the union headquarters where officials were answering members’ questions about the contract deal. The new contract, he said, “is a step in trying to make whole the damage that was done to the pocketbooks and the hearts and souls of Newark teachers.”

The 2012 contract was forged under extraordinary circumstances. Zuckerberg had made clear to Christie and Cory Booker, the former Newark mayor who is now a U.S. senator and presidential candidate, that he wanted a contract that would reward high-performing teachers and make it easier to remove low-performers. With Newark schools under state control at the time, Christie appointed a hard-charging superintendent, Cami Anderson, to carry out the plan.

The resulting contract prevented teachers from earning yearly salary increases if they received unsatisfactory ratings under a new evaluation system based on students’ test scores and classroom observations. It also established $5,000 bonuses for teachers deemed “highly effective,” who could earn additional rewards if they taught hard-to-staff subjects, like math and science, and worked in struggling schools.

Teachers unions have traditionally opposed performance-based or “merit pay” systems, arguing that they force teachers to compete for bonuses and rely on evaluation systems that many educators distrust. But Newark’s union agreed to the system in exchange for $31 million in back pay — funded by Zuckerberg — for two years when teachers worked without raises. Many teachers suspected that if they didn’t accept the deal, the billionaire’s gift would be snatched away.

“We had an opportunity to get Zuckerberg’s money,” Joseph Del Grosso, Newark’s former union chief, said at the time, according to Dale Russakoff’s 2015 book “The Prize.” “Otherwise, it would go to charter schools. I decided I shouldn’t feed and clothe the enemy.”

The contract’s changes were symbolically significant and attracted national attention — but they directly affected fewer teachers than some realized.

About a third of Newark teachers took advantage of an option that let them remain on the traditional pay scale. And fewer than 200 teachers per year — about 7% of the current teaching force — received the “highly effective” bonuses, while a similar number of low-rated teachers were prevented from earning raises, according to union and former district officials.

It’s also not clear that the bonuses have convinced high-performing teachers to remain in the district — which was one of the stated reasons for offering merit pay.

Newark does retain almost all of its top-rated teachers: In the 2016-17 school year, 97% of teachers who were rated “highly effective” the previous year stayed in the district, compared to just 54% of teachers rated “ineffective.”

Yet researchers hired by the district have said they could not find “strong evidence” that the new pay system is the reason that top-rated teachers decide to keep working in the district. In a 2016 report, the researchers said it was possible that differences between teachers who get high versus low ratings were leading to the different retention rates — not the incentives offered by the district.

Meanwhile, as the Zuckerberg money dried up, the district was forced to discontinue the bonuses for working in hard-to-staff subjects and struggling schools.

At the same time, clashes erupted over the implementation of the contract. For instance, the contract replaced higher salaries for teachers with master’s degrees or doctorates with a one-time $20,000 bonus for teachers who completed approved graduate programs. But the union complained — and an arbitrator agreed — that the Anderson administration violated the terms of the contract when it unilaterally approved a single graduate program.

“Cami Anderson, immediately after that contract was signed, acted in complete bad faith,” said Randi Weingarten, the American Federation of Teachers leader who helped negotiate the 2012 contract, during an interview earlier this year. “It was a complete catastrophe.”

Newark looks very different today than it did in 2012. The Zuckerberg money is gone, the state no longer controls the district, and a veteran Newark educator — Roger León — is now superintendent.

Under those conditions, the district agreed to a heap of contract provisions long sought by the union. Besides ending the performance-pay measures, the five-year deal also raises teachers’ salaries by about 3% per year. It gives teachers more planning time, a later return from summer break, and more money to help pay for classroom supplies and graduate courses. Teachers will also earn more for working after school or over the summer, and for spending 20 or more years in the district.

District and union officials have not commented publicly on the deal or said how much it will cost. The union’s 4,000 or so members will vote on the contract later this month.

Shavar Jeffries, who led the Newark school board in 2012 and is now president of the national advocacy group Democrats for Education Reform said he is happy to see teachers get more money under the new agreement. But he said it is disappointing that teachers’ performance will no longer automatically influence their pay — a disconnect, he argued, that many families do not support.

“There’s almost no parent in the city of Newark,” he said, “who thinks that there shouldn’t be a relationship between pay and whether you’re actually doing a good job for babies each and every day in the classroom.”

This story was updated to include the findings of a 2016 study of Newark’s pay system.

Six things to know about Tennessee’s TNReady scores coming out this week

2019-08-14T14:55:41+00:00

Tennessee is scheduled on Thursday to release the results of its annual tests for public school students, marking the fourth year of scores in the assessment era known as TNReady.

Starting with third-graders, TNReady measures student academic performance with a battery of tests designed to assess every student’s true understanding of the material they’ve studied, not just memorized. The goal is to know how to help students advance their knowledge and skills, teachers raise their level of instruction, and districts improve their schools.

Here are six things to know about scores coming soon for the 2018-19 school year.

Tennessee is anxious to rebound from the last round of mostly flat results.

Scores from 2017-18 had some bright spots but were disappointing overall, as middle school performance dropped in every subject and students also saw across-the-board declines in science.

But it’s important to remember that 2017-18 was a wild testing year. Widespread technical problems disrupted exams taken by high schoolers and some middle school students on computers. Then while testing continued, state lawmakers passed emergency legislation rolling back the importance of those scores in students’ final grades, prompting worries that older students stopped trying on the rest of their tests and hurt the final results.

TNReady scores will be taken more seriously this year, though there are still skeptics.

Just a year ago, public trust in the test’s reliability was at an all-time low after three straight years of technical glitches, scoring errors, and score delivery issues. But this spring — after major safeguards were required of testing company Questar — TNReady’s administration went the smoothest ever, building back at least some credibility in the results.

“Last year was ugly, but I feel much better about everything this year,” said assistant principal Tara Baker after coordinating testing this spring at Nashville’s McGavock High School.

Even so, distrust in TNReady won’t evaporate overnight, especially for those who don’t believe a single summative test can accurately and fairly reflect a student’s learning or a teacher’s effectiveness — no matter how well administration went.

“It’s going to take a lot more than one year for faith to be restored,” said Beth Brown, president of the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers group.

Keep an eye on reading scores. Tennessee has big goals for improving literacy.

With a little more than a third of its third-graders reading on grade level, the state has a huge hill to climb to get to 75% by 2025 — a goal set in 2016 by former Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration and reaffirmed this year by Gov. Bill Lee.

Third grade is considered a benchmark year for reading because the skill profoundly affects a child’s educational development. Students who don’t read well by the end of that year are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers.

Last year’s third-grade reading performance was encouraging. After years of stagnant scores, a 2.3% increase moved Tennessee to almost 37% of its third-graders reading on or above grade level. But to reach its long-term goal, the state will have to move around 6% more third-graders to proficiency every year.

Results in science also will be interesting to watch.

Last year’s science drops were a big surprise since Tennessee had not yet transitioned to new, more difficult standards and a new aligned test for that subject. At the time, then-Education Commissioner Candice McQueen said the declines reinforced the need to support science teachers in the shift to higher expectations beginning in the fall 2018. Now that those tougher standards are in place, another drop would be expected — but stay tuned!

Student performance will be part of this year’s teacher evaluations, but won’t be used to give schools an A-F letter grade.

For teachers in tested grades, their students’ growth scores from 2018 to 2019 will account for 35% of their overall effectiveness rating, while classroom observations will continue to determine the bulk of their evaluation.

But the plan to use TNReady results to begin giving each school an A-F grade has been delayed for a second straight year. The reason goes back to 2018 testing headaches and subsequent state laws that shield schools from any “adverse action” from those scores, including assigning letter grades to schools. Because this year’s letter grades would have been based on student achievement results for both this year and last, Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn has ordered a 2020 launch. But schools will still be rated this year on a scale of 0 to 4 using other metrics, which you can view on the state report card.

The education department will release statewide, district-level, and school-level results all at once.

That’s a huge data dump, since about 715,000 students in grades 3-11 completed 2 million tests statewide during the month-long spring testing window that ended on May 3.

A year ago, the department released statewide and district-level results in July and school-level scores in August. However, state officials received feedback that a single-day release would be better for school systems.

Anyone with internet access will be able to look up how their school, district, or state performed. As for students’ individual performance, parents or guardians can ask their school administrators to see those score reports. Districts distribute individual reports in different ways, but the information is fair game beginning Thursday.

Study suggests ‘deck might be stacked’ against African-American teachers in Michigan

2019-05-23T21:00:04+00:00

As Michigan lawmakers continue to grapple with the best way to evaluate teachers, a new study raises questions about whether the current evaluation system is fair to everyone.

A policy brief by Michigan State University researchers finds that teachers of color — especially African-American teachers — are more likely than their white peers to receive low ratings on annual performance evaluations.

Also more likely to get low ratings: men and teachers who work in charter schools.

The study from researchers Steven Drake, Amy Auletto, and Joshua Cowen sheds light on an important conversation happening across the country about how schools should measure effective teaching. It also raises questions about how to ensure teachers are evaluated fairly and equitably at a time when many districts are struggling to recruit and retain teachers of color to serve diverse student populations.

In Michigan, schools are required by state law to evaluate every teacher’s performance every year. Those evaluations can be used to make decisions about bonuses or whether a teacher is re-hired.

The Michigan State researchers examined the evaluations of teachers working in Michigan schools between the 2011-12 school year and the 2015-16 school year — the years following changes in state law that required schools to assign all teachers one of four possible ratings: highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective.

They found no racial or gender differences on a measure that looked at how well teachers helped their students advance on state math and English exams. Yet they did see racial differences in final ratings as well as differences in who received the lowest marks.

Notably, they found that African-American teachers were more likely to get poor marks if they worked in a school where most of the teachers were white.

That suggests ratings could be influenced by the biases of administrators who do the classroom observations that contribute to most of a teacher’s evaluation in Michigan, Cowen said.

“The deck might be stacked against teachers of color in our schools and we have to pay attention to this,” Cowen said.

There’s been an ongoing debate about how much of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on classroom observation by an administrator versus student tests scores. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation last month that postponed by a year a law that would have required schools to base 40% of evaluations on test scores.

For now, 25% of a teacher’s evaluation is based on test scores. The rest comes from classroom observations.

That’s where the Michigan State University study raises the possibility of bias influencing results.

Only a fraction of Michigan teachers — about 3% — received the lowest ratings during the years the researchers studied but they weren’t distributed evenly among demographic groups. Among the findings:

Black teachers were 50% more likely than their white peers in the same school to receive a low evaluation.
Black teachers were more likely to get a low rating if they worked in a school where most of the teachers were white.
Male teachers were more likely than female teachers to get a low rating.
Male teachers were less likely to receive a low rating if they worked in schools with male administrators.
Teachers in charter schools were more likely to get a low rating than their peers in traditional schools.

Though just a fraction of teachers receive low marks, the study questions whether the higher rate of ineffective ratings for African-American teachers could be contributing to an alarming decline in the state’s population of African-American teachers.

Research shows that African-American students do better in classrooms led by teachers with the same racial background but a report last year found that while a third of Michigan students are children of color, more than 90 percent of teachers and 80 percent of administrators are white.

Meanwhile, the state’s African-American teaching population declined by 27% between 2011 and 2015. Evaluations could be part of the reason, Cowen said.

“If you get a low rating, you’re more likely to leave your school,” Cowen said. “We’ve been losing black teachers for 10 years in Michigan so you start to worry … that it will add up.”

Read the full policy brief below:

Colorado’s teacher evaluation system won’t get a makeover this year

2019-04-25T23:04:55+00:00

An effort to change Colorado’s teacher evaluation system landed in limbo Thursday as a Senate committee postponed action on the bill beyond the end of the legislative session.

State Sen. Nancy Todd, an Aurora Democrat who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said she hopes the controversial evaluation system gets a review.

Todd moved to lay over Senate Bill 247 until July, after bill sponsor state Sen. Tammy Story, a Conifer Democrat, declined to make the motion. Only three of the five members of the committee, all Democrats, were in the room, but the motion didn’t require a vote.

The path forward remains unclear.

“I don’t think we have any official next steps,” Story said.

Gov. Jared Polis said earlier this week that he may convene people to take a closer look at the evaluation system that places heavy emphasis on student performance in evaluating teachers. Many teachers and school administrators also describe the system as burdensome and overly complicated.

Story’s bill included a commission to review the system enacted in 2010, but it also included a reduction in the student performance portion of the evaluation system. While teachers and their unions supported the measure, others said changes in law aren’t necessary to make the system work better.

“I think our educators had been asking for us to address this issue after nine years of the current system,” Story said after the committee meeting. “They really want to see some systematic changes, and I believe we need to listen to what their requests are and address that.”

Story said she isn’t sure what Polis and his staff have in mind.

“We have had some conversations, and I look forward to continuing that discussion and see what he might be considering,” she said. “There are lots of voices to bring to the table and figure out what is best. But I think our teachers deserve to be listened to.”

Teacher evaluations: Test scores would have less weight under Colorado bill

2019-04-18T00:30:00+00:00

Colorado teacher evaluations would be less tied to test scores under a bill introduced this week, but the changes are more limited than in earlier drafts of the proposal.

Most notably, the bill does not call for experienced teachers with effective ratings to get a formal evaluation just once every three years, instead of every year as current law requires.

The Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, had made changes to the teacher evaluation process one of its top legislative priorities, alongside more funding for schools. Colorado’s teacher effectiveness law, passed in 2010, was a key piece of that era’s education reform agenda, and many teachers consider it burdensome and unfair. In text messages and tweets, the union urged members to call legislators and demand changes to evaluation.

Some school administrators, particularly those from smaller rural districts, have also called for changes.

But a wide range of education advocacy groups raised concerns about the proposed changes, particularly the call to end “every teacher, every year.” The bill’s introduction was pushed back repeatedly as it was rewritten.

Senate Bill 247, sponsored by state Sen. Tammy Story, a Conifer Democrat, was introduced Tuesday, with a little less than three weeks left in the legislative session. It is scheduled to get its first hearing Thursday in the Senate Education Committee.

Story did not return a phone call seeking comment Wednesday.

The bill has two main provisions. It would reduce the portion of the evaluation tied to student growth from 50 percent to 30 percent, and it would convene a working group made up of the education commissioner, lawmakers, parents, students, and educators to study how the teacher effectiveness law is working now and recommend changes by November.

Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the state teachers union, said this new version of the bill does not represent a union retreat.

“For us, going to [the working group] is not a move away from [changing] ‘every teacher, every year,’ but that there were other things that needed to be looked at,” she said. “What has been most important for us this session is that educator voice be elevated and included in conversation, and that’s the most important thing to highlight in this bill.”

Baca-Oehlert said there seemed to be “broad resonance” that student growth should not account for 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. In interviews earlier this year, state education officials and advocates for more accountability said they were open to having that discussion.

Researchers disagree about how much and whether it’s fair to tie teacher ratings to test scores, which are affected by many factors, and many states are moving away from basing teacher evaluations on test scores.

Current law says that a teacher evaluation should be based 50 percent on student growth and 50 percent on professional practice. Districts can use a variety of factors, not just test scores, to measure student growth, but in practice, test scores are often used to evaluate teachers whose subjects aren’t even included in standardized tests, with each teacher carrying some responsibility for the outcomes of the school as a whole.

State education officials say that districts have the flexibility to change how they measure student growth, and the law does not need to change to address many teacher concerns.

The bill calls for 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation to be based on professional practice, 30 percent on student growth, and 20 percent on factors determined by local school boards. It also states that the standards for measuring effectiveness must include factors such as student engagement, student behavior, attendance, and attainment of goals in individualized plans for students with disabilities or who are gifted.

Luke Ragland of the conservative education advocacy group Ready Colorado, said that’s a problem for him.

“Any time you see a reduction in the value we’re placing on student outcomes, that’s concerning,” he said. This change won’t make evaluations more meaningful or less burdensome, he added. “It simply devalues student outcomes.”

Ragland said he’s also concerned about how the membership of the working group is described in statute. The bill says that certain teachers and administrators should be selected based on the “advice of a statewide association” that represents teachers, school executives, and school board members respectively. That gives more influence to the institutional voices, he said.

“I think this is set up to be a one-way street with predetermined outcomes,” he said. “I don’t see this as a real conversation about how to improve.”

In addition to keeping the frequency of teacher evaluations unchanged, the bill leaves in place rules about how teachers earn tenure or “non-probationary status,” which affords them some job protections, and the controversial provision that allows non-probationary teachers to be put on unpaid leave if they’re laid off and fail to get re-hired by a principal within a set amount of time.

Teachers are ‘ready to fight,’ says new Tennessee coalition inspired by strikes in other states

2019-03-12T21:36:12+00:00

Weary of standardized testing and underfunded schools, and alarmed by the prospect of education vouchers and charter expansion in Tennessee, a group of teacher leaders have organized a new statewide coalition and say they are “ready to fight for the schools our students deserve.”

The coalition, called TN Teachers United, launched last week after meeting with two teachers who helped organize statewide walkouts last year in Arizona and West Virginia.

While a Tennessee walkout isn’t the goal at this point, it remains a possibility, according to the three primary organizers: Tikeila Rucker of Memphis, Amanda Kail of Nashville, and Lauren Sorensen of Knoxville.

“I won’t say that Tennessee is next, but I also won’t say that we’re not,” said Rucker, a former classroom teacher who is president of United Education Association of Shelby County, one of two organizations that represents Memphis teachers.

“I think we have to leave everything on the table,” added Kail, a teacher at Margaret Allen Middle School in Nashville, home to the state’s second largest district. “A lot of people are afraid to talk about it, but we can’t be afraid. I think we’re reaching a boiling point.”

National momentum

In the last year, teacher movements have started small in other states like West Virginia, Arizona, Kentucky, and Oklahoma — with powerful results. But it’s uncertain whether Tennessee’s coalition will be able to grow the grassroots support needed to make demands, even though the states have similar dynamics, including weakened unions, thin labor rights, and business-friendly politics that lean Republican.

Tennessee is a deep red state where teacher strikes have been illegal since 1978 when the last one occurred in Memphis. Teachers unions were further weakened in 2011 when they lost collective bargaining rights under the administration of Republican Gov. Bill Haslam.

Meanwhile, the state rolled out education reforms driven by new academic standards and measures to hold teachers and schools accountable. Those tied teacher evaluations to student test results, a shift that still angers educators who question the validity of scores under Tennessee’s problem-plagued TNReady test.

Haslam also invested $500 million in new funding in K-12 education, including teacher raises, but Tennessee’s per-pupil funding remains one of the lowest in the region and in the bottom half of the nation.

Adding fuel to the discussion is new Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s announcement last week that he wants to create a voucher program, which would divert taxpayer money to pay for private education services, and also make it easier to start new charter schools in Tennessee. Both proposals are opposed by educator groups who would rather see more investments in traditional public schools.

Bill Lee speaks with reporters in November 2018 after his election as Tennessee’s 50th governor, as outgoing Gov. Bill Haslam looks on.

“Given our current governor and the state legislature, things look really grim,” said Kail. “We’re also seeing a decline in people who want to be teachers enrolling in colleges of education.”

Kail and other organizers created a Facebook group and began promoting the new coalition this week by inviting educators to join and complete a questionnaire about their biggest concerns. Within a day, they had more than 200 members — and were growing by the hour. There are no plans to collect dues like a union does.

One organizer said feedback from the questionnaires will drive their next steps. “It doesn’t do us any good to have hundreds and thousands of people who are upset and angry. It’s only going to help if they’re passionate enough to do something about it,” said Sorensen, who teaches at Halls Elementary School in Knox County.

The organizers are following a blueprint used by teachers in West Virginia and Arizona who talked through their strategies during an hourlong video-conference. They convened with Tennessee leaders on Feb. 28 with the help of Labor Notes, a national media and organizing project that seeks to develop grassroots labor movements.

Chris Brooks, a Labor Notes writer who helped facilitate the meeting, said Tennessee is ripe for stepping up its advocacy beyond the tactics of rank-and-file teacher organizations like the Tennessee Education Association.

“They can be conflict-averse and try to talk people out of doing things like a strike, but a strike can be the most powerful tool there is,” said Brooks, a former labor organizer in Chattanooga who also previously worked for the Tennessee Education Association.

Brooks, who has assisted with teacher movements in West Virginia, Arizona, and Kentucky, believes Tennessee is next.

“Conditions for teachers are bad,” he said of his home state. “Schools are underfunded. Students are over-tested. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves. When people are struggling that hard for teachers to be able to teach and students to be able to learn, I think you’ve got the conditions for an uprising.”

But JC Bowman, executive director of the 8,000-member Professional Educators of Tennessee, cautioned against moving toward a strike.

“If you come out militant, you’re going to bring out the militants on the other side,” Bowman said. “Teachers would be putting their jobs on the line. You play chicken with some people, you can lose.”

Splintered teachers groups

Tennessee has at least six professional and advocacy organizations for teachers, some of which represent educators in labor negotiations with local districts.

All three organizers of the new coalition are active in the largest and most powerful group, the Tennessee Education Association, also known as TEA, and have expressed frustration with its pace.

“Over the past few years, we haven’t gotten results by being at the table,” said Rucker.

Beth Brown, a Grundy County teacher who became president of the teachers association last year, said she welcomes the energy of the new coalition and notes that the group’s core beliefs appear to be aligned with those of the Tennessee Education Association.

They include a call for full state funding of public education; opposition to standardized testing as a means to label and punish schools, teachers, and students; a commitment to education equity; and opposition to vouchers in any form or funneling public money into charter schools.

Brown took issue, however, about the effectiveness of TEA’s work.

“We know that, if it hadn’t been for the advocacy efforts of our members during the last decade, Tennessee would already have had private school vouchers and radical charter school expansion,” she said.

Teacher members of the Tennessee Education Association meet Tuesday with Rep. Harold Love of Nashville during an advocacy day at the State Capitol in Nashville. TEA encourages members to use a day of their spring breaks to lobby lawmakers on issues important to teachers. (Photo courtesy of TEA)

Coalition organizers in Tennessee say talk of a strike is building but emphasize that such discussions are premature. First, teachers must do some soul-searching on priorities and recruiting to gauge statewide support.

“The conversation now is about what really drives us. Is it funding or wages? Is it TNReady? Vouchers? Discipline? Or is it all of these things?” asked Kail. “We saw in Los Angeles how teachers tied together a bunch of things with a lot of success.”

The numbers also have to be there, pulling in as many of the state’s 66,000 public school teachers as possible, as well as retired teachers, parents, students, and community members.

“We should never be afraid of our own power,” said Rucker.

Sorensen adds: “We’ve been paying attention to other states and they seem to be getting results. I’d rather not strike. I’d rather stay in my classroom and teach. But it seems like our politicians don’t respond to anything else.”

Is Tennessee moving its weakest teachers to early, non-tested grades? New research says yes.

2019-02-22T17:07:57+00:00

Tennessee’s education insiders have whispered for years that some elementary school principals were moving their least effective teachers to critical early grades, which are free of high-stakes tests. That’s despite clear evidence that those years are the most important for preparing students for a lifetime of learning.

Now a new study has confirmed that the shift is real.

Researchers examining 10 years worth of state data through 2016 found that low-performing teachers in grades 3 through 5 were more likely to be reassigned to non-tested early grades than their more effective peers.

The findings, released Friday by the Tennessee Education Research Alliance and Vanderbilt University, may be an important piece of the puzzle in figuring out why almost two-thirds of the state’s students are behind on reading by the end of the third grade.

“These trends matter because having effective teachers in the early grades helps establish a foundation for success as students progress into later grades,” the research brief states.

The authors used Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system, including classroom observation scores and student achievement data, to track the reassignment of elementary school teachers by their principals. They found that only a hundred of the lowest-rated teachers were shifted to the lower grades in any given year, making for a relatively small impact across Tennessee. However, the pattern was consistent for all reassigned teachers who scored in the bottom three evaluation ratings on a scale of 1 to 5.

It’s not conclusive, though, whether those teachers remain ineffective when moved to kindergarten, first, or second grades.

“This could be counter-productive, but it could actually be productive if school leaders are finding better fits for their elementary school teachers,” said Sy Doan, who authored the research brief along with Laura K. Rogers.

Another study is in the works to examine whether students’ academic growth is stunted by re-assigning less effective teachers to lower grades.

Like other states, Tennessee doesn’t require testing until the third grade, when student scores are used to begin gauging the performance of students, teachers, schools, and districts.

But research elsewhere has shown that the pressures of such accountability systems for higher elementary grades can unintentionally give administrators incentives to “staff to the test” and move their weakest teachers to the early years.

“The patterns we found in Tennessee are consistent with similar studies conducted in other states,” Doan said.

Advocates of early education say the latest findings — while not surprising — should be a powerful reminder to school administrators that kindergarten through second grade are high-stakes for students’ learning and development, even if those years are free of high-stakes testing.

“I think it’s going to raise some important conversations,” said Lisa Wiltshire, policy director for Tennesseans for Quality Early Education. “If we want to improve third-grade outcomes, Tennessee has got to start prioritizing investments in the early grades, particularly in the quality of teachers.”

Sharon Griffin, a longtime Memphis school administrator who now leads Tennessee’s school turnaround district, made that point last week during a presentation to state legislators on the House Education Committee.

“When I was a principal …. there was this unprecedented norm where you would put your most effective teachers in grades that are tested,” she said. “Now we know from lessons learned that it’s really pre-K, kindergarten, first and second grades where you need the strongest teachers, so that our kids can be on grade level by third grade and we are not trying to close the gap continuously from third grade on.”

Tennessee has done some serious soul-searching about why most of its third-graders can’t pass the proficiency bar in reading, which is considered the foundation for learning and success in all subject areas.

The frustrations deepened in 2015 when a landmark Vanderbilt study showed that academic gains achieved by students in Tennessee’s public pre-K classrooms were fading out by first grade and vanishing altogether by third grade.

Since then, the focus has been on why. Is it the quality of pre-K? Or could it be missteps and misalignment in instruction and curriculum from kindergarten through the third grade?

Upcoming research will dig into those questions as other Vanderbilt researchers visit Tennessee classrooms next school year to observe instructional quality and teaching practice in the early grades.

“We know surprisingly little about the connections among the experiences children have across the early grades of school,” said Caroline Christopher, who will co-lead the work with Dale Farran, director of the Peabody Research Institute.

Their study will be funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted through the Tennessee Education Research Alliance, a partnership between Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development and the Tennessee Department of Education.

Here’s your Albany education cheat sheet for 2019. SHSAT, charter schools and mayoral control will be among hot topics this session.

2019-01-08T21:55:13+00:00

On Wednesday, state lawmakers will head back to Albany for what could be a historic 2019 session, with the first fully Democratic-led state government since 2010.

That new political makeup in the Senate will likely change the course for state education policy: What can we expect for mayoral control of city schools? How bleak is the future of charter school openings? Will lawmakers move to get rid of the admissions test for New York City’s specialized high schools, or will they push the issue off for another year?

Here’s what to expect over the next few months.

SHSAT

New York City’s controversial proposal to diversify its most elite high schools needs state approval — specifically, the part of the plan that calls to eliminate the specialized high school admissions test, known in short as the SHSAT.

Last June, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan that would instead grant admission to the top 7 percent of middle school students. He swiftly earned a mix of backlash from families who believe the test is the best method of admissions and support from those who see his proposal as an important step toward integration.

The plan would usher more black and Hispanic students into the city’s eight most selective high schools. Many parents of white and Asian students, who represent the majority in these schools, have called the test “race blind” and argued that the city must instead properly educate all students earlier so they’re prepared to take the test. Supporters of the plan say that preparation for high-stakes testing is usually only accessible to more affluent families who have the time and resources.

Some advocates for keeping the test have decided to invest in lobbyists. The alumni foundation for Bronx High School of Science, one of the elite high schools, signed a $96,000 contract with lobbying firm Bolton-St. John, according to public filings. Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, which renewed a $120,000 contract with firm Yoswein, has lobbied for the test since at least September 2017, filings show.

Another group called the Scholastic Merit Fund, comprised of more advocates who want to preserve the test, hired Parkside Group LLC for $60,000 to lobby in support of the test.

Sen. Shelley Mayer, a Yonkers Democrat who will chair the Senate education committee, said she has “serious process concerns” about how de Blasio’s office handled the rollout of this plan, but she declined to comment beyond that. She deferred to newly elected Queens senator John Liu, a Democrat who will chair the New York City Senate education subcommittee, who says he acknowledges the city’s segregation problem but feels the Asian community should have been consulted.

Larry Cary, president of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, said his group supports efforts to diversify the elite high schools through stronger enrichment programs, but scrapping the test is not the answer. He says his group will “actively” engage lawmakers “about what the problem really is,” but he’s not sure it will even matter this year.

“It remains to be seen in all of the issues — and there are huge issues facing the legislature now — what kind of priority this issue will take,” Cary said in an interview late last year with Chalkbeat.

Teacher evaluations

Senate Democrats will prioritize untying certain state assessments from teacher evaluations, Mayer said. Like many opponents to the current law governing teacher evaluations, Mayer called it a “terrible system” for judging teachers, ultimately hurting students and parents.

Mayer expects Democrats to act quickly and believes support exists in both chambers. A similar bill to untether tests from evaluations sailed through the Assembly last year, but died in the Senate. The new make-up of the Senate could change that this year.

The state Board of Regents will soon formally extend a moratorium that separates evaluations from how students score on elementary English and math assessments. In the meantime, the board is planning to assemble work groups that will explore how to best evaluate teachers.

From these work groups, state education officials want to provide guidance for lawmakers as they make policy decisions on assessments and evaluations. Mayer said she welcomes the Regents’ input, but she’s also not willing to wait past this session.

“I think we should go right ahead,” Mayer said. “Let’s get this bill done.”

In December, State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia told reporters that she hadn’t received a signal from lawmakers on whether they’ll wait for the Regents’ recommendations.

“They certainly know the work we’ve done and have started, and we have shared with them that this is our plan,” Elia said. “If they are in a position to use that, then that’s great. And if that doesn’t happen, that’s certainly up to them.”

Mayoral control

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s control of city schools expires on June 30, so it’s the issue with perhaps the most pressing deadline.

Mayoral control, which replaced a fractured system of boards of elected officials, reaches back to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration in 2002. State lawmakers must decide whether it should be extended past the expiration date written into law, and for how long.

It’s “weighing heavily” on state lawmakers, especially since it “has been thrown around as a political football for so long,” Sen. Liu said in an interview with Chalkbeat last month.

With de Blasio’s political party at the wheel, he is likely to get the extension he needs without fighting the ugly political battle that bubbled up in past years with Republicans and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But there could be some pushback over what mayoral control will look like in the future.

Liu and newly elected Sen. Robert Jackson, another former New York City politician, have suggested that the nature of de Blasio’s control over schools could be the real focal point.

“I don’t want to call it control,” Jackson told City and State New York. “Let’s call it mayoral authority with oversight. Oversight by the City Council, oversight by the state of New York, not control.”

City Hall officials did not answer questions about what de Blasio is expecting as the session starts, but asserted that mayoral control is in the best interest of New Yorkers.

“Mayoral control is the reason why we have record high graduation rates and college enrollment, record low dropout rates and a Pre-K seat for every four year old in New York City,” said Jaclyn Rothenberg, a spokeswoman for de Blasio. “This policy empowers families and strengthens school communities and allows us to build on our record progress.”

School funding

Expect a tough fight over education funding in this year’s budget proposal, Mayer said.

Backed with a majority, Mayer expects a “very aggressive response” from Senate Democrats for more education dollars, especially after Gov. Cuomo’s repeated rejection of a formula that is supposed to provide extra dollars for high-needs schools throughout the state.

The formula, called foundation aid, was the result of a 1993 lawsuit that argued the state wasn’t providing enough money for schools. The formula sent extra dollars to high-needs schools until the recession set in. Now, advocates and state education officials contend that districts with the most vulnerable students are owed $4 billion in foundation aid.

In a speech and on a radio program, Cuomo called the lawsuit a “ghost of the past,” and compared people still pushing for foundation aid dollars to those “who would say the world is flat.”

Cuomo’s comments angered funding advocates and progressive lawmakers, who campaigned on boosting education funding. State education policymakers have requested an almost $5 billion phase-in of foundation aid money (adjusting for inflation) over the next three years. Sen. Jackson, the former New York City councilman, was one of the lead plaintiffs on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit that eventually created foundation aid. In a statement last month, he and a few new Democrats rejected Cuomo’s view.

“The outcome of CFE’s lawsuit still remains clear: New York state is legally obligated to release billions of dollars in funding to our schools, and the foundation aid formula should be used to allocate those funds,” Jackson said. “Burying this obligation and claiming that it’s ‘a ghost of the past’ doesn’t make it go away—it makes a bad problem worse.”

Mayer, who also believes districts are still owed foundation aid, said there will likely be budget negotiations to revamp the formula so that it uses more updated data when counting how many high-needs students are in districts throughout the state.

Charter schools

After November’s elections, charter school advocates lost some of their biggest cheerleaders in state government— several Senate Republicans and a group of Democrats who broke with their party.

Now, new and more public-school-focused lawmakers probably won’t have the appetite to expand the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York. There are just seven slots left for New York City, so for advocates of charter schools, the issue is essential for their expansion efforts.

Some charter advocates told Chalkbeat that their main strategy will now have to be grassroots organizing — so that new progressive lawmakers who campaigned against charters can hear the “drumbeat” from constituents who want different school options.

In the meantime, it’s possible the new Democratic majority will push for stronger regulation of charter schools and maintaining the cap — both things Mayer supports.

“Our focus has to be on primarily on something for public schools,” Mayer said, adding New York City and her own community in Yonkers are “desperately” in need of resources.

“My door is open to the charter school community and I look forward to hearing what their concerns are. They educate a lot of kids — I’m very mindful of that — but we can’t pretend we’re starting on an equal playing field.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly said the Scholastic Merit Fund and Brooklyn Tech alumni foundation were lobbying against the SHSAT.

Tennessee schools chief Candice McQueen leaving for job at national education nonprofit

2018-11-15T17:08:58+00:00

Tennessee’s education chief is leaving state government to lead a nonprofit organization focused on attracting, developing, and keeping high-quality educators.

Candice McQueen, 44, will step down in early January to become the CEO of National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.

Gov. Bill Haslam, whose administration will end on Jan. 19, announced the impending departure of his education commissioner on Thursday.

He plans to name an interim commissioner, according to an email from McQueen to her staff at the education department.

“While I am excited about this new opportunity, it is hard to leave this team,” she wrote. “You are laser-focused on doing the right thing for Tennessee’s students every single day – and I take heart in knowing you will continue this good work in the months and years to come. I look forward to continuing to support your work even as I move into this new role with NIET.”

A former teacher and university dean, McQueen has been one of Haslam’s highest-profile cabinet members since joining the administration in 2015 to replace Kevin Huffman, a lawyer who was an executive at Teach For America.

Her tenure has been highlighted by overhauling the state’s requirements for student learning, increasing transparency about how Tennessee students are doing, and launching a major initiative to improve reading skills in a state that struggles with literacy.

But much of the good work has been overshadowed by repeated technical failures in Tennessee’s switch to a computerized standardized test — even forcing McQueen to cancel testing for most students in her second year at the helm. The assessment program continued to struggle this spring, marred by days of technical glitches.

Haslam, who has consistently praised McQueen’s leadership throughout the rocky testing ride, said Tennessee’s education system has improved under her watch.

“Candice has worked relentlessly since day one for Tennessee’s students and teachers, and under her leadership, Tennessee earned its first ‘A’ rating for the standards and the rigor of the state’s assessment after receiving an ‘F’ rating a decade ago,” Haslam said in a statement. “Candice has raised the bar for both teachers and students across the state, enabling them to rise to their greatest potential. I am grateful for her service.”

McQueen said being education commissioner has been “the honor of a lifetime” and that her new job will allow her to “continue to be an advocate for Tennessee’s teachers and work to make sure every child is in a class led by an excellent teacher every day.”

At the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, she’ll work with states, districts, and schools to improve the effectiveness of teachers and will operate out of the organization’s new office in Nashville. The institute’s work impacts more than 250,000 educators and 2.5 million students.

“Candice McQueen understands that highly effective teachers can truly transform the lives of our children, our classrooms, our communities and our futures,” said Lowell Milken, chairman of the institute, which has existing offices in Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and Santa Monica, Calif.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, McQueen said numerous organizations had approached her about jobs this year as Tennessee prepared to transition to a new administration under Gov.-elect Bill Lee. She called leading the institute “an extraordinary opportunity that I felt was a great fit” because of its focus on supporting, leading, and compensating teachers.

“It’s work that I believe is the heart and soul of student improvement,” she said.

McQueen’s entire career has focused on strengthening teacher effectiveness and support systems for teachers. Before joining Haslam’s administration, the Tennessee native was an award-winning teacher; then faculty member, department chair, and dean of Lipscomb University’s College of Education in Nashville. As dean from 2008 to 2015, Lipscomb became one of the highest-rated teacher preparation programs in Tennessee and the nation. There, McQueen also doubled the size and reach of the college’s graduate programs with new master’s degrees and certificates, the university’s first doctoral program, and additional online and off-campus offerings.

As Haslam’s education commissioner the last four years, McQueen stayed the course on Tennessee’s 2010 overhaul of K-12 education, which was highlighted by raising academic standards; measuring student improvement through testing; and holding students, teachers, schools, and districts accountable for the results.

Candice McQueen has been commissioner of education for Republican Gov. Bill Haslam since 2015.

One of the plan’s most controversial components was teacher evaluations that are tied to student growth on state tests — a strategy that McQueen has stood by and credited in part for Tennessee’s gains on national tests.

Since 2011, Tennessee has seen record-high graduation rates, college-going rates, and ACT scores and steadily moved up in state rankings on the Nation’s Report Card.

Several new studies say Tennessee teachers are getting better under the evaluation system, although other research paints a less encouraging picture.

Her choice to lead the national teaching institute quickly garnered praise from education leaders across the country.

“The students of Tennessee have benefited from Candice McQueen’s leadership, including bold efforts to ensure students have access to advanced career pathways to lead to success in college and careers, and a solid foundation in reading,” said Carissa Moffat Miller, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Louisiana Education Superintendent John White said McQueen brings ideal skills to her new job.

“She is not just a veteran educator who has worked in higher education and K-12 education alike, but she is also a visionary leader with a unique understanding of both quality classroom teaching and the systems necessary to make quality teaching possible for millions of students,” White said.

Here’s what Tennessee’s next governor says about K-12 education

2018-11-07T01:49:52+00:00

Republican businessman Bill Lee promised to bring “fresh ideas” on public education to Tennessee, and he’ll now get the chance as the state’s 50th governor.

In handily defeating Democrat and former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean on Tuesday, the Williamson County millionaire and first-time candidate is poised to replace fellow Republican Bill Haslam, who is completing his eighth year in office.

As governor, Lee can significantly shape public education in a state that has pioneered reforms since 2010 as part of a $500 million federal award. It’s uncertain, though, whether he’ll deviate from the state’s blueprint. On the campaign trail, Lee promised to look more closely at Tennessee’s rocky testing program and controversial teacher evaluation system.

Earlier this year, Chalkbeat asked Lee for his positions on big education issues facing the state. Here are his answers, which have been lightly edited for grammar, style, and length.

Here are six ways your vote on Tuesday could affect schools across New York

2018-11-05T23:03:16+00:00

As schools begin morphing into polling sites in advance of Tuesday’s election, voters’ decisions could have big implications for classrooms across New York.

Since 2010, Republicans have retained control of the state Senate, shaping policy on hot-button education issues ranging from charter schools to school funding.

Senate Republicans have historically championed school choice, and pushed for more conservative levels of school spending. They have also repeatedly threatened to withhold approval of mayoral control of New York City schools in a tug-of-war with the Democrat-dominated Assembly, which has typically fought for larger school funding increases and defended city interests.

And while nothing is certain until all the votes are tallied, observers say Democrats — currently just one seat shy of a majority — have a strong chance of taking the Senate. In one sign of the changing political winds, half a dozen Democrats who voted with Republicans on many key issues, including charter schools, lost their primaries in September.

“It’s more likely than not we’ll see a Democratic majority,” said Julie Marlette, the government relations director for the New York State School Boards Association.

Still, it’s difficult to predict exactly which issues a new majority may prioritize — or even how large that majority could be. Some issues, like the debate over the city’s specialized high schools, aren’t neatly organized along party lines. Moreover, many of the Senate races have not made education issues a hallmark. And new political faces don’t have extensive track records to scour for clues.

Any legislation will be subject to negotiations with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has his own set of legislative priorities. In the past, Cuomo has supported charter schools and tying teacher evaluations to test scores but the governor has backed away from some of those issues, and it’s unclear how strongly he will lobby for them.

But a Democrat-controlled senate could still have a big effect on perennial education battles, and in an email blast, schools Chancellor Richard Carranza urged students and their parents to vote. Here are six issues, which we also highlighted earlier this fall, to look out for.

Efforts to rein in charter schools, with some limits

Senate Republicans have been stalwarts of the charter sector, helping secure increases in per-student funding and additional subsidies for renting private space. A Democrat-controlled Senate would be likely be much less favorable.

Some of the progressive Democrats campaigned explicitly on a promise to maintain the limit on the number of charter schools that can open in New York City, which is rapidly approaching the current cap.

“I think the cap is a very real issue,” said Bob Bellafiore, a consultant who has worked for charter schools and helped push for the state’s charter law in the 1990s. “It’s a thing to watch because of the campaign rhetoric.”

Charter advocates say they’ll continue to pressure lawmakers to raise the cap, but after pushing the issue for years, it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to drum up support in a more challenging climate.

Charters could also face additional challenges if Democratic majorities seek to ratchet up oversight of the sector. In 2017, Senate Democrats put forward proposals that would require charter schools to have specific enrollment targets for students with disabilities and English learners, make it more difficult to share buildings with district schools, and limit how much charter leaders are paid.

Those proposals had virtually no chance of garnering necessary Republican votes but could plausibly pass in a Democrat-controlled Senate. If they do, lawmakers could wind up prompting an intra-party fight with Cuomo, who has previously supported charter schools.

“The question becomes: Would those proposals ultimately be approved?” said Marlette.

Less likely: any legislative efforts to increase teachers unions’ influence in charter school operations, considered a holy grail for the unions. Even with Democratic majorities, lawmakers will be hemmed in by recent federal labor rulings that classify charter schools as private, meaning that their employees would not be represented by public unions. (Charter school employees can still seek to form unions on their own.)

Still, some within the charter sector are not optimistic. “I can’t see it being a good year,” said Steve Zimmerman, co-director of the Coalition of Community Charter School. “The movement writ large has fallen out of favor with progressive politics — that’s not a secret and in the Trump-DeVos era, it’s only gotten worse.”

More pressure to increase school funding

Not every progressive Democrat who unseated an incumbent in the primary cited maintaining the charter cap as a priority. But they are all united on another issue: that the state should send more money to local districts.

Like Cynthia Nixon, the “Sex and the City” star who took on Cuomo in the primary, these politicians say the state has not fulfilled its funding obligations under Cuomo. They point to a landmark school funding lawsuit that prompted the state to come up with a new funding formula, but which they argue has never been fully implemented.

They insist the state owes billions of dollars to districts. One of the lead plaintiffs on that original lawsuit, former City Council education committee chair Robert Jackson, unseated a Democratic state senator to win the nomination in Harlem and could be a leading voice on this issue if he wins on Tuesday.

“Every one of the challengers ran on the demand of fully funding the Campaign for Fiscal Equity,” said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, which advocates for more funding, referring to the Democrats who unseated state senators who voted with Republicans.

“It’s not a slam dunk,” Easton said. “But I think it’s an atmosphere we’ve never seen in Albany before.”

A consensus among lawmakers on school funding would reshape the annual budget dance. In recent years, the Democratic Assembly has called for much more spending than Cuomo has proposed, while the Senate has previously come out somewhere in the middle. If both chambers unite in calling for more aid, Cuomo could face pressure from within his own party to go along.

Betty Rosa, chancellor of the state’s Board of Regents, said in an interview in September that she hopes “the combination of the Assembly and the Senate will create leverage” in the budget process, a dynamic she hopes would lead to more money for schools. Many of the Regents’ priorities — more support for vulnerable students, additional social services in schools, and other initiatives — require significant spending, Rosa said.

But Cuomo will still wield considerable power in the budget process, which is hammered out with the leaders of the Assembly and Senate in a process known as the “big ugly,” because so many issues are negotiated at once. And he may be reluctant to dramatically boost spending, especially given the state’s budget deficit and potential economic uncertainty. He has also suggested that the level of funding is not as important as how it is spent.

The governor and leaders of the Senate and Assembly will “have to come together and agree on a final number,” said Marlette of the school boards association.

A more straightforward path to renewing mayoral control

Whether New York City retains mayor control of its local schools will also be on the docket next year — along with any restrictions on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s power the state legislature or Gov. Cuomo wants to impose.

Mayoral control has previously been used as a crowbar by Senate Republicans, both to bludgeon de Blasio campaigning against them and as a lever to exact concessions in the budget, including on charter schools.

But Democrats have also critiqued the governance system for being too top-down — a criticism that occupied lawmakers’ energy extensively when Michael Bloomberg was mayor. As City Council education chair, Jackson was particularly strident in his calls to roll back mayoral control.

It’s possible that Jackson and the new wave of progressives could level that kind of criticism again. But they might not have an appetite for squaring off against de Blasio, especially after years of mounting consensus that returning to the previous, complicated system of local control or creating a completely new system would be unwieldy at best.

A more likely outcome, according to the Alliance for Quality Education’s Easton, is that reauthorizing mayoral control could be easier, with de Blasio getting more than just a one- or two-year extension that lasts into his successor’s administration. Still, the issue will still be subject to negotiation, and Cuomo could use it as a bargaining chip if legislators ask for a longer extension.

Teacher evaluation legislation, but potentially with a twist

During the last legislative session, the Democrat-controlled Assembly passed a bill repealing elements of an unpopular law that could eventually tie teacher evaluations to test scores — but it died in the Senate.

With a new Senate, the Assembly might simply pass the bill again with a greater chance of success.

“It’s possible that we might see swifter action on [teacher evaluations] than we would otherwise,” said Bob Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

It’s also possible that lawmakers might advance a different bill with broader goals. Some of the state’s top education officials, including Rosa, the Board of Regents Chancellor, favor a slower overhaul of the teacher evaluation system with more opportunity for input from educators as opposed to an immediate legislative change. The Regents have placed a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English tests, and on Monday Rosa asked to extend it another year.

A statewide shift away from suspensions

In recent years, New York City has significantly curtailed student suspensions in favor of more “restorative” approaches, which emphasize peer mediation and less punitive responses to student misbehavior. De Blasio has also made it much more difficult to suspend the city’s youngest students, though there are still big disparities between different student populations according to data released last week.

Cathy Nolan, chairwoman of the Assembly education committee, has previously sponsored legislation that would require those types of discipline reforms across the state, but which have not gained traction.

Discipline reform “was never going to see the light of day in the Senate” under Republican control, Easton said. “I think you’ll see a push.”

Continued debate over specialized high schools

One big issue on the table this year doesn’t have a clear party line: whether New York City will be allowed to scrap the admissions test at its elite specialized high schools, which is written into state law.

De Blasio has proposed eliminating the exam to promote diversity at the hyper-segregated schools, but the issue has divided city Democrats. John Liu, a former city comptroller who defeated Tony Avella in the primary, does not support de Blasio’s plan. Current legislators, some of whom attended specialized high schools, have also spoken out against it.

The issue is so new and murky that many of candidates have not yet weighed in. And while de Blasio remains optimistic, Michael Mulgrew, the city teachers union chief who supported the proposal when it was announced and whose take counts with many Democratic lawmakers, is not.

“I don’t believe at this point in time it can pass in the next legislative session because it has been so highly politicized,” he said — before the primary election that ushered progressive Democrats onto the November ballot.

Polling locations will be open across the city from 6 a.m. to 9.m. Find your polling place here.

More work, worse relationships, and better feedback: How teacher evaluation has changed the job of the principal

2018-10-25T15:20:05+00:00

Teacher evaluation overhauls were supposed to reshape the teaching profession. New research suggests they may have had an even greater impact on what it means to be a school principal.

As policy makers overhauled teacher rating systems in the last decade, principals began spending much more of their time watching teachers in action and talking to them about how to improve. But the shift also overwhelmed them with work, stopped them from fulfilling other responsibilities in their schools, and weakened their relationships with teachers.

Those are some of the takeaways of a study based on interviews with dozens of principals in six districts that revamped how teachers were evaluated in the last decade. Typically, the new evaluation systems — often put in place at the urging of the federal government and influential philanthropies, particularly the Gates Foundation — incorporated student performance for the first time but were driven mostly by teachers’ scores on rubrics that attempt to spell out good teaching practices.

While the systems’ adoption often precipitated significant pushback and in some cases have been rolled back, they remain in force in many places — and their long-term consequences are only now becoming clear.

The study, published last week in The Elementary School Journal, focuses on six large districts that embarked on dramatic evaluation changes: Baltimore, Denver, Hillsborough County (Florida), Houston, Memphis, and Metro Nashville. The researchers interviewed 10 principals in each district for about an hour during the 2012-13 school years, selecting a group at random while also ensuring a combination in different grade and performance levels.

One finding stood out. “The role of administrator is drastically changing,” one principal said. “You cannot be just a manager of a building. … You have to be an instructional leader first.”

The study examines only a handful of the many districts that reworked evaluations in the last decade, so it’s unclear how widely the findings apply. But the researchers detected themes across the six locations, which all had somewhat different evaluation systems and strategies for rolling them out. Here’s what they heard.

The new evaluations take way more time than principals feel they have.

The most consistent concern shared with researchers centered on the time it takes to complete the new evaluations. The responsibilities didn’t just include observing teachers more frequently, but also conducting pre- and post-observation conferences, completing additional paperwork and data entry, and using final ratings to make human resources decisions.

“I mean, honest to God. I just can’t do it by myself,” one principal told the researchers. “If I’m running my school, something’s going to lose out, either academics or your school because you’re just one person.”

“We need to [have] a preconference, an observation, and a post conference, you’re talking about, even though a preconference and postconference may only take 20 to 30 minutes and then an observation, you’re looking at two hours,” another principal said.

“It took us like an hour and a half to input the evaluations per teacher, and I have 82 people. So it was like a nightmare, literally,” said another.

In New York City, where the recently proposed teachers union contract reduces the number of required observation from four to two for most teachers, principals say the blanket requirements of the new system impeded their ability to make good choices about how they spend their time.

“We’re better off spending more time with the teachers who need our help than with the teachers who are doing a bang-up job,” the president of the union that represents school administrators told Chalkbeat. “To say time is at a premium for our members is an understatement.”

Principals are spending more time with teachers — and many say that’s a good thing.

Although the use of test scores has driven much of recent public debates about evaluations, the principals interviewed in the study often focused on the role of observations. That’s in line with past research suggesting principals trust that measure more than test scores; it’s also not surprising since principals conducted observations themselves, and those scores accounted for the lion’s share of a teacher’s overall rating.

While some frameworks for evaluating instruction have gotten mixed reviews, principals in the study said they found them helpful. Having an “objective” rubric, the principals told the researchers, allowed them to both give specific feedback to teachers who were improving and to build evidence to dismiss teachers who persistently struggled.

“For me, as a leader, it has given me a tool that I can use to help teachers grow, more than I’ve ever been able to do in the past, ever, because it’s a lot more specific than it ever has been in the past,” one principal said.

“The … rubric is the single most solid evaluative tool that I’ve used in my career,” said another.

“The conversations and the reflection … have gone from, ‘Oh, I thought it went great,’ to a really robust conversation.” said a third principal.

Whether observations are really as “objective” as principals seemed to believe is not clear. Other research has shown that classroom observations are consistently biased against teachers who serve more students of color and students who start the year with lower test scores.

Principals’ relationships with teachers worsened.

Though there has been modest uptick in teachers who received low ratings, the vast majority of teachers across the country were still rated effective under the new systems.

Still, principals said the new evaluations damaged their relationships with teachers, who weren’t always sold that the new approaches were fair. They cited this dynamic as a major downside of new evaluation systems.

Some principals framed the tension as a lack of understanding on teachers’ part. “It’s very difficult for some teachers to understand that you really can quantify what they’re doing in the classroom, and many of them don’t want you quantifying it,” one said.

Others said the culture in the school had changed as teachers became more fearful of high-stakes evaluation, and thus less open with their principal.

“I feel like every time I walk in, a teacher’s like automatically on pins and needles thinking I’m there in an evaluative capacity,” a principal told researchers. “I just want to go in and see what the kids are doing.”

Principals ended up being less visible in their schools.

One surprising finding is that even as the new evaluation systems required principals to spend lots of time in classrooms, they said they ended up being less visible to educators and students.

“I’m in more classrooms, but I’m not walking through lots of classes. I’m mainly only in four classes or three classes a day,” one principal explained.

“I don’t do lunch duty as much,” another said. “I loved lunch duty because it’s a time to interact with the kids where you can just communicate with them.”

Trisha Arnold, a New York City teacher who helped negotiate the contract terms that reduce required observations there, told Chalkbeat earlier this month that she had experienced this phenomenon in her school.

“Kids aren’t sure who the principal is,” she said, “because they’re bogged down with paperwork.”

What to do with the research is unclear.

How do the benefits and costs of new systems weigh out? That remains a frequently debated question among policymakers and researchers. A recent analysis focusing on the Gates Foundation’s evaluation reforms in a number of districts yielded disappointing results, with little if any gains in achievement. (Two of those districts were the same ones featured in the latest study, which was also funded by the Gates Foundation; additionally, Gates is a supporter of Chalkbeat.) Another study found that evaluations systems likely deterred prospective teachers from entering the profession.

Other research is more upbeat, linking evaluation to test score gains and teacher improvement. Studies of evaluation efforts in Cincinnati, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Minnesota have all found benefits, as well as national research on performance pay and feedback connected to classroom observations.

The latest research suggests that finding ways to lighten principals’ workloads might be worthwhile. That’s already happened to a degree, with some principals saying they placed more responsibility on assistant principals or other administrators. A separate Washington State study found a hiring spree of assistant principals soon after evaluation systems were put into place. That might be a smart move to help principals — but it also costs money, which could have been spent elsewhere, say, increasing teacher pay or reducing class size.

The new research also underscores how significant the choice of observation rubric is for districts and schools that adopt new evaluation systems. “Policy makers may also want to consider the enormous weight that is being placed on instructional rubrics as a means of guiding principals’ understanding of teacher performance,” the authors say.

Perhaps most importantly, the authors say, there should be more attention on principals’ role in enacting the raft of procedures connected to new evaluations.

“Without a careful examination of how to address principals’ concerns about lack of time,” they conclude, “the risk of principal fatigue, frustration, and eventual turnover remains substantial.”

Most New York City teachers would be observed less often under new contract deal

2018-10-11T22:25:27+00:00

Starting next fall, most New York City teachers could be judged by what principals see during just 30 minutes of instruction, in a change that addresses a persistent criticism of the city’s teacher evaluation system.

Under the terms of the tentative contract deal announced Thursday between the city and United Federation of Teachers, the number of observations required for city teachers would fall in most cases to two short classroom visits.

Currently, even teachers with top scores on the city’s evaluation system must be observed four times by their principals, or three times if they also agree to let their colleagues watch them teach. Under the tentative contract, those teachers would see the number of observations required annually fall to two.

For new teachers and teachers with low ratings, three or four observations would be required, down from four or six.

The change, which will become effective once union members ratify the contract, will likely satisfy critics who think the number of observations required is too onerous.

Each observation requires principals to spend at least 15 minutes in a classroom, plus time afterward to document what they saw and discuss their observations with the teachers. In larger schools, that can amount to hundreds of hours of paperwork on top of the time spent in classrooms.

“Most people are doing it as a compliance exercise” rather than using it to improve teaching and learning, UFT President Michael Mulgrew told Chalkbeat.

Changing the expectations, Mulgrew said, would allow “an open, frank conversation” between teachers and administrators about the purpose of evaluations — to help teachers improve, as well as identify those who are struggling.

The change is the latest adjustment to the city’s teacher evaluation system, first adopted in 2010. That system, which the teachers union agreed to only under pressure from the city and state, replaced one in which 97 percent of educators were rated “satisfactory” with one that offered finer distinctions in teacher quality and weighed student learning into the final score.

Over time, many elements of the new system have been whittled away. The state has halted the use of test scores in evaluations and given teachers more latitude to decide how their students’ learning should be measured. The city and union also previously agreed to reduce the number of qualities principals had to measure when observing teachers — a move endorsed by the observation framework’s designer — and started allowing teachers to choose more short observations instead of fewer long ones.

Under the new contract, almost all teachers would be eligible for the fewest required number of observations. Ninety-seven percent of teachers in New York City were rated “effective” or “highly effective” under the evaluation system in the 2016-17 school year, nearly as many as were typically rated “satisfactory” under the old system.

Principals say the change helps them by reducing — but not curbing — their paperwork load, while letting them direct their attention to teachers who are struggling. They would retain the right to visit all teachers’ classrooms and give feedback at any time.

“We’re better off spending more time with the teachers who need our help than with the teachers who are doing a bang up job,” said Mark Cannizzaro, president of the union that represents school administrators. “To say time is at a premium for our members is an understatement.”

And teachers say they are optimistic that requiring fewer observations would both help them improve and boost relations between teachers and their supervisors.

“Just to get everyone in is insane,” said Trisha Arnold, a Brooklyn teacher who was on the union’s negotiating committee, about the current requirements. “It doesn’t matter if you have six [evaluations] if they’re all rushed and crammed in. It’s not helping you.”

At the same time, Arnold said, “It’s OK to say to teachers who have proven themselves, ‘I trust you.’”

Teachers getting better under Tennessee’s controversial evaluation system, says new analysis

2018-10-11T10:00:38+00:00

Tennessee’s overhaul of its system for evaluating teachers has coincided with real and measurable benefits for students and teachers alike, says an analysis released Thursday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The controversial changes — which since 2011 have required more frequent and rigorous evaluations aligned to student outcomes — have rankled teachers but also made a difference when it comes to teacher retention and students’ academic growth, according to the research and policy group, which backs extensive reforms to teacher preparation and evaluation.

Teachers earning highly effective ratings are generally being retained at a higher rate than less effective teachers across Tennessee. An increasing number of districts logged the highest levels of student growth on state assessments during three school years ending in the spring of 2017. And a recent survey found that 72 percent of educators believe the evaluation process has improved their teaching, up from 38 percent in 2012.

However, other research paints a much less encouraging picture of evaluation reforms, particularly a recent study commissioned by the Gates Foundation that showed few gains in student achievement under the extensive changes, including in Tennessee’s largest district in Shelby County.

The newest analysis spotlights Tennessee as one of six places that are pioneering evaluation systems aimed at improving the quality of teaching. The others are New Mexico and districts in Dallas, Denver, the District of Columbia, and Newark, New Jersey.

All six use both student test scores and classroom observations to evaluate all of their teachers every year, giving significant weight to student learning. They also feature at least three rating categories, a big change from the days when teachers were assessed as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, with almost all earning the former rating.

Perhaps most significantly, each of the systems highlighted in the analysis link evaluation results to opportunities to earn higher pay. In Tennessee, districts are now required to differentiate compensation based on educator ratings or one of two other criteria: additional roles and responsibilities, or serving in hard-to-staff schools or subject areas.

The changes have happened in the decade since the National Council on Teacher Quality analyzed state and local regulations affecting teachers and called out evaluation policies across America as broken, counterproductive, and badly in need of an overhaul.

Not surprisingly, the switch to new systems has been hard.

In Tennessee, educators found the revamped evaluation model cumbersome, confusing, and opaque after its launch was rushed to help the state win a $500 million federal award in 2010. That feedback contributed to ongoing tweaks to teacher training and evaluation systems, outlined in another new report from FutureEd, a second policy think tank favoring evaluation reforms.

“None of these systems were perfect out of the gate,” said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, the group behind this week’s analysis. “System leaders recognized this and worked continuously to enhance system design, implementation, and use.”

But the backlash continues to bubble up in Tennessee, especially as the state’s messy transition to a computerized assessment has undermined the credibility of student test scores and prompted a recent legislative order to mostly disregard this year’s results in evaluations.

Last April, the testing problems overshadowed another study by Brown University researchers who reported that Tennessee teachers are showing substantial, career-long improvement under the state’s reforms. The finding was important because of some previous research that teacher improvement is relatively fixed, with most development coming in the first three to five years of a teacher’s career and then plateauing.

Despite the upbeat assessments in the NCTQ, Brown, and FutureEd reports, the future of Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system — which is now fully integrated into other systems for teacher preparation, licensure, support, and dismissal — is uncertain due to testing headaches that call into question the evaluation’s accuracy and fairness. The Gates study, which also found that low-income Memphis students didn’t necessarily get more access to effective teachers under evaluation reforms, hasn’t helped.

Outgoing Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has championed the reforms started by his Democratic predecessor and is urging the next administration to stay the course. His education chief says the latest analysis is a testament to the importance of incorporating student achievement into teacher ratings.

“Our evaluation model has developed the capacity of teachers to improve, put student growth at the center of our work, and established an expectation of continuous improvement,” Commissioner Candice McQueen said in a statement. “Even better, it’s working.”

Most Tennessee voters favor state tests and want TNReady fixed, says new poll

2018-09-10T21:02:30+00:00

Tennessee should continue to test its students to know if they’re meeting state academic standards and also should fix problems with administering its annual TNReady assessment, according to a statewide poll released Monday.

But whether the state should keep using test results to evaluate teachers is less clear.

Surveyors spoke with 600 Tennesseans likely to vote in this November’s race for governor in the latest poll commissioned by SCORE, a Nashville-based nonpartisan research and advocacy group seeking to improve student achievement across Tennessee.

Education has remained among the top three issues for Tennessee voters heading into the Nov. 6 election to replace outgoing Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and dozens of state lawmakers, according to all three of SCORE’s election surveys in the last year.

In the latest poll conducted Aug. 27-30, some 33 percent of participants identified education as their most important concern, compared to jobs and the economy (34 percent) and health care (32 percent).

Surveyors also asked about testing for the first time since last spring, when widespread technical problems disrupted students’ annual exams on digital devices. As a result, the Legislature yanked those scores from the state’s education accountability systems, and public trust in TNReady has fallen to an all-time low.

The future of TNReady — and how Tennessee will handle federally required testing — hangs in the balance of this year’s election.

READ: Here’s how candidates Karl Dean and Bill Lee compare on education

Since 2012, SCORE polls have consistently found strong support for an annual assessment to measure whether students are reaching their learning goals. But under TNReady, the state’s 3-year-old test aligned to new standards, giving the test and reporting the results have been rife with problems from the get-go.

Even so, 88 percent of voters surveyed agreed that testing is an important way to measure education effectiveness, with over half calling it very important.

On TNReady, 61 percent said the test should be fixed, while 27 percent dubbed it “a failure (that) will never be a good measure of student progress.”

“Once voters learn what TNReady is — a test designed to measure problem solving, critical thinking, and other skills needed for 21st century careers — a 2-to-1 majority favor its use to measure Tennessee students’ progress,” the pollsters wrote.

But respondents were split on whether Tennessee should continue its controversial policy of using students’ year‐to‐year academic growth — as measured by TNReady and end-of-course exams — in teachers’ annual performance reviews.

On other education matters, a majority of voters surveyed supported making improved literacy in grades K-3 the state’s top priority (64 percent), giving parents more choices for where to send their child to school (63 percent), and expanding quality pre-kindergarten opportunities (59 percent).

Voters also expressed doubt that Tennessee students are graduating ready for their next steps after high school. Fifty-nine percent of survey respondents said students are not properly prepared for the workforce, while just under half said students are going to college unprepared.

SCORE, which stands for the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, is planning a Future Readiness Summit with educators, policymakers, and business leaders on those matters on Oct. 18 in Nashville.

The phone survey was conducted by Fabrizio, Lee & Associates and Benenson Strategy Group. You can read the questions and more results here.

How do you improve schools? Start by coaching principals, says new study

2018-08-10T15:49:43+00:00

Gary Hughes remembers rolling his eyes last year after learning that Nashville’s new school superintendent was completely revamping the way principals like himself would be supervised.

After all, as a 10-year school administrator, Hughes thought he had done just fine under the previous system. Occasional drop-in visits from central office personnel found that his school was in compliance with all district rules and regulations.

But beginning last fall, his new supervisor, Craig Hammond, began coming to J.T. Moore Middle School for about a half day every other week — visiting classrooms with Hughes, reviewing student achievement data together, and talking through ways to support individual teachers.

“I was not happy about the change,” Hughes recalls. “It was like a bunch of new hoops I was going to have to jump through.”

This month, as he began his second year under the new supervisory model, Hughes feels “transformed” as a school leader. He also believes that what he’s learning in collaboration with Hammond is trickling down to improve the quality of instruction in classrooms at J.T. Moore.

“This approach is about support, not compliance,” said Hughes. “It’s changed the way I think about what I do.”

Hughes’ experience mirrors the findings of the first three years of a four-year study into the role of those who supervise school principals. The research, by Vanderbilt University and Mathematica Policy Research, suggests that radically changing the job description of such supervisors to emphasize coaching and mentoring instead of operations and administration could refocus school communities on improving student achievement, retaining more teachers, and strengthening school climate.

The findings also have major implications for how central offices are designed — with a shift from a top-down compliance model to a more bottom-up one that focuses on servicing schools.

“This is a good news story about district reform,” said Ellen Goldring, the report’s lead author and a Vanderbilt professor of educational leadership and policy.

“It’s about fundamentally changing the supervisor role in a way that principals report that they’re feeling more supported and equipped. But in order to make that new role effective, it became very clear that central office also needed to rethink and realign to that perspective.”

Reshuffling priorities

The study, which is part of the Wallace Foundation’s $24 million Principal Supervisor Initiative, was based on changes made between 2014 and 2017 at six urban districts in Broward County, Florida; Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa, Long Beach, California; and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Each district revamped the supervisor’s job description; reduced the number of schools each supervisor was responsible for; trained them on how to coach and support principals; and restructured the district’s central office to shift administrative, operations, and compliance tasks away from those roles.

With the changes, most districts reported that their supervisors were spending an average of 63 percent of their time working directly with principals to help them hone their skills in instructional leadership. That’s thought to be significantly more one-on-one time than in years past, when supervisors had substantially larger portfolios.

“That’s a lot of time that a principal has someone to plan with, problem-solve with, receive support,” Goldring said.

"This approach is about support, not compliance. It’s changed the way I think about what I do."

Gary Hughes, principal

While Nashville’s district was not part of the study, Director of Schools Shawn Joseph heard about the initiative while working in Maryland public schools and adopted some of its components when he became leader of Tennessee’s second largest district in 2016.

That meant restructuring the central office so that each supervisor was overseeing about a dozen schools instead of the previous 30 or so.

Such investments are one of the biggest challenges — but also one of the most critical components — of facilitating meaningful instructional engagement with principals, said Sito Narcisse, Nashville’s chief of schools.

“We believe the lever of change for improving schools is through the principal,” said Narcisse.

The study has other implications for states like Tennessee, which launched a teacher evaluation system in 2011 that requires principals to observe classroom instruction and critique their teachers.

“There’s clearly a shift in the role of principals,” said Goldring, whose next report will focus on how the supervisory changes impact principal effectiveness. “But how do we coach and develop principals so that they can better coach and develop their teachers? That’s what this research is all about.”

Leadership matters

When it comes to the impact of school-related factors on student learning, research shows that school leaders are second in importance only to teachers — but also can have a multiplier effect on the quality of teaching.

Historically, however, principals’ professional development has been limited to periodic workshops and trainings that focus mostly on administrative, operational, and compliance issues. They rarely receive ongoing, embedded coaching and problem-solving support based on the instructional needs of specific schools.

The Wallace Foundation identified existing principal supervisors as a potential resource to change that dynamic in large urban districts.

“They already have one foot in the schools and one foot in central office,” explained Jody Spiro, the foundation’s director of education leadership.

But few districts have taken that route on their own.

Even though these educators are responsible for evaluating principals and usually report to the chief academic officer, they tend to focus on “putting out fires” — things like parent complaints and broken air conditioners — instead of coaching teachers.

From left: Principal Gary Hughes confers with supervisors Dottie Critchlow and Craig Hammond about the upcoming school year. Critchlow helps oversee support for school leaders under the Nashville district’s new supervisory model.

Dottie Critchlow recalls what it was like to supervise Nashville principals under the district’s previous model. With about 28 schools to monitor, giving all of her principals meaningful critiques was logistically impossible, she said.

“It was like saying to a mama, ‘Who do you love the most?’” said Critchlow, who now coaches the district’s principal supervisors. “The answer is ‘the kid who needs me the most.’ I spent a lot of time with brand new principals figuring out the job and others who weren’t being effective. It wasn’t about developing instructional leaders; it was about maintenance.”

Last year under the new model, Hammond monitored a dozen schools — the average number that the study landed on for effective engagement between supervisors and their principals.

“If I had 20 schools, I’d start losing track of who’s where,” said Hammond, himself a former principal. “This number allows me to walk with principals in a building, to give feedback, and remember the things that I see.”

The investment paid off when Hughes received his first evaluation from Hammond. It was, the principal said, an “aha! moment” — the most meaningful feedback of his career.

“It’s clear he knew me, understood my school, and really thought this through,” Hughes said. “He was very in tune with what I needed to improve.”

Citing ‘multiple years of failure,’ Knoxville school leaders vote ‘no confidence’ in state

2018-08-09T20:11:47+00:00

Tennessee’s third-largest district voted Wednesday night to draft a letter of “no confidence” to the Tennessee Department of Education, Gov. Bill Haslam, and Knoxville-area lawmakers.

The letter from Knox County Schools board is the latest in a backlash against the state over how the department evaluates teachers and schools.

Problems with pre-K and kindergarten teacher portfolio evaluations became the issue that pushed board Chairwoman Patti Bounds to say the department “still takes no ownership” of its mistakes. Portfolios are used to evaluate educators who teach pre-K, kindergarten, and subjects not included in TNReady standardized testing. Portfolios can include videos showing student progress during the year.

Earlier this week, the superintendents of the state’s two largest districts, Memphis and Nashville, wrote to Haslam and Education Commissioner Candice McQueen to pause state testing until after the election because “educator and public trust in TNReady has fallen to irretrievably low levels.”

Tennessee has taken pride in the progress of its students on national tests and has toughened up its requirements for student learning and evaluating teachers. But the foundation for its analysis, the state’s new online test, TNReady, has been fraught with technical setbacks since it was introduced in 2016.

State lawmakers were so concerned about the problems with TNReady that they passed legislation ensuring the scores would not be used to negatively impact teachers, students, or schools. School-level scores could be released as early as late next week.

Some Knoxville board members wanted to echo the sentiment of Memphis and Nashville superintendents about TNReady, but settled on highlighting the more timely portfolio issue, Bounds said.

“The portfolio system is a mess,” she told Chalkbeat. “The Department of Education has had multiple years of failure.”

The board will likely meet Tuesday in a special meeting to approve a letter, she said.

First-year problems for the teacher portfolios have resulted in error messages or questionable low scores for teachers. It is unclear how many teachers across the state are affected, but a spokeswoman for the department said about 7 percent got the lowest overall score. The state department attributed the problems to user error while one of the state’s teacher organizations blamed a system glitch.

“Every time something fails, the Department of Education blames it on the teachers. And some of their reasons are just not valid,” Bounds told Chalkbeat.

But the issue may reach beyond teachers who got an overall low score. One teacher got the second highest possible score on her evaluation, but she could not explain a low score in one section. She presented her issues with the portfolio system to the Knoxville school board Wednesday night, Bounds said.

“The state likes to deal in percentages, but I like to deal in people,” she said. “If there’s one person whose portfolio was done incorrectly, it matters.”

Sara Gast, a state department spokeswoman, said teachers who received low scores because of mistakes made when the portfolios were submitted can ask to have them reviewed again, and receive comments on their work.

McQueen has also invited several superintendents, including Bob Thomas of Knoxville, to give feedback on upcoming changes to the portfolio process.

She also provided an email from a Knox County teacher who reviewed portfolios praising the state for its process and chiding teachers who did not take full advantage of the training.

“I have personally reviewed four different teachers’ collections that they received a ‘1’ on, and within minutes was able to tell the teachers why the collection was scored that way,” said Laurie Smith, a kindergarten teacher at Cedar Bluff Elementary School.

“In each case, it was a mistake that the teacher did not catch because they did not take the time to understand what was being asked on the scoring rubric or they did not check their work before submitting the collection.”

Update, Aug. 9, 2018: This story has been updated to include comments from the Tennessee Department of Education.

Eight years ago, the L.A. Times published teachers’ ratings. New research tells us what happened next.

2018-08-05T21:00:27+00:00

In 2010, the Los Angeles Times did something that hadn’t been done before.

The newspaper published test-score data for thousands of the city’s public school teachers, assigning them a rating based on how they influenced students’ results.

It caused a firestorm. Critics, including many teachers, railed against the measures as misleading and poorly constructed, warning that the data would demoralize teachers. The L.A. Times itself defended the release as necessary transparency.

In an accompanying story, one local teacher suggested it might also help children by empowering parents “to demand a good teacher.”

New research suggests that’s what happened next — but only for certain families.

Publishing the scores meant already high-achieving students were assigned to the classrooms of higher-rated teachers the next year, the study found. That could be because affluent or well-connected parents were able to pull strings to get their kids assigned to those top teachers, or because those teachers pushed to teach the highest-scoring students.

In other words, the academically rich got even richer — an unintended consequence of what could be considered a journalistic experiment in school reform.

“You shine a light on people who are underperforming and the hope is they improve,” said Jonah Rockoff, a professor at Columbia University who has studied these “value-added” measures. “But when you increase transparency, you may actually exacerbate inequality.”

That analysis is one of a number of studies to examine the lasting effects of the L.A. Times’ decision to publish those ratings eight years ago. Together, the results offer a new way of understanding a significant moment in the national debate over how to improve education, when bad teachers were seen as a central problem and more rigorous evaluations as a key solution.

The latest study, by Peter Bergman and Matthew Hill and published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Economics of Education Review, found that the publication of the ratings caused a one-year spike in teacher turnover. That’s not entirely surprising, considering many teachers felt attacked by the public airing of their ratings.

“Guilty as charged,” wrote one teacher with a low rating. “I am proud to be ‘less effective’ than some of my peers because I chose to teach to the emotional and academic needs of my students. In the future it seems I am being asked to put my public image first.”

But a separate study, by Nolan Pope at the University of Maryland, finds the publication of the ratings may have had some positive effects on students, perhaps by encouraging schools to better support struggling teachers.

Pope’s research showed that Los Angeles teachers’ performance, as measured by their value-added scores, improved after their scores were published. The effects were biggest for the teachers whose initial scores were lowest, and there was no evidence that the improvement was due to “teaching to the test.”

“These results suggest the public release of teacher ratings could raise the performance of low-rated teachers,” Pope concluded.

The two studies offer divergent pictures of the consequences of L.A. Times’ move. Pope did not find that higher-scoring students moved into the classrooms of higher-scoring teachers, while Bergman and Hill didn’t find clear evidence that teachers improved.

Those varying results are not entirely surprising, since the researchers used different methods. Pope’s research compared the same teachers before and after their value-added scores were published. Bergman and Hill took advantage of the fact that the L.A. Times only published scores for teachers who taught 60 or more students between 2003 and 2009, creating a natural experiment. The researchers then compared teachers who had taught just more than 60 kids to those teachers who had taught just under 60.

Rockoff of Columbia said he found both studies credible.

A third study, published in 2016, looks at an entirely different question: Did housing prices in Los Angeles increase near schools with more highly rated teachers?

Not really, according to the paper. That’s somewhat surprising, because past research has shown that housing zoned for schools with higher overall test scores and ratings is more expensive.

The researchers suggest that that might be because families had a hard time understanding what the ratings represented, and that some may have tuned out because of the surrounding controversy.

The results come in a very different political climate than around the time of the public release of the scores, when conversations about teacher performance had reached a fever pitch.

In 2010, then-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised the publication of teacher ratings. He used federal carrots and sticks to encourage states to use student test scores as part of how teachers are judged, a policy most states adopted.

But since then, states like New York and Virginia have barred the public release of this performance data, while media organizations have increasingly shied away from publicizing them. The new teacher evaluation systems have run into political challenges, and in some cases not had the hoped-for effects on student performance. And the federal education law passed in 2016 specifically banned the secretary of education from pushing teacher evaluation rules.

Here’s how Lee, Dean compare on education in the race to be Tennessee’s next governor

2018-08-03T22:07:53+00:00

The two candidates left in the race to succeed Gov. Bill Haslam agree that teachers should get more pay, state testing should be reviewed, and a college degree isn’t for everyone as Tennessee seeks to equip students for the jobs of tomorrow.

But their priorities for “school choice” and school funding look different. And important nuances contrast their positions on issues like publicly funded early childhood programs and using student test scores in teacher evaluations.

Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and Williamson County businessman Bill Lee won their primary races Thursday and will face off on Nov. 6 in the general election.

The victor will follow Haslam, a term-limited Republican governor who inherited and embraced a blueprint for student improvement developed under Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen as part of Tennessee’s $500 million Race to the Top award in 2010.

READ: In his final months as governor, Haslam reflects on his education legacy

Stay the course?

Dean, 62, the Democratic nominee and a lawyer, says his administration generally would stick with that plan which is based on 1) raising academic standards; 2) adopting an aligned test to measure student progress; and 3) using the results to hold students, teachers, schools, and districts accountable.

“We have done a great job of raising standards and expectations so that students will be ready for college and career,” Dean told Chalkbeat in a recent survey of candidates on education issues. “We now need to give educators the resources and supports they need to make sure students master our higher standards.”

Lee, 58, the Republican nominee and engineer who owns a $250 million heating, ventilation and plumbing company, agrees that high standards are important, but says it’s “how you get there that is really the question.”

“I think we can push for high standards while reducing the testing burden and focusing on a testing protocol that is more meaningful to our teachers and parents,” Lee said.

Gov. Bill Haslam will soon finish eight years in office.

As governor for eight years, Haslam has held firm to the controversial policy of including student growth scores from state tests in teacher evaluations — and believes it’s been key to Tennessee’s achievement gains on national tests since 2011. However, he worries the policy could crumble under a new administration and General Assembly due to the state’s widespread problems administering its 3-year-old TNReady assessment.

To see the candidates’ full statements about testing, teacher evaluations, and more, read their answers to our survey questions here.

Voters care

Voters have told pollsters that education is the top issue in this year’s gubernatorial race.

“Tennessee’s next governor and General Assembly will face many decisions that can either advance or slow student achievement progress,” said Jamie Woodson, CEO of the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, also known as SCORE, a nonpartisan advocacy and research organization founded by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.

Those decisions, she said, will include how to improve low-performing schools; support effective teaching; help all students be ready for college, career, and jobs; and administer tests that tell educators, parents, and communities how their students are doing.

State lawmakers also will play a big part in the direction Tennessee goes. And the Legislature and its leadership will look significantly different beginning in 2019 due to a large exodus of members, including the retirement of two House education committee chairmen and the exit of the House speaker who appoints members to those panels.

Other issues

Setting funding for schools is one of the state’s biggest responsibilities, but whether the money is adequate is being reviewed in the courts due to lawsuits filed against Tennessee by three of its four largest school systems.

Dean said his administration would propose spending increases for schools, while Lee wants to appoint an inspector general to “seek out waste and abuse in the system.”

On “school choice,” both candidates like high-quality, nonprofit charter schools, but are split over whether Tennessee should allow vouchers or other incentives that channel public money to pay for private school tuition — an idea repeatedly rejected by the Legislature over the last decade.

As Nashville’s mayor from 2007 to 2015, Dean supported publicly financed, privately operated charter schools, but adds that they are no panacea and don’t necessarily work for rural communities. He is adamantly opposed to tuition vouchers.

Lee says he’s more interested in the quality of schools than who owns the buildings and is open to voucher-like programs. “When parents have the freedom to choose, not only is their child’s trajectory improved, but the introduction of choice and competition raises the bar for everyone,” he told Chalkbeat.

As for the state’s pre-K program, both candidates want to prioritize improving its quality, which was called into question by a major study by Vanderbilt University. Dean has campaigned to expand pre-K access and after-school enrichment opportunities as well.

Former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen speaks as his successor, Gov. Bill Haslam, listens during a 2017 forum.

This will be the first election since 1994 that Tennesseans will cast ballots in the same year in competitive gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. Bredesen, who preceded Haslam as governor and spearheaded Tennessee’s Race to the Top award, is running against U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Bob Corker.

Haslam worries TNReady testing troubles could unravel Tennessee education policy

2018-07-24T22:40:33+00:00

Gov. Bill Haslam says he had a “pit” in his stomach every day of Tennessee’s testing season this spring when a parade of technical problems vexed students and teachers in the bumpy transition to computerized exams.

He also worries that three straight years of frustrations with the state’s 3-year-old standardized assessment, TNReady, could unravel policies that he believes led to students’ gains on national tests.

Now in the homestretch of his term-limited administration, Haslam is making his case for staying the course with Tennessee’s blueprint for student improvement, including higher academic standards, an aligned test that measures student proficiency, and policies that hold students, teachers, and schools accountable for results.

“Do we really want to go back? Do we really want to go back to when Tennessee was in the 40s out of the states ranked 1 to 50?” the outgoing Republican governor asked recently in an exclusive interview with Chalkbeat.

He also discussed the highs and lows of K-12 education during his eight years in office.

The highs came in 2013 when Tennessee students outpaced the rest of the nation in improvement on the Nation’s Report Card, or NAEP, and then kept that up in 2015, lifting the state toward the middle of the pack on national rankings.

Here’s why people are talking about Tennessee, a ‘bright green rectangle’ on a new U.S. map of student growth

The lows came with the failed rollout of the state’s own TNReady exam in 2016, and then subsequent problems with scoring the assessment in 2017 and administering the test online this past spring under testing company Questar.

Now, as the race to succeed him in office heats up, Haslam worries that, by getting testing wrong again this past school year, Tennessee’s next administration and General Assembly could end up undoing what he thinks it’s getting right.

TNReady became an easy mark for candidates of both parties after April, when technical disruptions exasperated school communities again across Tennessee. (Read what gubernatorial contenders are saying, based on Chalkbeat’s survey of Democratic candidates here and Republicans in the race here. Statewide primaries are on Aug. 2.)

Haslam knows the politics of TNReady, especially related to the state’s controversial decision to incorporate the results in teacher evaluations as part of a $500 million federal Race to the Top award under Gov. Phil Bredesen in 2010. (For this year, the Legislature opted to roll that back due to the recent testing mishaps.)

“If I’m running for office right now, I don’t know that I’d be planting my flag by TNReady, so I understand that,” he said. (You can listen to Haslam’s full quote below.)

But he believes passionately that the teacher accountability component has helped to move the needle on student achievement.

“One of my fears is that going forward, whoever sits in this governor’s chair next or whoever is the commissioner of education might not have that same commitment when the heat comes,” said Haslam, noting that every state has had difficulty transitioning to computerized testing.

“Hopefully Tennessee and the new administration won’t have the same struggles we’ve had this year with testing. But there will be some struggles; there just are by the very nature of it,” he said. “I worry that the struggles will cause us to say, ‘OK, we give. We’re no longer going to have an evaluation that’s tied to an assessment.’

“And I think that would be a real loss for the state if we gave up that central tenet that has been part of our progress,” he added.

Despite the problems in delivery, Haslam believes that TNReady is actually a good test that matches to strong academic standards.

“That makes the struggles we’ve had with testing all the worse,” he said.

In his final months as Tennessee’s governor, Haslam reflects on his education legacy. Read the full Q&A.

Tennessee will release TNReady test scores on Thursday. Here are five things to know.

2018-07-18T11:00:10+00:00

When Tennessee unveils its latest standardized test scores on Thursday, the results won’t count for much.

Technical problems marred the return to statewide online testing this spring, prompting the passage of several emergency state laws that rendered this year’s TNReady scores mostly inconsequential. As a result, poor results can’t be used to hold students, educators, or schools accountable — for instance, firing a teacher or taking over a struggling school through the state’s Achievement School District.

But good or bad, the scores still can be useful, say teachers like Josh Rutherford, whose 11th-grade students were among those who experienced frequent online testing interruptions in April.

“There are things we can learn from the data,” said Rutherford, who teaches English at Houston County High School. “I think it would be unprofessional to simply dismiss this year’s scores.”

Heading into this week’s data dump, here are five things to know:

1. This will be the biggest single-day release of state scores since the TNReady era began three years ago.

Anyone with internet access will be able to view state- and district-level scores for math, English, and science for grades 3-12. And more scores will come later. School-by-school data will be released publicly in a few weeks. In addition, Tennessee will unveil the results of its new social studies test this fall after setting the thresholds for what constitutes passing scores at each grade level.

2. Still, this year’s results are anticlimactic.

There are two major reasons. First, many educators and parents question the scores’ reliability due to days of online testing headaches. They also worry that high school students stopped trying after legislators stepped in to say the scores don’t necessarily have to count in final grades. Second, because the scores won’t carry their intended weight, the stakes are lower this year. For instance, teachers have the option of nullifying their evaluation scores. And the state also won’t give each school an A-F grade this fall as originally planned. TNReady scores were supposed to be incorporated into both of those accountability measures.

3. The state is looking into the reliability of the online test scores.

In addition to an internal review by the Education Department, the state commissioned an independent analysis by the Human Resources Research Organization. Researchers for the Virginia-based technical group studied the impact of Tennessee’s online interruptions by looking into testing irregularity reports filed in schools and by scrutinizing variances from year to year and school to school, among other things. (Editor’s note: After this story’s initial publication, Education Commissioner Candice McQueen revealed what the analysis found. Here’s that story.)

4. The reliability of paper-and-pencil test scores are not as much in question.

Only about half of Tennessee’s 600,000 students who took TNReady this year tested on computers. The other half — in grades 3-5 and many students in grades 6-8 — took the exams the old-fashioned way. Though there were some complaints related to paper testing too, state officials say they’re confident about those results. Even so, the Legislature made no distinction between the online and paper administrations of TNReady when they ordered that scores only count if they benefit students, teachers, and schools.

5. Ultimately, districts and school communities will decide how to use this year’s data.

Even within the same district, it wasn’t uncommon for one school to experience online problems and another to enjoy a much smoother testing experience. “Every district was impacted differently,” said Dale Lynch, executive director of the state superintendents organization. “It’s up to the local district to look at the data and make decisions based on those local experiences.”

District leaders have been reviewing the embargoed scores for several weeks, and they’ll share them with teachers in the days and weeks ahead. As for families, parents can ask to see their students’ individual score reports so they can learn from this year’s results, too. Districts distribute those reports in different ways, but they’re fair game beginning Thursday. You can learn more here.

Here’s how Tennessee’s Republican candidates for governor answer the big questions on education

2018-07-09T23:21:29+00:00

Four main GOP candidates are campaigning to succeed fellow Republican Bill Haslam as governor, but first they must defeat each other in the 2018 primary election.

The Republican nominee will be chosen on Aug. 2, with early voting July 13-28. The winner will square off Nov. 6 against the candidate picked by Democratic voters.

Tennessee’s next governor will significantly shape public education, and voters have told pollsters that they want an education-minded leader to follow Haslam.

We asked the candidates about their own educational experiences and choices, how they would address the state’s troubled testing program, how to expand pre-K progams for Tennessee’s poorest children, and more.

Below, find their answers, which have been lightly edited for grammar, style, and length. You can sort by candidate.

Also, read the responses of Democratic candidates here.

Here’s where Tennessee’s Democratic candidates for governor stand on education

2018-07-09T22:41:06+00:00

Two candidates are squaring off to be the Democratic nominee for governor of Tennessee.

Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and state Rep. Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley will compete for the chance to face one of four Republican candidates in November’s general election. They hope to succeed Gov. Bill Haslam and become the first Democratic governor in eight years.

The primary election is on Aug. 2, with early voting July 13-28.

Tennessee’s next governor will significantly shape public education, and voters have told pollsters that it’s one of the top issues in this year’s race.

We asked the candidates about their own educational experiences and choices, how they would address Tennessee’s standardized testing challenges, whether the state should spend more money on schools, and more.

Below, find their answers, which have been lightly edited for grammar, style, and length. You can sort by candidate.

Also, read the responses of Republican candidates here.

Tennessee teachers have a new voice. Meet the next leader of the state’s largest teacher group

2018-06-27T20:01:18+00:00

When Beth Brown takes office July 1 as the new president of the Tennessee Education Association, she’ll become the youngest elected leader of the state’s largest teacher organization in three decades.

Now in its 153rd year, TEA has been represented in recent decades by a string of presidents who retired after leaving office and did not return to the classroom. At age 38, Brown will be the exception.

“It’s a unique opportunity,” she said. “I’ll get to work with teachers across the state to understand their vision for public education and learn what they need to help their students succeed.”

A high school English teacher in rural Grundy County, Brown will take a two-year leave from her job and move temporarily to Tennessee’s capital, where she’ll represent educators statewide.

Among her priorities will be advocating for increases in school funding and teacher pay. She wants to see an end to the state’s policy of including standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. She also wants to attract new teachers to the profession and spotlight rural education.

TEA is not a union. The association’s membership declined after the Legislature voted to end collective bargaining in 2011, but leaders say their numbers have rebounded in recent years, though they declined to give specifics. Membership dues are the group’s primary source of income.

Serving as vice president of TEA for four years, Brown has had an active voice on teacher issues at local, state and national levels, including roles in membership, negotiations, and grievances. She’ll replace retiring president Barbara Gray, a former assistant principal in Shelby County’s Arlington Middle School.

In a recent interview with Chalkbeat, Brown talked about her new role, how she hopes to elevate respect for the teaching profession, why she believes the state’s emphasis on TNReady is a mistake, and what made her a passionate advocate for rural education. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

One of your goals is to recruit and support new teachers. Describe the state of the teaching profession in Tennessee?

If you look at the data regarding the age brackets of educators, we have a significant percentage of educators eligible for retirement in Tennessee. And while we have an influx of early career educators, they’re not staying in the profession. I love being a teacher. As president of the TEA, I want to bring back some of the respect for the profession, some of the joy in the profession. I want to make it so early career educators aren’t just surviving, but that they’re thriving. We cannot afford for all of our early career educators to leave within the first five years. Experience is really important in our classrooms. Students have better educational outcomes when they have teachers who grow because teaching is a craft and you get better every year. We’ve got to create a space where our early career educators are really supported.

Why aren’t new teachers staying in the profession?

I think there’s this false narrative that public education is failing and that teachers are failing. I think that narrative is furthered by this cycle of standardized testing where we base high-stakes decisions on a single standardized test. Because of the pressure that goes along with that, we don’t necessarily get raises; we get bonuses based on a differentiated pay plan, which is based on our evaluations which come largely from student test scores. We have this system of testing and these really rather punitive decisions based on testing that do not encourage people to enter the profession. It is extremely stressful. It’s very narrowly focused because so many decisions are tied to a single test.

State standardized testing didn’t go smoothly this year, but TNReady is Tennessee’s primary tool for assessing and tracking student progress, and improving instruction. Given that our students have shown gains on several national assessments in recent years, how do we strike the right balance?

We have to get back to focusing on what’s best for our students. We need more time for one-on-one attention and instruction. Students need to be learning critical thinking and problem-solving skills. They need to be able to be creative through a well-rounded education that’s going to set them up for success. Of all the things we teach our students, the most important is the level of learning and no standardized test can measure that. Teachers are not opposed to testing or evaluation. We invented tests. But what we want is a fair system that accurately measures student achievement and teacher performance.

Can faith in TNReady be restored, and how?

We’ve had too many years of state testing failures. There is zero trust from parents and students and educators in our current state assessment system. I think this is a great time to look at what else we can do that’s going to work and will be more fair. This spring during TNReady testing, we saw students, parents, educators, and legislators working together to say “enough is enough.” I want to capitalize on that momentum and do something that’s better for Tennessee students and educators. That will be one of my priorities over the next year.

When you say something better, are you saying the state should scrap TNReady and start all over?

I’m saying we do not need accountability based on a single standardized test, particularly one like TNReady that has failed repeatedly. There are so many other ways to offer a better snapshot of student performance and teacher effectiveness with things like appropriate pre- and post-testing, creative use of benchmark testing, other gauges of student progress, portfolios that are done correctly. There are lots of things we can do. I don’t have the answer, but I don’t think a standardized testing company has the answer either. We need a group of educators to come together, take our collective knowledge, and design a system to evaluate student and teacher and school performance. Those decisions right now are made by people who are not teachers, and I think that’s a real shame.

You’ve taught for 17 years in rural Tennessee. What are the challenges of public education in that setting, and why has rural education become a passion for you?

It goes back to a personal story from college. It was never my plan to teach at the high school from which I graduated. When I was a high school senior, my plan was to leave Grundy County and never come back because options are so limited and I wanted to be able to go to the theater and do things you can’t do in a rural place. But in my first year in college, I had a journalism class where I was doing well and my professor complimented me and asked me where I went to school. When I told him Grundy County High School, he said, “You’re the first decent student I’ve had to come out of that school.” I was heartbroken. At that point, I made a decision that, if I ever wound up back in Grundy County, I would do everything I could to make sure that no student ever had to hear that again.

Beth Brown teaches students at Grundy County High School, her alma mater in Coalmont, Tenn.

Over the years, I’ve realized how few opportunities there are for students in a place like Grundy County to experience the world. For my students, their world is very, very narrow. There is very little diversity — not just racially but also ethnically and socioeconomically. It’s a very homogenous community. Many have never left the county. Those who have left may have gone to someplace like Chattanooga, which is 45 minutes away..

Rural districts like mine don’t have the resources to provide technology, or updated textbooks or things that students really need to be academically successful. We don’t have resources for related arts programs. We don’t have the opportunity to provide our students what suburban or urban districts can have. I think it’s a real shame. Public education should not rely on students winning the zip code lottery. It does not matter whether a student is in Memphis, Mountain City, or Monteagle Mountain. Every student deserves a quality public education and deserves to have teachers who are well-trained, well-prepared, well-supplied to help their students be successful.

How can you enhance rural education at the policy level?

A lot of it goes to funding. Led by Gov. Bill Haslam, the state has increased education funding by $1.5 billion during his administration and increased state teacher salary funds by some $356 million in the last four years. But there’s still a lot of work to be done. While the General Assembly has done its part to increase teacher pay, most Tennessee teachers have not seen those increases in their paychecks. I certainly have not. Pay is an important part in attracting and retaining the most qualified and committed educators. It’s hard to recruit someone to a profession that doesn’t pay well. There are people who would consider becoming an educator but, by the time they graduate from college, they may have $50,000 in student debt and can’t pay that off with a teacher’s salary. So we’ve got to make sure that we continue to fund and improve our funding in public education.

I want to see Tennessee’s investment per student increase to the Southeastern average by 2020. That’s my goal. While it crushes me to lose to Alabama in football, it’s even more heartbreaking to lose to Alabama in education funding.

This is a major election year for Tennessee as we choose a new governor and fill dozens of open legislative seats with people who will set the course for education policy. What is TEA’s election game plan, and what messages will you emphasize?

TEA will be working with our members to get them educated on the issues and get them to the polls. We’ll be meeting with the candidates and educating them on what our students in our schools need. It’s a critical election year, and TEA will be doing everything we can to elect pro-public education candidates. We have a saying at TEA: It’s not about R, it’s not about D, it’s about E. We want pro-public education candidates to win, whether they’re Republican or Democrat.

In union defeat, lawmakers end session without revamping teacher evaluation law

2018-06-21T19:02:25+00:00

After a hard-fought battle by the state teachers union, New York lawmakers went home for the summer without overhauling a controversial teacher evaluation law that ties state test scores to educator ratings.

The bill pushed by the unions would have left decisions about whether to use state test scores in teacher evaluations up to local union negotiations. While the bill cleared the Assembly, it was bottled up by the Senate’s leadership, which demanded charter school concessions in return that Assembly Democrats wouldn’t agree to.

The effort to decouple test scores from teacher evaluations was one of several that fizzled out at the end of a lackluster session characterized by lawmaker gridlock.

“Sen. Flanagan, his caucus and five Democrats chose to betray the state’s teachers,” said New York State United Teachers President Andy Pallotta in a statement. “Make no mistake, New York teachers, parents and public school students will remember which senators voted against their public schools when we head to the polls this September and again in November.”

There is some possibility that lawmakers could return to finish a few unresolved issues this summer, but Pallotta told Chalkbeat he is not holding out hope for that outcome.

The lack of action is a defeat for the state teachers union, which fought hard for the bill since the beginning of the session. Union officials have staged musical rallies, bought balloons, rented a truck with a message urging lawmakers to pass the bill, and capped off the last day of session handing out ice cream for the cause.

However, the legislative loss gives the union something to rally around during this fall’s elections. Also, other education advocacy organizations are content to engage in a longer process to revamp evaluations.

“Inaction isn’t always the worst outcome,” said Julie Marlette, Director of Governmental Relations for the New York State School Boards Association.“Now we can continue to work with both legislative and regulatory figures to hopefully craft an update to evaluations that is thoughtful and comprehensive and includes all the stakeholders.”

The news also means that New York’s teacher evaluation saga — which has been raging for eight years — will spill over into at least next year. Policymakers have been battling about state teacher evaluations since 2010, when New York adopted a system that started using state test scores to rate teachers in order to win federal “Race to the Top” money.

Teacher evaluations were altered again in 2015 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for a more stringent evaluation system, saying evaluations as they existed were “baloney.” The new system was met with resistance from the teachers unions and parents across the state. Nearly one in five families boycotted state tests in response to evaluation changes and a handful of other education policies.

The state’s Board of Regents acted quickly, passing a moratorium on the use of grades three to eight math and English tests in teacher evaluations. But the original 2015 law remains on the books. It was a central plank in that law — which could require as much as half of an educator’s evaluation to be based on test scores — that the unions targeted during this session.

With the moratorium set to expire in 2019, the fight over teacher evaluations will likely become more pressing next year. It may also allow the state education department to play a greater role in shaping the final product. State education department officials had begun to lay out a longer roadmap for redesigning teacher evaluations that involved surveys and workgroups, but the legislative battle threatened to short-circuit their process.

Now officials at the state education department say they will restart their work and pointed out that they could extend the moratorium to provide extra time if needed.

“We will resume the work we started earlier this year to engage teachers, principals and others as we seek input in moving toward developing a new educator evaluation system,” said state education department spokeswoman Emily DeSantis.

For some education advocates, slowing down the process sounds like a good idea.

“Our reaction on the NYSUT Assembly teacher evaluation bill is that you could do worse but that you could also do better and that we should take time to try,” said Bob Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

What seems to be a setback for the union now may be a galvanizing force during elections this fall. Republican lawmakers will likely struggle to keep control of the state Senate, and NYSUT is promising to use this inaction against them. That could be particularly consequential in Long Island, which is a hotbed of the testing opt-out movement.

It’s unclear whether the failure to act will also prove problematic for Cuomo, who is also seeking re-election. Cuomo, who pushed for the 2015 law the unions despise, is facing competition from the left in gubernatorial challenger Cynthia Nixon.

But at least so far, it seems like the union is reserving the blame for Senate Republicans and not for the governor.

Cuomo is “making it clear that he has heard the outcry,” said Pallotta. “I blame Senator Flanagan, I blame his conference and I blame 5 [Senate] Democrats.”

The Gates Foundation bet big on teacher evaluation. The report it commissioned explains how those efforts fell short.

2018-06-21T04:01:33+00:00

Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address reflected the heady moment in education. “We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000,” he said. “A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.”

Bad teachers were the problem; good teachers were the solution. It was a simplified binary, but the idea and the research it drew on had spurred policy changes across the country, including a spate of laws establishing new evaluation systems designed to reward top teachers and help weed out low performers.

Behind that effort was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which backed research and advocacy that ultimately shaped these changes.

It also funded the efforts themselves, specifically in several large school districts and charter networks open to changing how teachers were hired, trained, evaluated, and paid. Now, new research commissioned by the Gates Foundation finds scant evidence that those changes accomplished what they were meant to: improve teacher quality or boost student learning.

The 500-plus page report by the Rand Corporation, released Thursday, details the political and technical challenges of putting complex new systems in place and the steep cost — $575 million — of doing so.

The post-mortem will likely serve as validation to the foundation’s critics, who have long complained about Gates’ heavy influence on education policy and what they call its top-down approach.

The report also comes as the foundation has shifted its priorities away from teacher evaluation and toward other issues, including improving curriculum.

“We have taken these lessons to heart, and they are reflected in the work that we’re doing moving forward,” the Gates Foundation’s Allan Golston said in a statement.

The initiative did not lead to clear gains in student learning.

At the three districts and four California-based charter school networks that took part of the Gates initiative — Pittsburgh; Shelby County (Memphis), Tennessee; Hillsborough County, Florida; and the Alliance-College Ready, Aspire, Green Dot, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities networks — results were spotty. The trends over time didn’t look much better than similar schools in the same state.

Several years into the initiative, there was evidence that it was helping high school reading in Pittsburgh and at the charter networks, but hurting elementary and middle school math in Memphis and among the charters. In most cases there were no clear effects, good or bad. There was also no consistent pattern of results over time.

A complicating factor here is that the comparison schools may also have been changing their teacher evaluations, as the study spanned from 2010 to 2015, when many states passed laws putting in place tougher evaluations and weakening tenure.

There were also lots of other changes going on in the districts and states — like the adoption of Common Core standards, changes in state tests, the expansion of school choice — making it hard to isolate cause and effect. Studies in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Washington D.C. have found that evaluation changes had more positive effects.

Matt Kraft, a professor at Brown who has extensively studied teacher evaluation efforts, said the disappointing results in the latest research couldn’t simply be chalked up to a messy rollout.

These “districts were very well poised to have high-quality implementation,” he said. “That speaks to the actual package of reforms being limited in its potential.”

Principals were generally positive about the changes, but teachers had more complicated views.

From Pittsburgh to Tampa, Florida, the vast majority of principals agreed at least somewhat that “in the long run, students will benefit from the teacher-evaluation system.”

Source: RAND Corporation

Teachers in district schools were far less confident.

When the initiative started, a majority of teachers in all three districts tended to agree with the sentiment. But several years later, support had dipped substantially. This may have reflected dissatisfaction with the previous system — the researchers note that “many veteran [Pittsburgh] teachers we interviewed reported that their principals had never observed them” — and growing disillusionment with the new one.

Majorities of teachers in all locations reported that they had received useful feedback from their classroom observations and changed their habits as a result.

At the same time, teachers in the three districts were highly skeptical that the evaluation system was fair — or that it made sense to attach high-stakes consequences to the results.

The initiative didn’t help ensure that poor students of color had more access to effective teachers.

Part of the impetus for evaluation reform was the idea, backed by some research, that black and Hispanic students from low-income families were more likely to have lower-quality teachers.

But the initiative didn’t seem to make a difference. In Hillsborough County, inequity expanded. (Surprisingly, before the changes began, the study found that low-income kids of color actually had similar or slightly more effective teachers than other students in Pittsburgh, Hillsborough County, and Shelby County.)

Districts put in place modest bonuses to get top teachers to switch schools, but the evaluation system itself may have been a deterrent.

“Central-office staff in [Hillsborough County] reported that teachers were reluctant to transfer to high-need schools despite the cash incentive and extra support because they believed that obtaining a good VAM score would be difficult at a high-need school,” the report says.

Evaluation was costly — both in terms of time and money.

The total direct cost of all aspects of the program, across several years in the three districts and four charter networks, was $575 million.

That amounts to between 1.5 and 6.5 percent of district or network budgets, or a few hundred dollars per student per year. Over a third of that money came from the Gates Foundation.

The study also quantifies the strain of the new evaluations on school leaders’ and teachers’ time as costing upwards of $200 per student, nearly doubling the the price tag in some districts.

Teachers tended to get high marks on the evaluation system.

Before the new evaluation systems were put in place, the vast majority of teachers got high ratings. That hasn’t changed much, according to this study, which is consistent with national research.

In Pittsburgh, in the initial two years, when evaluations had low stakes, a substantial number of teachers got low marks. That drew objections from the union.

“According to central-office staff, the district adjusted the proposed performance ranges (i.e., lowered the ranges so fewer teachers would be at risk of receiving a low rating) at least once during the negotiations to accommodate union concerns,” the report says.

Morgaen Donaldson, a professor at the University of Connecticut, said the initial buy-in followed by pushback isn’t surprising, pointing to her own research in New Haven.

To some, aspects of the initiative “might be worth endorsing at an abstract level,” she said. “But then when the rubber hit the road … people started to resist.”

More effective teachers weren’t more likely to stay teaching, but less effective teachers were more likely to leave.

The basic theory of action of evaluation changes is to get more effective teachers into the classroom and then stay there, while getting less effective ones out or helping them improve.

The Gates research found that the new initiatives didn’t get top teachers to stick around any longer. But there was some evidence that the changes made lower-rated teachers more likely to leave. Less than 1 percent of teachers were formally dismissed from the places where data was available.

After the grants ran out, districts scrapped some of the changes but kept a few others.

One key test of success for any foundation initiative is whether it is politically and financially sustainable after the external funds run out. Here, the results are mixed.

Both Pittsburgh and Hillsborough have ended high-profile aspects of their program: the merit pay system and bringing in peer evaluators, respectively.

But other aspects of the initiative have been maintained, according to the study, including the use of classroom observation rubrics, evaluations that use multiple metrics, and certain career-ladder opportunities.

Donaldson said she was surprised that the peer evaluators didn’t go over well in Hillsborough. Teachers unions have long promoted peer-based evaluation, but district officials said that a few evaluators who were rude or hostile soured many teachers on the concept.

“It just underscores that any reform relies on people — no matter how well it’s structured, no matter how well it’s designed,” she said.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that about half of the money for the initiative came from the Gates Foundation; in fact, the foundation’s share was 37 percent or about a third of the total.

How bias happens: teaching struggling students can affect observation scores, study finds

2018-07-18T17:25:00+00:00

A teacher is observed in her first period class and gets a low rating; in her second period class she gets higher marks. She’s teaching the same material in the same way — why are the results different?

A new study points to an answer: the types of students teachers instruct may influence how administrators evaluate their performance. More low-achieving, black, Hispanic, and male students lead to lower scores. And that phenomenon hurts some teachers more than others: Black teachers are more likely to teach low-performing students and students of color.

Separately, the study finds that male teachers tend to get lower ratings, though it’s not clear if that’s due to differences in actual performance or bias.

The results suggest that evaluations are one reason teachers may be deterred from working in classrooms where students lag farthest behind.

The study, conducted by Shanyce Campbell at the University of California, Irvine, analyzed teacher ratings compiled by the Measures of Effective Teaching Project, an effort funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (Gates is also a supporter of Chalkbeat.)

The paper finds that for every 25 percent increase in black or Hispanic students taught, there was a dip in teacher’s rating, similar to the difference in performance between a first and second-year teacher. (Having more low-performing or male students had a slightly smaller effect.)

That’s troubling, Campbell said, because it means that teachers of color — who often most frequently work with students of color — may not be getting a fair shot.

“If evaluations are inequitable, then this further pushes them out,” Campbell said.

The findings are consistent with previous research that shows how classroom evaluations can be biased by the students teachers serve.

Cory Cain, an assistant principal and teacher at the Urban Prep charter network in Chicago, said he and his school often grapple with questions of bias when trying to evaluating teachers fairly. His school serves only boys and its students are predominantly black.

“We’re very clear that everyone is susceptible to bias. It doesn’t matter what’s your race or ethnicity,” he said.

While Cain is black, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t see how black boys are portrayed in the media, he said. And also he knows that teachers are often nervous they will do poorly on their evaluations if students are misbehaving or are struggling with the content on a given day, knowing that it can be difficult for observers to fully assess their teaching in short sessions.

The study, co-authored by Matthew Ronfeldt of the University of Michigan, can’t show why evaluation scores are skewed, but one potential explanation is that classrooms appear higher-functioning when students are higher-achieving, even if that’s not because of the teacher. In that sense, the results might not be due to bias itself, but to conflating student success with teacher performance.

Campbell said she hopes her findings will add nuance to the debate over the best ways to judge teachers.

One idea that the study floats to address the issue is an adjustment of evaluation scores based on the composition of the classroom, similar to what is done for value-added scores, though the idea has received some pushback, Campbell said.

“I’m not saying we throw them both out,” Campbell said of classroom observations and value-added scores. “I’m saying we need to be mindful.”

With days left in this year’s session, what will happen with teacher evaluations?

2018-06-18T21:10:00+00:00

As the clock ticks on this year’s legislative session, the fate of New York’s teacher evaluations hangs in the balance.

The teachers union has been waging a spirited battle to decouple state standardized test scores from teacher evaluations this year, which would mark the culmination of years of fighting against a system they say unfairly stigmatizes teachers. The legislation has already cleared the Democratic Assembly, but it remains at an impasse in the Republican-led Senate, which wants to tie the changes to benefits for charter schools.

As end-of-session haggling gets into full swing, it’s unclear whether the union will be able to secure a bill with “no strings attached.” Alternatively, lawmakers may agree to help charter schools in exchange for the bill’s passage, or they could be unable to settle their differences and shelve the measure until next year.

Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming battle:

Why are we talking about teacher evaluations again?

New Yorkers have spent years (and years) fighting about teacher evaluations.

In 2010, New York adopted a new teacher evaluation system that included state standardized test scores. Supporters of the policy argue it is the best way to objectively measure whether teachers are helping students learn. Opponents, including teachers unions, argue test scores lead to unreliable evaluations and often mean teachers are being rated based on subjects they don’t teach.

The debate took another turn in 2015 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed for a new teacher evaluation system in which as much as half of an educator’s evaluation could be based on test scores. That law technically remains on the books today, but in response to fervent pushback from parents and the union, the state’s education policymaking body paused the use of grades 3-8 math and English test scores in teacher evaluations.

Lawmakers, policymakers, and the union jumped back into the charged conversation this year in part because the temporary pause on the use of certain test scores in the evaluations is set to expire in 2019.

What exactly does the union want this year?

The union-backed bill would forbid any requirement that districts use state standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. Instead, local districts would collectively bargain the assessments used to rate teachers.

Paradoxically, this major political shift will likely make little difference in the lives of New York City teachers. That’s because for the last several years the city has already been using a system of local tests to rate educators.

New York City created a slate of assessments called “Measures of Student Learning,” which test students on everything from English to art. Michael Mulgrew, the city teachers union president, said he is happy with the current system and has already vowed, “Nothing will change for New York City teachers.”

Critics, however, point out that very few teachers are given poor ratings under this system. In New York City last year, 97 percent of teachers were given one of the top two ratings of “highly effective” or “effective,” according to Mulgrew.

What are the chances that this bill passes?

There’s a good chance some teacher evaluation legislation will pass before the end of the session — but if history is any indication, it will cost something.

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan has already staked out his position: He is willing to go even farther than the Assembly, scrapping the 2015 law all-together and leaving virtually every major decision about teacher ratings up to local collective bargaining. But in order to do that, he wants to dramatically expand the number of charter schools that can open in New York City and across the state. (The Senate introduced a second bill that the union also criticized for being friendly to charter schools.)

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has already called the bill “cyanide,” cuing the l back-and-forth that typically proceeds a larger deal each year in Albany. Last year, for instance, shortly after the mayor won a two-year extension of mayoral control, he made it easier for charter schools to expand and pay for space. The year before, mayoral control was attached to a provision that made it easier for charter schools to switch between authorizers.

Though Senate Republicans are typically able to secure at least a small victory, it’s unclear how much they can demand in an election year when their control of the chamber is in jeopardy. That is particularly a problem in Long Island, home to some of the most fierce resistance to standardized testing that will also be an electoral battleground this fall.

What might a compromise look like?

Anything is possible in Albany, but something charter school-related is a good bet.

Advocates have expressed concern that they will soon hit the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York City. Historically, they have also pushed to make it easier for charter schools to pay for school space and to allow charter schools to certify their own teachers.

Charter school advocates might also find it a particularly prime year to push for changes. With a major lobbying group out of the picture and the potential for Flanagan — who has been a charter school ally — to lose his majority next year, this could be the sector’s best shot to press for changes.

Also, Flanagan and others have expressed concerns that the legislation will create more testing, since it allows all local districts to create their own tests in addition to the state tests. The final deal could address this concern.

Senate Majority Leader proposes new teacher evaluation bill — but it comes with charter school concessions

2018-06-12T19:12:09+00:00

The most powerful man in the New York State Senate released his own version of a bill that would overhaul teacher evaluations — but it has strings attached that will make it hard for some lawmakers to accept.

The bill still includes a lot of elements the teachers union has been pushing for, including eliminating a requirement that state test scores are used in teacher evaluations. But the legislation also increases the charter school cap — which limits the number of charter schools that can open in the state — by 100 schools and lessens oversight for private yeshivas.

“We have achieved a complete repeal of APPR, permanently decoupling student test scores from the evaluation of teachers, and rightly returning to a system of local control of education,” said Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan in a statement on Tuesday.

A bill delinking state scores from teacher evaluations, a top priority for the union this year, has already passed the Assembly with overwhelming support, and the governor has signaled he will not block the legislation. That leaves the Senate as the major obstacle to the bill’s passage.

But it’s unclear whether Assembly lawmakers are willing to sacrifice anything to ensure the legislation passes. In response to Flanagan’s bill, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has reportedly already said he does not want to attach extra provisions to the bill. Union officials have also made it clear they want to see the bill pass without any concessions. (In fact, they purchased balloons to send the message that they want it passed with “no strings attached.”)

“Instead of passing a clean bill that has 55 sponsors to reduce testing and fix the evaluation system, Sen. Flanagan is tying it to millions of dollars for the charter industry and his donors, and loopholes for private, religious schools,” said NYSUT President Andy Pallotta in a statement on Tuesday. “Our message has not changed. The Senate must pass S.8301 with no strings attached.”

The current teacher evaluation law dates back to 2015 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo backed a plan in which state test scores could count for as much as half of an educator’s evaluation. Though the law technically remains on the books, the state’s Board of Regents passed a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English test scores in teacher evaluations. Without further action, the moratorium will expire in 2019.

The Senate’s bill — unlike the Assembly’s proposal — would repeal the teacher evaluation law passed in 2015, dramatically expanding the power of local unions to help craft their own evaluation systems. Though teachers would still be rated on a scale from “highly effective” to “ineffective,” how teachers receive those ratings would be completely up to local communities to collectively bargain. That means local communities would have the power to figure out how much tests should count for evaluations — or whether they should count at all.

Putting so much power in the hands of local unions is opposed by some advocacy groups.

“We have grave concerns about the expansion of collective bargaining as it relates to employee evaluations,” said Julie Marlette, Director of Governmental Relations for the New York State School Boards Association.

Meanwhile, the provisions about charter and private schools are being forcefully fought by the unions. In addition to increasing the charter school cap statewide, the bill would allow more charter schools to open in New York City, where demand for the schools is greater.

Charter school advocates say lifting the charter school cap this year is critical for the sector’s growth.

“Limiting the number of potentially high performing public schools that can be created has never made sense,” said James Merriman, Chief Executive Officer of the New York City Charter School Center. “But now, with high demand from parents, a dwindling number of charters available, an increasing number of skilled educators willing to do the hard work of starting a new school, and an increasingly long record of charter schools improving achievement, lifting the cap doesn’t just make sense. It is an imperative.”

Additionally, the bill would reduce oversight of yeshivas, some of which have come under fire for failing to offer an adequate education. A powerful Brooklyn Senator that represents an Orthodox Jewish community has been pushing for the change. This bill would take power away from the State Education Commissioner to regulate the schools.

A spokesman for the Alliance for Yeshiva Education pushed back on the notion that this bill would reduce oversight at the private schools.

“Concerning oversight of Yeshiva education, this legislation would provide common sense protections for schools, and the state, by providing for a qualified and professional accreditation intermediary, as well as a clear process for remedying deficiencies,” said Michael Tobman, the alliance’s spokesman.

The union has organized a series of musical guests, including bagpipers, a gypsy jazz trio and a brass marching band to serenade Flanagan Wednesday so that he Senate will stop playing “such sour notes.”

However, another piece of the bill may be welcome news to the union. It repeals a requirement that teachers can only earn tenure after working four year and would return that time limit to three years.

This story has been updated with a statement from the New York City Charter School Center and from a spokesman for the Alliance for Yeshiva Education.

It’s official! Results from Tennessee’s ugly testing year won’t count for much of anything

2018-05-15T23:00:00+00:00

Tennessee teachers and school districts can decide how to use this year’s standardized test results and won’t be penalized for low growth scores after another year of problems with the state’s computerized exam.

The state also will shift some responsibilities to a different testing company while deciding whether to extend Minnesota-based Questar’s contract to give the test past November, Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced on Monday.

In addition, the state has hired two outside groups to sort through all that went wrong with TNReady during almost a month of testing that ended last week. One will look at the validity of the results to see if frequent online interruptions made the scores unreliable. The other will scrutinize Questar’s technology systems to determine why so much went awry.

The actions were announced as McQueen and Gov. Bill Haslam faced reporters together for the first time in the wake of this year’s sloppy return to statewide computerized testing.

After weeks of being on the defensive, Haslam’s administration sought to take control of the situation and emphasize that testing — done correctly — is critical to improving student achievement across the state.

“I still have full confidence that testing is the right thing to do,” said the Republican governor, finishing the last year of an eight-year term. “I’m frustrated like everybody else that we had issues with the online portion of this. But having said that, do I think the test is a good test? I do.”

Haslam also said Tennessee must forge ahead with computerized testing.

“We’re one of only 10 states that has not already moved [completely] to online testing. And so it’s not just that’s where the world is going; that’s where the world is. And our students have to be prepared,” he said.

The decision to shield students, teachers, and schools from accountability for poor growth scores falls in line with emergency legislation passed by state lawmakers last month as reports of TNReady’s technical problems escalated. After weeks of studying the two new laws, McQueen and her team offered their first analysis of what the legislation means:

Teacher evaluations. The state still plans to include student growth scores in evaluations, but each teacher will have “complete control to nullify” that portion if they choose to rely solely on other measures, McQueen said.

Student grades. Local school boards will decide whether to incorporate TNReady scores into this year’s final grades. Many districts already have begun that process, and most are opting to exclude the results this year.

School ratings. Tennessee’s A-F rating system will not launch this fall as scheduled, although the state still will publish the achievement results that would have gone into them.

Priority schools. As planned, the state will release its “priority list” this fall of the 5 percent of lowest-performing schools, but this year’s test results will not be a factor. Instead, the list will be based on two years of previous scores for high schools and one year for lower-grade schools. “We will not be moving any schools based on that data into the Achievement School District,” McQueen said of the state-run turnaround program that takes over local schools and assigns them to charter operators.

Whether the adjustments put Tennesseee out of compliance with federal law remains to be seen, though. The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act requires that student achievement — as measured by tests like TNReady — be part of each state’s plan for holding struggling schools accountable.

“We’ve been in lots of conversations with the U.S. Department of Education, and they are continuing to work with us on that,” McQueen acknowledged. “So what we will do is create something called a comprehensive support list, which is required under the Every Student Succeeds Act. That will include this year’s data, but there will not be any adverse action taken based on that comprehensive school list.“

"It's important for all of us that we get this right. "

Gov. Bill Haslam

After three years of testing problems, McQueen announced that Tennessee will create a “TNReady Ambassadors” program to improve customer service and will hire a full-time overseer to work with testing coordinators at the district level.

“We did not have our expectations met in terms of customer service from Questar,” she said.

To that end, the state is reviewing its annual $30 million, two-year contract with Questar that expires on Nov. 30.

Haslam said changing companies in the middle of a school year wouldn’t be seamless because Questar will begin testing high school students on non-traditional block schedules this fall. “There’s a little bit of a practical problem switching vendors right in the middle of that, so it’s part of negotiations we’re in the middle of,” he said.

McQueen praised Educational Testing Service, the New Jersey-based company that will take over the test’s design work while Questar focuses on test delivery. Also known as ETS, the vendor has had contracts with Tennessee since 2015 to create the state’s social studies and science tests, and to design many of its teacher certification exams. (ETS also owns Questar. Read the details here.)

“It is a vendor that is well-known. It has a reputation for very high-quality work in terms of how they design tests,” she said.

Deeper dive: By getting testing wrong again, will Tennessee undo what it may be getting right?

By getting testing wrong again, Tennessee could undo what it may be getting right

2018-05-14T09:00:18+00:00

After languishing for decades, Tennessee is now considered a pioneer in education improvement circles, while its standing on national tests has risen from the bottom to the middle of the pack over the last decade.

Quick to embrace higher academic standards, the state also explored new strategies to transform struggling schools and adopted a controversial teacher evaluation system grounded in student performance. With its 2010 federal Race to the Top award, it poured millions of dollars into teacher training and coaching.

So it was dumbfounding this spring when a third straight year of problems emerged with TNReady, the standardized test that’s the centerpiece of Tennessee’s policy agenda aimed at becoming a national leader in student achievement.

After a failed rollout of computerized testing in 2016 and scoring issues in 2017, the stakes had never been higher to administer the test successfully.

But on the very first day, thousands of students struggled to advance past the login page — and things went downhill from there. Subsequent testing days were marred by a cyber attack, a fiber optic cable cut by a dump truck in rural Tennessee, and a systems design error that made 1,400 students take the wrong exam.

By the time the state limped across the finish line last week, technical glitches had interrupted more than half of the original testing days, and state lawmakers had passed emergency legislation weakening how the results can be used.

“We’ve failed significantly with TNReady — not once, not twice, but three times,” said Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, a Democratic candidate for governor and member of a House education committee. “It hurts systems that are already beset with credibility problems.”

Now, many stakeholders worry that public outcry over this year’s sloppy testing will unravel years of carefully crafted accountability work in public education.

Rep. Eddie Smith of Knoxville stands at the front podium of the Tennessee House of Representatives on April 25, the last day of the 2018 legislative session, as the chamber’s education leaders press for a bill to hold teachers harmless for this year’s TNReady scores.

An early sign came when lawmakers stepped in before testing was even finished to shield students, teachers, schools, and districts from the state’s score-driven accountability systems.

“It happened so quickly and passed with such a large majority that it was jarring to those of us who thought we had some serious momentum with the systems we’ve been working on for years,” said Gini Pupo-Walker, leader of the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition and a member of the state’s testing task force.

“It’s created this environment of instability going into a gubernatorial election year, and you begin to wonder what else could be wiped away.”

Politics of education

Over the last 16 years, Tennessee has managed to follow the same general roadmap for improving its schools — first under the administration of Democrat Phil Bredesen and now under Republican Bill Haslam.

But this year’s near meltdown of testing has put Haslam’s administration on the defense in the governor’s final year in office.

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen and her team are trying to see if the test results are valid and how they can be used. They’re also in daily talks with the U.S. Department of Education over whether the state’s emergency TNReady laws conflict with a federal law that requires student achievement-based accountability.

Haslam will do damage control this week after returning from an overseas economic development trip. He’s expected to beat the drum about the role of a state test as a measuring stick to ensure that children are learning and taxpayers get their money’s worth for the billions spent on schools.

McQueen offered an early glimpse at the messaging late last week. She said this year’s poor delivery of a computerized exam under testing company Questar does not mean that the exam itself is bad.

"We need to continue on the path that we’re on because we are much closer to success than not."

Candice McQueen, commissioner of education

“We have an exceptional test,” McQueen told Chalkbeat on Friday, adding that the fix needs to come with how testing is administered. She added that it would be a mistake to change course on the state’s education agenda.

“The three things that we have focused on — high standards, rigorous assessment, and greater accountability — have been the backbone of much of our success in Tennessee,” she said. “We need to continue on the path that we’re on because we are much closer to success than not.”

Tension with testing

Indeed, national test results have been encouraging. Tennessee’s ACT average finally hit a modest milestone last year, and scores on several national tests are up since 2011. Just months ago, the state was basking in the glow of a massive Stanford University analysis showing Tennessee’s academic gains have outpaced the rest of the South — and much of the nation.

But testing that exceeds federal requirements has taken its toll on school communities, partly because districts have introduced extra exams to make sure students and teachers are on target leading up to TNReady.

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen has been under fire for her oversight of the state’s standardized test, which has had a string of high-profile problems since its 2016 rollout.

“I think we’ve gone dramatically overboard with testing,” said Dan Lawson, a superintendent in Tullahoma. “Everybody felt a very heavy hand on them when it came to this year’s assessment.”

That tension bubbled up last month during legislative hearings amid the online testing interruptions.

“What we have created, I’m afraid, is a culture of testing instead of a culture of teaching,” Rep. Sheila Butt told McQueen.

The Republican from Columbia went on to read a letter from one teacher: “I’m not sure this year if we’re actually wanting academic accountability,” the teacher wrote, “or if we’re merely testing our students’ resilience in the face of obstacles and our teachers’ patience with the new system.”

Sen. Dolores Gresham, who chairs her chamber’s education committee, offered another viewpoint.

“I remember a retired teacher telling me one time that she just wanted to be left alone, close the door, and she would go into her classroom and teach. And I wanted to tell her that that’s how we got to be 46th in overall student achievement,” said the Somerville Republican, “because we did not know what was going on in that classroom.”

“We have got to know,” Gresham concluded. “We have got to be able to evaluate and know what to do going forward.”

Joshua Glazer, a professor and researcher at George Washington University, said it’s understandable that frustrations with TNReady could amplify concerns about testing in general. But he cautioned against any knee-jerk reaction that minimizes assessments.

“We haven’t gotten the testing and accountability thing right yet, for sure,” said Glazer, who has followed Tennessee education policy. “But that doesn’t mean we want to go back to the 1980s when everybody could do whatever they wanted and we saw massive inequality in opportunity as a result.”

For more on how Tennessee got here, check out why state lawmakers share blame, too, for TNReady testing headaches.

Tennessee’s messy testing season is finished, but how much the scores will matter is up in the air

2018-05-09T23:57:42+00:00

Tennessee students turned in their last standardized exams on Wednesday, capping more than three weeks of on-again, off-again computerized testing that has bedeviled school communities and called into question the future of the state’s testing system.

Since TNReady testing began on April 16, more than 2.5 million test sessions have been submitted online by some 317,000 students — more than ever before in Tennessee, according to the state Department of Education.

But the numbers make for an awkward superlative given the problem-plagued administration of this year’s exams. Technical glitches have been blamed on a range of issues including a cyber attack, a fiber optic cable severed by a dump truck in rural Tennessee, and a system error that caused 1,400 students to take the wrong assessment.

Bottom line: Students have struggled to consistently log on, stay on, and submit their tests. The frequent interruptions have required schools to be nimble with their schedules and spurred state lawmakers last month to pass emergency legislation that weakens how the scores will be used.

“While this was a rocky experience on certain days of the testing window, and we are empathetic to the frustrations that our students and teachers have felt, they have completed a key moment in this transition to online assessment,” spokeswoman Sara Gast said in a late-day statement to reporters.

The state reported that no school system stopped testing due to computer problems — and that every district’s online completion rate was at or near 100 percent. The numbers were enough, she said, to meet the required federal threshold for 95 percent of students to complete a state assessment.

Another 300,000 or so younger students finished their paper-and-pencil tests as of last week. However, it was computerized testing in high schools and some middle grades that consumed the headlines.

“We are continuing to learn from what we experienced [with] this administration, both on paper and online, and identifying ways to improve,” said Gast, pledging a thorough state analysis of results “to identify any impact the online interruptions may have had.”

The state also will examine irregularity reports, which Gast said districts were encouraged to submit “if they felt the student did not have a chance to demonstrate his or her knowledge of the standards due to the online issue.”

But how the results will be used is up in the air due to legislation that appears to gut the state’s accountability systems for students, teachers, and schools. TNReady scores were supposed to be incorporated into students’ final grades, teacher evaluations, a new grading system for schools, and a “priority list” that determines interventions for the state’s lowest-performing schools. But Tennessee lawmakers were clear that “no adverse action” may be taken based on this year’s results.

That may also put the state at odds with a federal education law requiring states to hold schools accountable based on several measures including student achievement. In Tennessee, TNReady provides that measure. State and federal officials have been in talks for weeks trying to navigate both the federal law and the state’s emergency measures. Tennessee’s Department of Education expects to share guidelines with districts soon on how the data should be used at the local level.

“The new legislation impacts many areas,” Gast said, “and our goal is to implement the language as written while honoring the spirit in which it was passed.”

In the meantime, Tennessee will move ahead with scoring the tests through its vendor, Questar. Although the computerized exams were administered in fits and starts, the digital format allows that scoring to be expedited. Paper tests also have been shipped to the Minnesota-based company to be scanned and scored in the coming weeks.

The state plans to share early results for high school end-of-course exams with school districts later this month, and for grades 3-8 by mid-June. Fuller score reports will be distributed to families and districts during the summer.

New York’s State Senate Majority Leader doesn’t endorse teacher evaluation legislation – but doesn’t rule out action either

2018-05-09T02:24:45+00:00

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan finally weighed in on New York’s pending teacher evaluation legislation Tuesday, promising an “extensive review” of the current push to untie test scores from teacher ratings.

In many ways, Flanagan is the last piece in the political puzzle surrounding the teacher evaluation changes, which the Assembly has already endorsed and the governor signaled he will likely not fight. With his statement, Flanagan, a Republican, suggested he is unlikely to support the bill as is, but also did not reject the legislation outright. This leaves the door open for passing a bill this session, but possibly with changes or strings attached.

Specifically, Flanagan said he was concerned that the bill could create increased testing since every district could create its own assessments, a concern that State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has also expressed.

“We are performing an extensive review of this legislation to determine the best path forward,” Flanagan’s statement read, adding later: “The last thing we want to do is to make a mistake that rolls back the progress that has been won on behalf of the students of our state.”

Teacher evaluations, and the extent to which they should be tied to test scores, have been a hot topic in New York for nearly a decade. While supporters argue test scores provide an objective way to gauge whether teachers are helping students learn, critics say they exacerbate a test-focused culture and are an erratic and unfair way to rate educators.

The topic hit an inflection point in 2015 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo backed a plan in which test scores could count for as much as half of an educator’s evaluation. Though the legislation passed, swift backlash caused the state’s Board of Regents to pause the use of 3-8 math and English test scores in teacher evaluations.

As the Regents’ original pause runs out of time, officials have started to figure out how to revamp the state’s evaluation system. The state teachers union launched a major push to tackle teacher evaluations this session and found support in the Democratic-led Assembly.

Last week, the Assembly passed a bill that would prohibit the state from mandating the use of standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. Instead, the bill would allow districts to craft their own assessments.

Officials like Elia have argued this creates the potential for double testing, since students would have to take any newly created assessments in addition to the state’s traditional standardized tests. (Students must take state tests under federal law.)

State teachers union officials have dismissed this concern, arguing that districts can use assessments teachers would give to students anyway or choose “group measures,” which allow teachers to pool results on the state tests.

“I think this is very misleading,” Jolene DiBrango, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers, said about the double testing argument on Monday. “We have every confidence in our teachers that they would not be creating systems that would add additional testing to students.”

Still, Flanagan appears to have latched onto that concern, saying that creating additional testing is an outcome that “nobody – not students, not parents, not teachers, nor myself or my legislative colleagues – wants.”

In addition to tweaking the teacher evaluation bill, Flanagan may also push for other education changes at the end of the session. For instance, he has been supportive of charter schools in the past, and his statement alludes to “other education reform issues” that he may want to address.

“In the coming weeks and months, we will have important discussions with all of the stakeholders in the education community on this and other education reform issues and then together we will all act accordingly,” Flanagan’s statement said.

Teacher evaluation fight spills into New York’s Board of Regents meeting

2018-05-07T19:55:35+00:00

New York’s top education officials unexpectedly weighed in on the state’s controversial teacher evaluation legislation — and it didn’t seem like everyone was on the same page.

The bill in question, which has cleared the Assembly, would make the use of state test scores in teacher evaluations optional. If passed, it would mark a major break from the current law, where as much as half of an educator’s evaluation can be based on standardized tests.

But the State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and certain board members appeared split over whether to express enthusiasm for the bill when it was added at the last minute to the Board of Regents agenda. Elia sounded notes of caution — warning of “unintended consequences” of the new evaluation plan — while several Regents expressed excitement and suggested the board should throw its support behind the bill’s passage.

“Unintended consequences, to me, is raising a red flag on legislation that I think most of us would like to see,” said Regent Roger Tilles. “I don’t want to give any potential opponent of this legislation in the other house any ammunition to try to put this bill down.”

Though neither the Regents nor the state education department can vote on the bill, their support or opposition could sway lawmakers in the state Senate, which must pass the bill for it to become law.

Teacher evaluations have been a lightning rod in New York state over the past decade. The latest flashpoint came in 2015, when lawmakers passed a bill that essentially increased the weight of test scores in teacher evaluations. A series of changes to standardized tests and how they were used, including the teacher evaluation law, caused a backlash that led to one in five families boycotting state tests.

In response, the Board of Regents placed a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English tests. That aspect of the law has been paused ever since, but in the meantime, officials at the state education department started a long-term project to revamp the evaluations.

The current bill will, in some ways, circumvent a plan that Elia had promised, “isn’t going to be a fast process.” On Monday, she said that uncertainty in the legislature would essentially halt the state’s current work.

“At this point in time… we can’t really say what we’re going to be doing until we know whether or not this becomes a law,” Elia said.

Elia and the state education department’s PowerPoint warned of increased testing for students, since the bill allows districts to create alternative assessments for use in teacher evaluations. However, in districts that provide alternative tests, students will still be required by federal law to take state tests too. Additionally, the state’s PowerPoint detailed the extra work this bill would cause the state education department.

Though Elia raised concerns about the legislation, she has also said that the current evaluation system needs to be fixed and the state education department previously sent a mixed statement that thanked the lawmakers who sponsored the bill.

But several other Regents sounded a much different tone, suggesting that, at its core, this bill will push state education policy in a much better direction. Regent Kathleen Cashin said that she was “thrilled” when she learned of the bill’s passage in the Assembly.

“I was thrilled because… if we put that much energy on teaching rather than testing, wouldn’t that be a great thing?” she said.

Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa, who has long been staunchly opposed to the current law, also seemed to signal support for the new bill. While acknowledging that it is “not perfect,” she suggested she agreed with the spirit of the legislation.

“I do submit that it’s time to take something that has been so contentious and so toxic,” said Rosa, and “get back the core, which is about children learning.”

Those on opposite sides of the debate latched onto the two narratives from the meeting, praising the state official that more closely reflected their views. Those who opposed the bill, for instance, complimented Elia’s cautionary statements.

“The Commissioner raises important points about the ‘unintended consequences’ of the proposed legislation – including significantly more testing for students – and notes the value of a collaborative longer–term process,” said Ian Rosenblum, executive director of The Education Trust-NY

On the other side, a representative from the state teachers union, which has been pushing this legislation for months, said she was encouraged by Rosa’s stance.

“I was really pleased to hear the Board of Regents, led by Chancellor Rosa, talk about the importance of returning our schools to learning and teachers to teaching,” said Jolene DiBrango, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers. “We felt very supported by what we were hearing by the Regents today.”

New York’s top policymakers leave open questions about testing, teacher evaluations

2018-05-07T01:11:35+00:00

You won’t find some of the hot-button issues facing state education policymakers on this month’s Board of Regents meeting agenda — but that doesn’t mean they won’t come up in Albany this week.

The legislature’s efforts to untie test scores from teacher evaluations have been major news for the state’s educators. Likewise, the state’s controversial testing vendor, Questar, has been making headlines with issues in New York and Tennessee. But neither matter requires immediate action from the Regents. Still, either topic could make a surprise appearance in discussion outside of the formal agenda — and they will almost certainly be talked about in the state education department’s hallways.

Here are the items that are definitely on the agenda for Monday’s meeting:

Student data privacy could bring up questions about Questar

Officials are set to discuss past data privacy breaches involving students and their draft regulations to protect students in the future. But beyond the topic of data privacy, another question lurks: Will state officials discuss their working relationship with Questar, the state’s testing vendor?

The state experienced a minor privacy breach in January and blamed Questar for the incident. Since then, schools across the state experienced a rocky roll-out of tests this year, including computer glitches. In Tennessee, which also uses Questar, the state experienced a slew of technical problems.

Social-emotional learning

State officials are releasing part of their response to national question of how to keep schools safe.

At Monday’s meeting, officials are set to discuss guidance documents meant to help educators. foster social-emotional learning. The documents grew out of New York State Safe Schools Task Force, suggesting officials believe that helping students develop social skills beyond math and reading will make schools more safe.

The documents explain the potential benefits of focusing on social-emotional learning, including greater academic achievement and decreasing implicit bias. They also spell out what skill officials hope students will develop, including self-management skills and ethical decision-making.

Charter school and bullying

The board is also voting to renew some charter schools, which can cause tension since the Regents have not always been friendly to charter schools. State officials are also diving deeper into school climate issues, discussing an update to New York’s rules related to bullying and harassment prevention and the addition of mental health into schools’ health education curriculum.

In higher education, officials are slated to talk about regulations related to substitute teachers and how much time prospective teachers should work in classrooms. Finally, officials will have a conversation about their My Brother’s Keeper initiative, a plan to help boys and young men of color.

Not on the agenda: Teacher evaluations

Across the street from the state education department, a controversy is brewing over whether lawmakers will overhaul the state’s teacher evaluation system.

The state Assembly has already passed a bill that would prohibit any requirement that state tests are used in teacher evaluations. If approved by the governor and state Senate, the policy would mark a dramatic reversal from three years ago, when lawmakers put in place a system where as much as half of an educator’s rating could be based on test scores.

The state education department is in a strange position in this battle. Though they paused the use of state test scores in teacher evaluations for the past few years, officials had also been working on a long-term plan to revamp the state’s evaluation system. This law has the potential to short circuit some of their plans.

State officials sent a mixed statement about their stance on the Assembly’s bill, praising the lawmakers who crafted the bill while warning of “unintended consequences.” Though state education department officials and Regents don’t technically have a say in whether the bill passes, their blessing or opposition help sway the decision.

The Assembly passed a new teacher evaluation plan. Here’s how it may — and may not — impact New York City

2018-05-02T19:20:42+00:00

New York City teachers who are happy with how they’ve been evaluated for the past couple years should be thrilled about a new teacher evaluation bill that passed in the Assembly on Wednesday.

The bill would untie teacher evaluations from state test scores, eliminating the possibility that a law requiring test scores to count for up to half of educators’ ratings could ever be put into action. Now that the bill has passed in the Assembly, it must also clear the Republican-led Senate to become law, whose decision on the bill will likely come down to the wire.

If enacted, the bill might not have a major effect on the lives of more than 70,000 New York City teachers. That’s because the use of grades 3-8 math and English test scores has already been paused since 2015. In that time, the city created a new teacher evaluation system that uses local assessments to gauge student progress — and union officials say that it likely will remain in place for the time being.

“Nothing will change for New York City teachers,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said, “except that the threat was hanging over us … is not there if we get this law passed.”

Here’s what New York City educators need to know about the new teacher evaluation bill:

How are teachers evaluated now?

Since 2010, teachers are evaluated based on a combination of student academic improvement and principal observation. (Using test scores in teacher evaluations was a radical change from a previous system where teachers were rated either “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” and principals had latitude to determine how those ratings were assigned.)

Though state law technically requires districts to use test scores in teacher evaluations, the Board of Regents placed a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English tests shortly after the most recent version of the law was passed.

In place of test scores, New York City teachers are evaluated based on “Measures of Student Learning” or city-created exams that test students on everything from English to art. Each school picks from a list of local tests, and teachers are rated based on the progress students make on the tests.

Teachers are also observed by their principals, who give them a rating based on their classroom practice, preparation, and professionalism in the school. A teacher’s score on academic growth and their principal’s observations are combined to produce one of four overall ratings spanning from “ineffective” to “highly effective.”

What will change for New York City teachers under the bill?

Mulgrew is right: not very much.

The bill precludes the state from requiring districts to use state test scores in teacher evaluations. It also says the assessments must be negotiated by local districts and approved by the New York’s commissioner of education.

That’s already happening in New York City, where grade 3-8 math and English state tests have not been allowed in teacher evaluations since 2015. Additionally, the union was part of negotiations for the city’s new evaluation plan the following year, and state officials have already approved the tests the city uses.

The bill allows districts to keep their current system until there’s a chance to collectively bargain. But assuming that happens at some point in the future, the tests the city uses could change. City officials can always add, alter, or subtract from the list of assessments they use. Mulgrew said the union would likely work with the city to create new testing options. Also, if the bill passes, districts could choose to use state tests in teacher evaluations if their local unions agree.

The law change is important mainly because it would eliminate the chance that the system Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed three years ago would take hold in New York. That fact has been far from assured for the past several years since the law remains on the books.

What about everything other than tests? Is that changing under this bill?

Nope.

The requirements for teacher observations remain the same. Technically, this includes a controversial requirement that teachers are evaluated by independent observers. However, the state education department has created a waiver so that cities, including New York City, haven’t had to comply with this requirement.

The ratings, spanning from “ineffective” to “highly effective,” would still be used to judge teachers. Also, the consequences for teachers if they score poorly on the evaluations would remain the same. For instance, three “ineffective” ratings can trigger a teacher’s firing and the evaluations must be a factor in teacher tenure.

However, under the current framework used last year, nearly 97 percent of teachers were rated either “highly effective” or “effective.” Less than one percent of teachers were rated ineffective, leaving little room for serious consequences.

What are the potential benefits and problems with the plan?

Union officials argue this will be a more fair system for educators that does not include a state-mandated test to determine an educator’s fate. These tests are an unreliable way to measure a teacher’s success, Mulgrew said.

“Anyone who designs standardized tests keeps saying the same thing,” Mulgrew said, “these are not designed as any sort of accountability measures.”

There are still many unresolved issues, such as the problem that teachers could still be rated based on subjects that they don’t teach. If schools do not have a physical education tests, for instance, those teachers could be rated based on a test in a different subject. Even with the moratorium placed on the use of certain state tests in teacher evaluations, more than half of teachers were rated based on subjects they don’t teach, according to numbers obtained by Chalkbeat.

Other critics say that not requiring state test scores in teacher evaluations may eliminate a reliable metric to track whether teachers are helping students learn.

New York state education department officials weigh in on plan to overhaul teacher evaluations

2018-05-02T14:09:56+00:00

The state’s top education leaders are finally weighing in on a plan that would untie state test scores and teacher evaluations — and the response is mixed.

In their first statement since bills to overhaul the evaluation law were introduced last week, state education department officials thanked the sponsors of the legislation but warned of “unintended consequences” as lawmakers continue to debate how to measure the state’s teachers.

Their statement, while measured, may be a sign that the legislation could pass this session. While lawmakers don’t need the education department’s blessing, its opposition could influence lawmakers.

“Clearly, the teacher evaluation process has caused much concern. We thank the Speaker Heastie, and Chairs Nolan and Marcellino for their ongoing efforts to improve our education system,” said state education department spokeswoman Emily DeSantis. “As legislation is considered, we must be thoughtful and deliberate to ensure it does not bring any unintended consequences for students, teachers and principals across the state.”

Some observers were bracing for a more negative response from the education department, since officials there had already laid out a slower timeline for revamping teacher evaluations that included workgroups and surveys. But Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa said that she doesn’t see the new bill as at odds with that work.

“I think we’re going to use this as a way to support local school districts,” Rosa said. “In terms of implementing [teacher evaluations], I see it more as an opportunity.”

If passed, the bill would mark a major policy shift for lawmakers from a few years ago. In 2015, the state passed a law in which as much as half of a teacher’s rating could be based on test scores. Though that law technically remains on the books, there’s been a moratorium on the use of state tests in teacher evaluations since shortly after the bill was passed.

The teachers union has been pushing for this change since the beginning of the year. It gained little traction publicly until the Assembly introduced a bill to overhaul teacher evaluations last week. Since then, key players have either expressed support or remained silent, making passage of the bill look more likely

Officials representing Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who pushed the 2015 teacher evaluation law, said the governor wants to see a resolution to this issue before the end of the session. Senate Republicans introduced an identical version of the bill, though top Senate leaders have yet to weigh in on the proposal.

The main opposition to the bill has been from certain advocacy groups who worry that without test scores, teacher evaluations will lack an objective way to track whether teachers help students learn.

Here’s where the key players stand in New York’s renewed teacher evaluation battle

2018-04-27T22:45:00+00:00

New York’s top education leaders are gearing up for a spirited fight over teacher evaluations that will likely dominate education policy at end of this legislative session.

The Assembly introduced a bill on Thursday that would overhaul the state’s current evaluation system, which had already been put partially on hold, and prohibit state officials from requiring state test scores in teacher rating systems.

The state’s teachers unions rejoiced at the news, while other education advocates charged that the bill would make it difficult to hold educators accountable — setting up a showdown that lawmakers will have to solve.

The drama surrounding New York’s teacher evaluation system has many characters, including lawmakers, state education department officials, the governor, unions and other advocacy groups. Here’s where they all stand — and why the behind-the-scenes dynamics are so complicated.

Teachers unions could get what they want — but pushback is already forming.

The state and city teachers union are thrilled today. Union members gathering for a meeting in Buffalo this week applauded when the bill was introduced, according to NYSUT spokesman Carl Korn, who called it on Twitter a “Giant step towards protecting kids.” New York State United Teachers President Andy Pallotta said it was “long overdue,” and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew chimed in with support, too.

NYSUT has been fighting for immediate changes to teacher evaluations all year and has long argued that teacher rating systems should not place too much emphasis on state test scores.

But there are already signs that their fight will be tough. Besides locking down support from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Senate, the union is already facing pushback from education groups. Some advocates warn that a dramatic reversal would move the state backwards, depriving officials of an important way to distinguish whether educators are helping students learn.

Cuomo hasn’t said much — and that might say it all.

No one’s in a more interesting position than Cuomo. If he opposes the legislation, the state’s powerful teachers unions might throw their support to Cynthia Nixon, who’s challenging him for in the Democratic gubernatorial primary — something that he desperately wants to avoid. If he backs the bill he could come off looking like a flip-flopper who let himself get pushed into restoring a patchwork of teacher evaluation rules that he once called “baloney.”

Looming behind the entire saga is the question of what Cuomo, who is seen as a political mastermind, benefits from the ordeal — and if he doesn’t, will he have to swallow this pill for the union’s endorsement or will he let it fall apart in the end?

Republican Assemblyman Edward Ra asked as much on Twitter earlier on Friday. “For some reason no one is asking one obvious question: is the Governor on board on board or I’m gonna veto this in 6 months on board?” Ra tweeted.

So far, Cuomo hasn’t taken a stand. A spokesperson for the governor suggested that he is interested in tackling teacher evaluations this year but did not expressly support or oppose the bill. The governor must have at least some interest in the plan, however, since he’s been participating in discussions behind-the-scenes, according to a statement sent by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s office.

But by not taking a stance immediately, he can avoid a public flip-flop for now and wait and see how the battle plays out among lawmakers.

The Republican-led Senate is a wild card.

While the Assembly is likely to pass its own bill, the Republican-controlled Senate is more of a mystery.

Republican control of the Senate is already precarious. Though Republican Senators are technically outnumbered by Democrats, a single Brooklyn Senator is keeping the GOP in power by conferencing with the opposite party. And the Republicans will be fighting for seats in Long Island, which is the white hot center of the state’s testing boycott movement.

It could be hard for Senators to explain to their constituents that they blocked a bill that reduces the state’s emphasis on testing — and you can bet the state’s teachers union, which will be fighting hard for this to pass, will not let them forget it come election time.

State education officials have stayed quiet — and gotten the blame anyway.

We’ve heard little from the state education department, but officials there could well be frustrated. They laid out a timeline for improving the teacher evaluation system by 2019, which coincides with the end of the moratorium on the use of certain state test scores in teacher evaluations. Now this legislation may circumvent that plan.

Plus, Cuomo staffers are actively blaming state education officials for creating the current education crisis in the first place — when in fact the department has been charged with executing on a law that Cuomo spearheaded in 2015. (Cuomo officials say the state education department botched the roll-out of of the Common Core learning standards, leading to much of the dissatisfaction among parents and educators.)

State education department officials said they do not comment on pending legislation but that their process to revamp teacher evaluations has already begun.

Nixon made the first move — and potential supporters were not thrilled.

Nixon, who is challenging Cuomo for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, offered the first indication that something was brewing in Albany on Thursday morning, when she announced that she would push for a repeal of the state’s evaluation rules.

It looked like an obvious choice as she seeks to win over the state’s teachers unions, but by the afternoon, the unions were criticizing her for jumping into a fight where she wasn’t invited.

“Ms. Nixon’s 11th hour public statement on the bill — while it may score political points — won’t help it get enacted,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement.

On Friday, however, Nixon tried to drum up support from union members at a state teachers union meeting. Though she had not been expressly invited, according to Ryan Whalen, a Capitol Tonight reporter, on Twitter, she took pictures with members and tweeted that they should be “treasured and lifted up” for the work they do.

This story has been updated to include information from state education department officials.

As unions rejoice over possible teacher evaluations reversal, original advocates say change will ‘mask inequity’

2018-04-27T17:38:17+00:00

The revelation that forces are lining up behind an effort to drop test scores from teacher evaluations jolted Albany on Thursday — and no one was more jarred than advocates who convinced the state to weigh scores in the first place.

For years, those advocates pushed the state to hold teachers accountable for their students’ performance — and they were effective in reshaping the state’s teacher evaluation system starting in 2010.

Three years ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo channeled those advocates when he pushed through legislation to increase the weight of test scores to as much as half of teachers’ ratings — a move that has never fully gone into effect but that has continued to set the tone in New York even as other states have moved away from test score-based ratings.

So those advocates were dismayed to learn that lawmakers, unions, and possibly even Cuomo want to roll back the teacher evaluation push entirely. In statements and phone calls, they warned that it would be a mistake to abandon that effort now.

“The current effort to permanently undermine New York’s teacher evaluation system takes us backwards, masks inequity, and will lead to more and unnecessary testing,” read a statement from Ian Rosenblum, executive director of The Education Trust-NY. Rosenblum’s group is part of a national nonprofit run by New York’s former education commissioner, John King, who shepherded the state’s evaluation system into existence.

If the evaluation system is abandoned, the state could shift to a model where individual districts create their own evaluation systems and ways to judge student progress. Under the bill, the state could no longer require districts to use state standardized tests in teacher evaluations.

A similar note came from Evan Stone, a founder and CEO of Educators for Excellence, a group that works to get teachers involved in policy making and has backed including test scores in evaluations in ways that its members think are fair.

“Allowing districts to use an array of tests, not only would prevent us from identifying which educators and schools are making progress, it would also mask inequity across our state,” Stone said in a statement. “Contrary to the claims of this bill’s supporters, this proposal does not eliminate testing and would create a fractured system with more tests and confusion for teachers, students and parents.”

The state teachers union, NYSUT, signed off on the original evaluation system that included test scores under duress because the state faced losing federal funds if it had not. But the union has long opposed giving state tests the weight that Cuomo sought — and its president rejoiced in an email to members Friday morning.

“We have been waiting for this day for years,” Andy Pallotta wrote. “Everything about the current system has angered and frustrated educators, parents and students. … There are far better ways to evaluate educators than to use mystery math and algorithms that spit out invalid ‘growth scores’ while subjecting kids to exhausting tests that neither inform instruction nor accurately measure achievement.”

Randi Weingarten, who heads the national American Federation of Teachers, offered a similar take on Twitter:

This is huge! NY bill would eliminate the state's flawed teacher evaluation system of linking standardized testing to teacher evaluations after years of harsh criticism from advocates, teachers, education researchers and teachers unions. https://t.co/CD7xR82BvI
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) April 27, 2018

Advocates said they were disheartened to see that elected officials were moving forward with legislation, rather than waiting for state education officials to put forth a new plan.

“There is already a moratorium in effect,” the Education Trust-NY statement said. “Changes to the current system should be considered as part of the process the New York State Education Department has already outlined, rather than by short-circuiting it.”

So far, state education officials have been silent about the legislation and potential deal, so it’s unclear whether they were caught unaware or see the developments as undermining their own work.

What is clear is that an issue that had appeared to gain unusual traction in New York — that test scores should play at least some role in teacher evaluations — is once again contested, and that changes could soon follow for the state’s educators.

The debate is back: New York state leaders introduce bill to overhaul teacher evaluations https://t.co/l3Iuehcg6E And the pendulum swings again, with teachers, principals and superintendents caught in the middle...
— Josh Starr (@JoshuaPStarr) April 27, 2018

The debate is back: New York state leaders introduce bill to overhaul teacher evaluations

2018-04-27T00:50:33+00:00

Top New York lawmakers are pushing for an overhaul of the state’s controversial teacher evaluation system, which would eliminate the current law’s focus on rating teachers based on standardized tests.

A bill introduced in the Assembly on Thursday would prohibit the state from requiring districts to use grades 3-8 math and English test scores or Regents exams in teacher evaluations. Instead of championing one statewide evaluation system, the bill would allow local districts to craft their own teacher rating systems.

The bill would mark a dramatic about-face for New York on an issue that has galvanized protests, helped fuel one of the country’s largest testing boycott movements, and affects more than 70,000 teachers in New York City alone.

“The Assembly Majority has heard the concerns of New York’s educators and parents and we know that teachers’ performance and that of New York’s students may not be truly reflected in test scores,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said in a statement. “Students learn in a variety of ways and this bill reflects that reality.”

The state’s teachers union has been pushing for immediate action on the teacher evaluation law all session, but lawmakers had so far been silent on the issue. Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic primary, came out in favor of immediately repealing the current teacher evaluation law earlier on Thursday, though lawmakers and union officials say they had been working on the bill long before her announcement.

The legislation has some important starpower behind it: It’s being sponsored by Heastie and Education Committee Chair Cathy Nolan. In Heastie’s statement about the bill, he noted that it comes after conversations with lawmakers, educators and the governor. A spokesman for Cuomo suggested that the governor is interested in tackling teacher evaluations this year but did not expressly support or oppose the bill.

“We have been working the Legislature and education community for months to address this issue and would like to reach a resolution this session‎,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi.

If Cuomo supports this or similar legislation, it would mark a major reversal for the governor, who led the charge to create a new teacher evaluation system in 2015 that allowed half of a teacher’s rating to be based on test scores. Since then, one in five families boycotted state tests in protest of a host of state educational policy changes, including teacher evaluations.

In the wake of the law’s passage, Cuomo appointed a task force to review the state learning standards, and members called for a pause on the use of test scores in teacher evaluations. The state’s Board of Regents soon passed a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English testing being used in teacher ratings until 2019.

But as the moratorium comes to an end, state officials have started to grapple with the lightning rod subject again. Members of the state’s education policymaking body favored a slow, deliberate process with teams of experts and educators.

The state’s teachers union, which has pushed for quicker action, expressed excitement about the bill.

“We thank Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Education Chairwoman Cathy Nolan for listening to parents and educators and introducing a bill that would ensure that students and teachers are once again valued as more than a test score,” said NYSUT President Andy Pallotta in a statement.

The head of New York City’s teachers union praised the measure and suggested that Nixon’s teacher evaluation comments earlier in the day were not driving support for the bill.

“We are happy to hear of any and all support for a measure to limit the problems of standardized tests. But let the record be clear: we have been working with legislators and the executive branch for months to reform New York State’s obsession with and misuse of standardized tests,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “Ms. Nixon’s 11th hour public statement on the bill – while it may score political points – won’t help it get enacted.”

Diving into charged debate, Nixon calls for immediate repeal of New York’s teacher evaluation law

2018-04-26T19:19:00+00:00

Cynthia Nixon is calling on lawmakers to immediately repeal New York’s unpopular teacher evaluation law, catapulting her gubernatorial campaign into one of the messiest debates in New York state education policy.

Nixon called on her Democratic primary opponent Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop making “excuses” about the law that he once championed, which has faced significant pushback for the way it tied educator ratings to standardized test scores and was later put partially on hold. The former “Sex and the City” star’s plan received support from a group of a few dozen education leaders called “Educators for Cynthia,” which includes education historian and testing opponent Diane Ravitch.

The announcement puts Nixon on board with the state’s teachers union agenda and threatens to drive a wedge between Cuomo and the major labor group, which he’s had a tenuous relationship with in the past.

“A couple years ago Andrew Cuomo described teacher evaluation based on high stakes testing as one of his greatest legacies, now he is hoping that parents and teachers have forgotten all about it,” Nixon said in a statement released on Thursday. “Enough of the delays and excuses Governor Cuomo, it is time to repeal the APPR now.”

In a statement, a Cuomo campaign spokeswoman attempted to distance the governor from the issue of teacher evaluations, instead turning the blame on the education department.

“Experts across the board agreed that the implementation of Common Core was botched by SED, which is why they have been tasked to overhaul it and the Board of Regents adopted a moratorium on the use of tests in the evaluation,” said Cuomo campaign spokeswoman Abbey Fashouer.

But it was Cuomo who led the charge to create a new teacher evaluation system in 2015, even calling the old system “baloney” in his State of the State address that year. The measure he fought for passed — allowing half of an individual educator’s rating to be based on test scores — but not without a fued with the unions.

Since then, Cuomo has done an about-face on education policy, leading to a friendlier relationship with the labor groups. The governor has also been courting organized labor this year by standing up for union protections in the face of a Supreme Court case that could hinder the union’s ability to collect fees. Both state and city teachers union leaders said earlier this year they had begun to set aside their differences with the governor and were pleased with his new direction.

But the call to repeal New York’s teacher evaluation law has been a major priority for the state teachers union this year. Officials at the New York State United Teachers have been out on a limb calling for an immediate law change that would allow local districts to craft their own evaluation systems. Their push, however, has gained little traction from lawmakers or officials at the state education department, who are trying to revamp teacher evaluations through a slower process.

“First and foremost, the teachers that we represent believe that the time to fix [teacher evaluation] is this year,” said Jolene DiBrango, executive vice president of NYSUT, during a February Board of Regents meeting. “Now is the time — we’ve been talking about this for years.” (Neither the state or city teachers unions responded to immediate request for comment on Thursday.)

Crucial aspects of the evaluation system that Cuomo championed three years ago are currently on hold. After a spate of education issues — including the teacher evaluation system — caused a statewide testing boycott, the governor began reexamining some of his education policies..

Cuomo appointed a task force to review state learning standards that eventually called for a freeze on the use of test scores in teacher evaluations. The state’s Board of Regents soon obliged, placing a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English tests in teacher ratings until 2019. But the law remains on the books, and state officials are just starting to dive into the issue again as the moratorium nears its end.

Officials from Nixon’s campaign said that she believes evaluations should be locally designed and that high-stakes tests should not be used to judge teachers.

This story has been updated to include information from Nixon’s campaign on her vision for teacher evaluations.

Tennessee lawmakers take another whack at shielding teachers from TNReady test flubs

2018-04-26T12:45:00+00:00

An 11th-hour compromise by Tennessee lawmakers on the last day of their legislative session makes it so “no adverse action may be taken” against any student, teacher, school, or district based on results from this year’s bungled state standardized tests.

The vote was the legislature’s second TNReady-related action in the last week. The first gave districts options for lessening the impact of this year’s assessment on students’ final grades, and also prevented them from using the results for any decisions related to hiring, firing, or compensating teachers.

But concern that lawmakers hadn’t gone far enough led to Wednesday’s legislation after a day-long standoff over how best to address the testing glitches, most of them online but some on paper too.

House members initially sought to yank student growth scores from teachers’ evaluations and, at one point, even held the state’s $37.5 billion budget hostage for a second time in a week, refusing to send the approved spending plan to Gov. Bill Haslam until a resolution could be reached. That stance brought the legislature to a grinding halt on its final day.

Rep. Eddie Smith of Knoxville stands at the podium of the Tennessee House of Representatives on Wednesday as the chamber’s education leaders press for a bill to hold teachers harmless for this year’s TNReady scores.

“If you don’t understand — from the school district to the superintendents — that we want our teachers held harmless, then I’m sorry, you’re tone-deaf,” said Rep. Eddie Smith, a Knoxville Republican who led the charge in the House.

Haslam’s administration and leaders in the Senate sought to hold the line.

“We do know that teacher evaluations are key to the success of our children here in Tennessee,” said Sen. Dolores Gresham, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, during a legislative hearing earlier in the day.

In the end, both chambers approved another bill hashed out in a conference committee that said: “No adverse action may be taken against any student, teacher, school or [local education agency] based in whole or in part on student achievement data generated from the 2017-2018 TNReady assessments.”

The bill went on to say that an “adverse action” would include identifying a school as a “priority school” in Tennessee’s bottom 5 percent, the starting point for state intervention.

“It ain’t perfect. But it is an absolute huge step forward,” said Rep. William Lamberth, a Republican from Cottontown, in explaining his vote for the compromise.

Rep. Bo Mitchell of Nashville questioned why the House was blinking in the standoff, but Rep. Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley said the bigger goal was to clear up any ambiguity.

“This body made it abundantly clear that no adverse action can happen. It’s that simple,” Fitzhugh said.

However, it’s still uncertain what the bill means for how test data is used in teacher evaluations. Earlier Wednesday, the state Department of Education was still working through the legislature’s order from last week to figure out those impacts.

"This body made it abundantly clear that no adverse action can happen. It’s that simple."

Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley

Teachers groups were appreciative of the final bill, though.

“We have worked closely with legislators to advocate for further measures to protect teachers,” said Professional Educators of Tennessee COO Audrey Shores. “We are pleased that legislators unanimously provided that students, educators or schools will not be held responsible for unreliable results from the failures of the TNReady online assessment platform this year.”

The Tennessee Education Association tweeted that the legislation covers all laws, rules, and policies and promised to be “watching it like a hawk” to see that the legislature’s intent is followed.

Lawmakers have been inundated with phone calls and emails from teachers and parents angry about the most recent blunders with TNReady and concerned that the resulting data would be flawed. The upheaval began last week when technical problems erupted on the online version. At one point, the state and its testing company, Questar, blamed some of the glitches on a cyber attack.

The language in both bills seeks to keep Tennessee’s school accountability plan in compliance with a federal education law that requires states to include student performance in their teacher evaluation model — or risk losing federal funding for schools. Lawmakers also cited the state’s tenure rules in preserving the data.

TNReady is now in the second of a three-week testing window, with serious problems cropping up during at least four of those days, including on Wednesday when an overnight software upgrade by Questar affected online rosters for high schoolers.

This story has been updated.

How state Senate elections, Simcha Felder, and a new Democratic deal could shape New York’s education policy

2018-04-24T18:56:00+00:00

With two key Senate elections on Tuesday, the fate of New York state’s Senate is up in the air — and some important education issues could hang in the balance.

If the Democrats pick up two Senate seats in the Bronx and Westchester County, they will have a majority on paper in a chamber that has been dominated by Republicans for years. They will not, however, be able to move Democratic agenda items forward this term without help from Simcha Felder, a rogue Democrat who has a spot in the Republican conference. Felder sent a statement Tuesday saying he would remain with the GOP until the end of the session, quashing any hopes for an instant change in chamber dynamics.

But the broader sea change, including the reconciliation of two factions of Senate Democrats, could make a difference after further elections in November.

The Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled Assembly have split predictably on education issues for years. The Senate fought for charter schools and private schools, while the Assembly protected New York City interests and sought larger sums of money for public schools.

But if Democrats eventually lead the Senate after November’s elections, school funding, charter school policy, and how students are disciplined could all be revisited. Here’s what you should know about how education policy could change:

Immigrant students could get new protections

Year after year, the Democratic-led Assembly has passed a bill that would give undocumented immigrants access to state college aid. The Senate Republicans, on the other hand, has rarely bring it to the floor for debate.

The DREAM act could have better chances if the Democrats take control of the Senate. It’s one of the top issues that Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins mentioned in her budget priorities this March. Additionally, the governor and top state education officials support the measure.

Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa said she is interested in seeing more support for English Language Learners and undocumented students.

“The unification [of two Democratic factions] is an opportunity to advance many of the issues that, I think have, in many ways, not moved forward,” Rosa said to Chalkbeat on Monday.

Passing the DREAM act could also beef up the governor’s progressive credentials in a year when he is facing a primary challenge from Cynthia Nixon, who is running to the left of Cuomo.

School funding could get a boost

A Democratic majority in the Senate could help boost school funding.

Senate Democrats support phasing in the state’s “Foundation Aid” formula over three years. Supporters of the formula say that schools are owed billions in school aid as a result of a 2006 settlement.

Though the Senate Republicans typically push for more spending restraint than the Assembly, Cuomo is arguably a more formidable roadblock to increasing school aid. Each year, he proposes spending less on schools than either the Assembly or the Senate. Last year, he proposed a change to foundation aid that some advocates said amounted to a “repeal” of the formula.

“I think that a Democratic Senate would make a big difference,” said Billy Easton, the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, which has long fought for additional school funding. “But I think that Governor Cuomo would still be a major impediment.” (Since lawmakers have finished this year’s budget, any significant school funding changes would have to take place next year.)

Cuomo is also being challenged a primary opponent who has made school funding central to her campaign and has worked as a spokesperson for AQE. If she pulled off an upset in November, school funding dynamics could change dramatically.

Charter schools might lose a key ally

Senate Republicans have been key allies for the charter schools — so losing them would probably spell bad news for the sector.

For instance, Senate Republicans supported charter school priorities in their budget proposal, including ending the limit on how many new schools can open and providing more money for schools that move into private space. Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and his conference have also been reliable backers of charter schools at the end of budget negotiations, often helping to secure extra funding.

In stark contrast, the Senate Democrats proposed additional transparency and accountability measure for charter schools. Their budget was praised by state and city teachers union leaders, who are foes of the charter sector.

However, the breakaway group of Democrats now reconciled with their Democratic colleagues are more supportive of charter schools. The leader of the breakaway group, Jeff Klein, has been at Albany’s massive charter school rallies. Klein and his allies could help block any major charter school policy shifts.

School discipline policies could shift

A Senate flip could change statewide rules related to school discipline.

Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan, who chairs the chamber’s education committee, has sponsored legislation that discourages suspensions and promotes the use of “restorative” discipline practices, including solving behavioral issues through peer mediation and class meetings. It would also prohibit the use of suspensions in kindergarten through third grade, except in extreme circumstances. (New York City has already curbed suspensions for the city’s youngest students.)

Teacher evaluation discussion may get another life

In their perfect world, state teachers union officials would see repeal of the state’s unpopular teacher evaluation law this year and a push to let local districts decide how to evaluate educators.

“We are hopeful that there is a serious discussion about teacher evaluations,” said state teachers union spokesman Carl Korn.

But so far, lawmakers haven’t been taking up the issue. Instead, the Board of Regents has been leading the charge by spelling out a long-term plan to revamp the evaluations.

Would having Democrats in charge in the Senate change that dynamic? It’s possible but not likely. In their budget proposal, Senate Democrats seem philosophically-aligned with the state teachers union, arguing that there are too many “state mandates” when it comes to evaluations. But their proposed process for solving the problem (convening a team of experts) is more in line with the Board of Regent’s vision. Additionally, any teacher evaluation change would require Cuomo to tackle the unpopular issue in an election year.

This story has been updated to reflect that Senator Simcha Felder will remain with the GOP until the end of the session.

Tennessee lawmakers take matters into their own hands on TNReady testing problems

2018-04-19T21:47:32+00:00

It was an extraordinary day on Capitol Hill in Nashville and, in many ways, unprecedented.

As reports of more problems with Tennessee’s standardized test escalated from their public schools back home, members of the General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a sweeping measure to pull this year’s TNReady scores from accountability systems for students, teachers, schools, and districts.

A spokeswoman said Gov. Bill Haslam will sign the legislation.

The votes circumvented the legislature’s committee process but, after days of technical problems with the state’s return to online testing, lawmakers had reached a boiling point. In the midst of an election year, they rose to their feet and, one after another, railed against the Department of Education and its testing company, Questar, for their oversight of the beleaguered test.

At midday, the Senate and House convened a conference committee as a bipartisan coalition of House members used passage of the state’s $37.5 billion budget as a bargaining chip. With lawmakers going back and forth to the governor’s office to confer, they tacked on their amendment to a bill sponsored by Rep. Eddie Smith of Knoxville and Sen. Dolores Gresham of Somerville.

“The camel was already loaded down heavy, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Smith said of more testing glitches on Thursday. “The circumstances were so extraordinary that going through the traditional committee process did not serve our teachers or students. That’s why we did what we did.”

What they did was pass a bill to:

Let local school boards determine, between a range of 0 and 15 percent, what TNReady scores will count toward students’ final grades;
Prevent local districts from using the scores for any decisions related to hiring, firing, or compensating teachers;
Ensure that none of this year’s TNReady data can be used to put a school on the “priority list” of lowest-performing schools eligible for state intervention; and
Nix the use of TNReady data in determining A-F ratings for schools, a system that’s to begin this fall

“It was clear many members of the General Assembly wanted to address concerns related to the recent administration of state assessments,” Haslam spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals said in a statement. “The governor understands these concerns and did not oppose the legislation.”

The decision means Tennessee will take a breath as it seeks to fix its broken testing system, which has been snakebit from the outset. In 2016, Education Commissioner Candice McQueen canceled most testing after TNReady’s new online platform collapsed under the weight of statewide testing on newly minted digital devices. The next year, Tennessee reverted to mostly paper-and-pencil tests, but there were scoring and score delivery issues under new vendor Questar.

This week, when the third year of testing launched, McQueen had been more confident under a gradual transition to online testing beginning with high school students. But on Monday, a login issue stopped testing in its tracks. Tuesday was worse, as Questar’s system shut down because of an alleged cyber attack.

“What you heard today is that, until we get testing right, we want to make sure our teachers, students and schools are not impacted,” Smith told Chalkbeat when the dust had settled on Thursday.

“We’re still going to move forward with our accountability system. We’ll still see what the data shows this year. But we want to make sure the data isn’t skewed. We want to make sure it’s reliable.”

News of the pause drew immediate cheers from teacher groups.

“The legislature made sure students, teachers and schools were protected against the failures of TNReady,” said Jim Wrye, a lobbyist for the Tennessee Education Association, commending lawmakers for taking “decisive action.”

“We are very pleased legislators ensured that employment or compensation decisions based on the data cannot be used,” added JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee.

But others warned that systems for holding teachers and schools accountable are key to ensuring an equitable education for all students.

“While we are dismayed that there were issues with the online TNReady tests, we believe that assessments are the clearest way to gauge what students know, and how well schools are serving all students,” said Gini Pupo-Walker of the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition.

“Tennessee has made great progress by raising expectations, creating high standards and implementing TNReady,” Pupo-Walker said, “and it is important to continue to assess students every year on their mastery in the core content areas.”

Correction: April 19, 2018: This story has been corrected to show that both the Senate and the House approved the bill on Friday. A previous version said the Senate had recessed and would vote Monday on the House-approved bill.

What you need to know about the $7 million set aside for Memphis teacher raises in 2018

2018-04-13T22:03:54+00:00

If you’re a teacher working in Shelby County Schools, you probably have a hard time figuring out whether or not you are getting a pay increase and how much should show up in your paycheck.

Now that Superintendent Dorsey Hopson has set aside $7 million for teacher pay raises in next year’s budget, Chalkbeat explains which teachers will get a raise, how much, and why.

Most teachers are eligible for a raise. Teachers with an evaluation score of 3 or higher on a 5-point scale will receive a raise. About 96 percent of teachers fit in that category, according to the latest district numbers.

The teacher evaluation system for Shelby County Schools is based on state test growth and achievement, classroom observations, and student surveys. It is known as the Teacher Effectiveness Measure, or TEM.

But this system has been fraught with problems for the last two years because of a bumpy rollout of Tennessee’s new test.

The history. In 2016, Hopson tried to award raises based on evaluation scores, but a delay in state test scores — which play a role in teacher evaluations — prompted him to give raises across the board instead. The next year, another glitch in student test scores compromised some teacher evaluations, but Hopson assured teachers their pay would not be affected.

But before the district started basing pay on teacher evaluations, Shelby County Schools temporarily reactivated pay increases based on years of experience after district leaders noticed some new teachers were getting paid more than experienced ones. Once those inequities were addressed, the district switched to pay increases based on teacher evaluation scores.

The amount of an increase depends on a teacher’s evaluation score. The pay raises are not percentages of a teacher’s salary like in years past. Each evaluation score has a dollar amount attached.

Level 3 = $750
Level 4 = $1,000
Level 5 = $1,500

Under the new pay system, the maximum salary for teachers was increased slightly to $73,000. Level 4 or 5 teachers with advanced degrees or who are in hard-to-staff areas such as special education, math and science are also eligible for bonuses.

New York state tests start this week. Here’s what you need to know.

2018-04-10T20:04:45+00:00

New York state’s grade 3 to 8 math and English tests start this week — and they look a little different than previous years.

In response to concerns about the length of the tests, the state cut English and math tests to two days each this year, dropping one testing day from each subject.

And fewer students will use a number two pencil. This year, more than 600 New York schools will be testing students on computers, a significant increase from the 184 schools that participated last year.

State officials say the switch to computer-based testing is important to get speedier results back to educators, but the transition to testing on computers has not been smooth in New York or nationally. Last year, a small amount of student data was compromised for those who took the tests on computers, and there are always concerns about whether schools have the technology to administer the tests.

However students take the exams, they remain controversial. About one in five families have boycotted the assessments for the past three years, many believing the state has overemphasized testing. On the flip side, the largest charter school network in New York celebrated tests by holding a rally in a professional sports arena.

Here’s what you need to know as students start taking the tests this week.

How much do state tests matter — and what are they used for?

They matter less than they once did, but Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has cited test scores as one of many factors the city uses to determine whether a school should close.
State policymakers have decided that grades 3-8 math and English exam scores will no longer count in teacher evaluations.
However, the moratorium on the use of state test scores in teacher evaluations will sunset in 2019, and state officials are starting work to revamp teacher evaluations. It’s unclear whether test scores will be part of the new system.
Meanwhile, the city has reduced the tests’ influence on school ratings and decisions about whether students move on to the next grade.
The state has submitted a new plan for how test scores will be used to evaluate schools under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Test scores are still an important part of the evaluation, but the state has added new measures, including chronic absenteeism and suspension rates.

Why are state tests so controversial?

When the state adopted new Common Core-aligned standards, the tests became more difficult to pass, just as the stakes for teachers and schools grew.
The state began tying teacher evaluations to test scores.
Critics argue teachers have been forced to narrow their curriculum to focus on test preparation.
Many teachers are frustrated by the continued emphasis on testing. Others see the tests as helpful in gauging student progress.

What has the state changed in recent years?

The tests in 2016 were made slightly shorter.
Students were also allotted unlimited time to complete them in 2016 — a change meant to reduce student stress.
State test scores in English leapt after the changes made two years ago. Elia said that meant the scores could not be compared “apples-to-apples” to the year before, but city officials still celebrated the scores with little mention of the changes.
That led some to ask, how should we use the scores? And what does it mean for evaluating struggling schools?
Since 2015, a greater number of teachers have been involved in reviewing test questions, state officials said.
In 2017, state officials announced they did not plan to make significant changes to the tests. (First, they announced they would keep the tests stable for two years, but then backed off that decision the next day.)
This year, state officials decided to cut the math and English tests by one day each.
However, officials also announced that they would not apply for a federal testing pilot that would have allowed them to more dramatically revamp the tests.

What’s up with the opt-out movement?

Last year, opt-out percentages were 19 percent statewide, down two percentage points from the previous year.
The number of families sitting out of exams in New York City was much smaller at 3 percent for English exams and 3.5 percent for math.
Statewide, opt-out students in 2015 were more likely to be white and less likely to be poor, and liberal areas in Brooklyn and Manhattan saw the city’s highest opt-out numbers.
Leaders of the the opt-out movement have said they want to broaden their approach to state politics. Nationally, a recent study found that many members of the movement aren’t parents at all, but teachers and education advocates.
Despite the changes enacted so far, opt-out advocates aren’t satisfied. They still want substantially shorter tests with no consequences for schools.
A federal mandate says 95 percent of students must take state tests, but the way students opting out of exams are counted under the state’s new accountability plan is complicated. Though schools with high opt-out rates must technically count boycotting students as having failed the assessment, the state has created a workaround that should buffer these schools. State officials told Chalkbeat that they do not expect high opt-out schools to face serious consequences as long as they perform well on other metrics.

The Nation’s Report Card is out soon. Will Tennessee’s hot streak continue?

2018-04-06T16:20:37+00:00

The Nation’s Report Card has served as both a carrot stick and a kick in the pants to Tennessee in its quest to improve public schools.

The kick in the pants came first, when the state got called out in 2007 for the wide gap between how it was reporting student proficiency on its own tests versus what was showing up on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as NAEP or the Nation’s Report Card.

The carrot stick came from 2011 to 2015 when, soon after a massive overhaul of K-12 education, Tennessee’s star shot up on the national assessment. Those substantial gains convinced state leaders to stick with their new policies — some of them controversial — with the aspiration of vaulting from the very bottom to the top half of states by 2019.

Now as NAEP prepares to release its 2017 report card on April 10, a lot of eyes are watching to see if Tennessee’s hot streak continues.

“Tennessee has had a lot of good news to celebrate. It’s come a long way,” said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank. “The trouble with NAEP scores, though, is that they never go up forever. We’ve seen this with other states that made big gains and then flattened out. If that happens in Tennessee, it will be disappointing.”

NAEP testing happens every two years, offering a biannual snapshot of student achievement and long-term trends. Because it is a national test, states can compare results with other states.

Most recently, the test was administered last year to a sampling of fourth- and eighth-graders in reading and math in all 50 states, making it the largest national snapshot of what America’s students know and can do in various subjects. Those scores are being reported in the newest Report Card, albeit later than usual because of the assessment’s historic transition to online testing.

Tennessee has a lot riding on this year’s results.

The state enjoyed sizeable NAEP gains in 2013 in both subjects and in both grades, launching Tennessee’s claim as the fastest-improving state in the nation. Its performance was more modest in 2015, but the state still managed to hold its ground while scores across most of the nation dropped.

Last year, a massive national study at Stanford University seemed to bolster Tennessee’s claim based on standardized tests taken from students across more than 11,000 school districts from 2009 to 2015. The resulting map — showing high-growth districts in shades of green and low-growth districts in purple — depicts Tennessee as a bright green rectangle surrounded by a sea of purple.

State leaders acknowledge they can’t say for sure what’s behind Tennessee’s momentum, but they can easily identify the policy shifts that have happened in the last decade: higher academic standards, a new state test aligned to those expectations, and a gamut of systems to hold districts, schools, teachers, and students accountable.

“We believe our policy direction has moved us to a strong foundation to build on instructionally in our classrooms,” said Education Commissioner Candice McQueen. “The classroom instruction really matters, but the policies have set that up for success.”

Those policies include the controversial use of students’ standardized test scores in teacher evaluations — a key part of Tennessee’s game-winning plan in the 2009 Race to the Top competition, the U.S. Department of Education’s strategy for influencing states during the Obama administration. Tennessee leaders have dug in their heels on this policy, even as most of its teachers question the fairness and accuracy of their evaluations.

“Having a system of teacher evaluation and support that focuses on student growth has reinforced in all of us the need to row in the same direction,” said Sara Heyburn Morrison, executive director of Tennessee’s State Board of Education.

Gov. Bill Haslam poses with students at Riverwood Elementary School in Cordova, where he celebrated Tennessee’s 2015 NAEP results.

Whatever it is, “something appears to be working in Tennessee,” according to Petrilli.

Now the challenge is continuing that upward trajectory.

“It’s one thing to go from bad to good on NAEP. It’s quite another to go from good to great,” Petrilli said.

For leaders like Morrison, Tennessee’s 2017 performance doesn’t have to match its 2013 gains to legitimize the state’s improvement story.

“We know we’ve raised the bar in terms of our expectations for student achievement … but we’ve been in a significant transition,” she said. “Our hope is that, at a minimum, we’ll maintain our progress and show that those big gains since 2011 are real.”

New York wants to overhaul its teacher evaluations — again. Here’s a guide to the brewing battle.

2018-02-23T00:55:56+00:00

State policymakers recently dipped their toes into one of New York’s most politically charged education issues: teacher evaluations.

At a meeting this month, state education department officials outlined plans to revamp the unpopular teacher-rating system, which was essentially put on hold more than two years ago. Shortly after, the state teachers union called for faster action — setting the stage for a new round of evaluation debates.

To help explain the brewing debate, Chalkbeat has created a guide to the current evaluations, how they came to be, and what might be in store for them.

Here’s what you need to know:

How do New York’s teacher evaluations work now?

Teachers are evaluated based on two components: students’ academic improvement and principals’ observation of their teaching.

Every district creates its own state-approved evaluation plan that spells out how they will measure student learning. In 2015, state policymakers temporarily banned the use of grades 3-8 math and English state tests in evaluations.

In New York City, teams of educators at each school pick from a menu of assessments called “Measures of Student Learning.” Among the options are developed essay-based tasks and “running records,” where students are assessed as they read increasingly difficult texts. They can also choose to include the results of science tests or high-school graduation exams. (Certain teachers — such as those who teach physical education — are evaluated based partly on their students’ scores in other subjects.)

Teachers receive one score based on how much students improved academically, and another based on principals’ ratings. The combined scores are translated into one of four ratings, ranging from “highly effective” to “ineffective.”

Teacher evaluations must still be a factor in tenure decisions and three “ineffective” ratings can trigger a teacher’s firing.

What are the outcomes of the current system?

Nearly 97 percent of New York City teachers earned the top two ratings of either “effective” or “highly effective” in the 2016-17 school year, according to preliminary numbers presented by the city teachers union president at a meeting in October. That is an increase from the previous year when 93 percent of teachers earned one of those ratings.

How did we get here?

Until 2010, teachers were rated either “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory,” and individual districts and principals were given latitude to determine how those ratings were assigned.

But in order to win a federal “Race to the Top” grant that year, New York adopted a new evaluation system that factored in students’ standardized test scores — a move strongly opposed by many teachers, who consider the tests an unreliable measure of their performance. The new system was based on a 100-point scale that allotted 20 points to state tests, 20 points to local tests, and 60 points to principal observations.

The battle lines were redrawn again in 2015, when state lawmakers — led by Gov. Andrew Cuomo — sought to make it tougher for teachers to earn high ratings. The new system allowed for as much as half of a teacher’s rating to be based on test scores.

But that plan was never fully implemented. Following a wave of protests in which one in five New York families boycotted the state tests, officials backed away from several controversial education policies.

In late 2015, the state’s Board of Regents approved a four-year freeze on the most contentious aspect of the teacher evaluation law: the use of students’ scores on the grades 3-8 math and English tests. They later allowed districts to avoid having independent observers rate teachers — another unpopular provision in the original law.

Why is the state looking to overhaul the system now?

Over the past few years, state policymakers have revised New York’s learning standards and the annual exams that students take. Now, they are turning to the evaluation system.

The moratorium on the use of certain test scores in teacher evaluations expires after next school year, so the clock is ticking for state education officials to come up with a new system. They have said they hope to have a new system ready for the 2019-2020 school year — but they also floated the idea of extending the moratorium in order to give themselves more time.

What could change?

Everything is up for debate.

First, state policymakers must decide whether to create a single statewide evaluation system or let local school districts craft their own, as the state teachers union is urging.

Second, they must decide what to put in the evaluations. Should they include test scores, principal observations, or other measures? If they allow tests, they must determine which kinds to use and how much to weigh student scores.

However, they may run up against some obstacles. Besides the relatively short timeline, major changes to the evaluation system could require state lawmakers to revise the underlying legislation. And any new student-learning measures they hope to use could prove costly to develop.

Who are the key players and what do they want?

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has made it clear she wants to oversee a careful redesign process that will involve teachers and could lead to a revamped, statewide evaluation system. “This isn’t going to be a fast process,” Elia said during a legislative hearing at the end of January.

State teachers union officials have called for a much quicker process that results in local school districts crafting their own evaluations — a move that could eliminate the use of test scores. “First and foremost, the teachers that we represent believe that the time to fix [teacher evaluation] is this year,” said Jolene DiBrango, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers, after the state outlined its plan earlier this month. Since then, union officials have said they want to work collaboratively with the education department.

Gov. Cuomo has shied away from this issue after pushing for the deeply unpopular 2015 law that tried to toughen evaluations and inflamed the teachers unions. And he does not appear eager to revisit the issue this year as he seeks reelection. His spokeswoman, Abbey Fashouer, told Chalkbeat: “We will revisit the issue at the appropriate time,” and noted that the moratorium will remain in effect until the 2019-20 school year.

State lawmakers have not indicated that overhauling the teacher-evaluation law this year is a top priority.

During a city teachers union event in December, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he was not sure the state could get to a “final idea” by the end of this year — but that he wanted to “start the dialogue.” The senate majority leader, John Flanagan, did not respond to a request for comment.

“I have not heard any movement on teacher evaluations this year,” said Patricia Fahy, a Democratic assemblymember who represents Albany, in an interview this week. “Normally something about that would be bubbling up already.”

With changes coming to New York’s teacher evaluations, union and state officials prepare to clash

2018-02-13T01:59:45+00:00

New York’s education policymakers got a lesson Monday in how treacherous it will to be revamp the state’s highly controversial teacher-evaluation system.

Just minutes after the state education commissioner laid out a detailed plan for coming up with a redesigned system by fall of 2019, a state teachers-union official rebuffed it. Arguing that teachers cannot wait another year for fixes to a rating system they say is fatally flawed, the union will ask lawmakers to change the underlying evaluation law this year, the official said.

In fact, she said, the union won’t even ask its members to take a department survey meant to gather feedback on the current system, which rates teachers based on classroom observations and other measures of what students are learning.

“First and foremost, the teachers that we represent believe that the time to fix [teacher evaluation] is this year,” said Jolene DiBrango, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers, in a conversation with reporters after the state outlined its plan. “Now is the time — we’ve been talking about this for years.”

Even as state policymakers face political opposition from the teachers union — which has long opposed using state test scores to judge teachers, as was required by a 2015 state law — they are likely to run into practical challenges as well.

Any effort to come up with statewide alternative assessments to use in evaluations could prove too costly at a time of fiscal uncertainty for the state. And major changes to the system could require reopening the evaluation law, which sparked a fierce backlash when it was passed. So far, lawmakers have not indicated that doing so is a priority, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo may want to avoid such drama during an election year.

“We have lived in a very toxic landscape,” Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa said Monday during the Regents’ monthly meeting, where state officials laid out their redesign plan. “I think that we have to be so mindful and so strategic and so intentional in our plan.”

The 2015 law — which Cuomo aggressively pushed for after calling the previous evaluation system “baloney” — weakened the role of local districts and teachers unions in crafting teacher ratings, instead shifting more authority to the state. That opened the door for ratings that relied much more heavily on student test scores — a move fiercely opposed by the unions, which worked to fuel the state’s massive parent-led boycott of the state exams.

In response to the backlash, the Board of Regents placed a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English tests in teacher evaluations until 2019. Instead, districts must find different measures of teacher effectiveness.

But now, the teachers union wants to repeal the state law entirely, and return evaluations back to local districts. Doing so would allow educators to help design systems that take into account unique conditions in each district — and to likely greatly reduce or eliminate the role of test scores in teacher ratings.

“We believe local control is the key,” DiBrango said. “What will work in one school district will not work in another.”

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia did not rule out returning control of evaluations back to districts. But the lengthy redesign plan she laid Monday seemed aimed at improving the statewide system.

The state will form two redesign workgroups, state officials said. One will concentrate on the components of evaluations, including whether there should be classroom observations, tests, or other ways to judge teachers — and how much weight to give each part. The other group will focus on how student learning is measured, which may include developing new tests.

The education department will also continue to collect feedback from teachers through a survey, which 9,000 educators have already completed. However, DiBrango said the union will not encourage any additional teachers to take the survey in part because they were not consulted about the survey questions, which she said leads teachers into choosing among predetermined ways to evaluate them.

“We have not encouraged our teachers to necessarily take the survey if they don’t want to,” DiBrango said. “They have free will, so certainly some will take it and some will choose not to.”

As the union and the education department pursue their competing plans, the legislature could prove to be a serious roadblock.

Cuomo and state lawmakers have indicated that their top focus this legislative session is beating back funding cuts from Washington — not revisiting a deeply controversial law that is technically on hold until the moratorium ends next year.

On Monday, Elia suggested that her department may be able to make certain adjustments to the evaluation system without changing the law. Still, any major changes would likely require a new law. However, the department’s plan to present its redesign proposal by spring 2019 would give lawmakers little time to debate the proposed changes before the end of their legislative session.

Even if department officials could get lawmakers on board, a new evaluation system — with new tests — could prove too costly to adopt.

Officials recently said they would not join a federal program to create alternative state assessments because it would cost too much. On Monday, Elia said any new tests tied to teacher evaluations wouldn’t necessarily have to be given to as many students as the annual state exams, so they may be less costly.

Still, Regent Judith Chin, who chairs the board’s workgroup that focuses on standards and assessments, questioned whether the state could feasibly create a whole new set of tests to use for teacher ratings that would be ready for the 2019 school year.

“Is it realistic that we could build that capacity in a short period of time?” Chin asked.

New York officials promise to move slowly as they revamp teacher evaluations — again

2018-02-01T02:25:30+00:00

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia began outlining a roadmap on Wednesday for how she plans to revamp teacher evaluations — and stressed that it’s going to take a long time.

The current evaluation system has been in limbo since 2015, when state policymakers put a four-year freeze on the use of student test scores in teacher ratings. Her pledge to move slowly is an attempt to avoid the battles that erupted between the state and teachers unions when test scores became a more significant part of teacher evaluations three years ago.

On Wednesday, Elia said officials are preparing a survey that will ask teachers across the state what they like in the current teacher evaluation system and what they would like to see changed. The state education department will also solicit input from focus groups that will include teacher representatives, superintendents, and school board members, Elia said during testimony before state lawmakers.

She did not provide a specific timeline for finishing the evaluation overhaul, but stressed that it will be a slow and deliberate process.

“This isn’t going to be a fast process,” Elia said. “Because if you do things too quickly, then you don’t give yourself time to listen.”

Elia’s commitment to take things slow may put her at odds with the state teachers union, whose leader appeared to push for a more aggressive timeline on Wednesday.

“Now is the time to make these changes to the New York State teacher evaluation system,” said New York State United Teachers President Andy Pallotta during the same legislative hearing. “Teacher evaluations should be returned to local control, with no state mandates.”

The teacher evaluation system that New York adopted in 2015 gave greater way to students’ test scores, upsetting many teachers and their union, which argues that the tests are not designed for that purpose. The state’s top education policymakers passed a moratorium on the use of grades 3-8 math and English tests in teacher evaluations until 2019. However, when the moratorium lapses, officials will have to tackle the issue again.

Elia said she hopes the next round of changes results in a rating system that teachers embrace.

“There’s no question teacher evaluation, principal evaluation was a hot spot in New York and we have to address that,” Elia said. “We need to have this be a collaboration with teachers, not having them be something that’s done to teachers.”

Six things we heard during Tennessee’s first gubernatorial forum on education

2018-01-24T11:00:41+00:00

Tennessee voters got their first good look at most candidates for governor during an education forum televised statewide Tuesday evening.

While few sharp differences emerged during the hour-long discussion, the exception was the issue of offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, which split along party lines. Meanwhile, a question about whether the candidates sent their children to public schools provided a glimpse at their personal family choices.

Here are six things we heard during the event at Nashville’s Belmont University:

The teaching profession needs to be supported and rewarded.

Every candidate said they want to boost pay for Tennessee teachers on the heels of two years of increased allocations under outgoing Gov. Bill Haslam. Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, a Democrat, offered the most direct pledge, calling higher salaries his “No. 1 priority,” while House Speaker Beth Harwell, a Republican from Nashville, gave a more qualified pledge. “We have now given two back-to-back 4 percent pay increases to our teachers,” Harwell said. “Would I like to do more? Of course. And when the budget allows for that, I will.” On a related note, most candidates said it’s also time to revisit the state’s formula for funding K-12 education.

Credibility in TNReady needs to be restored.

Not every candidate got to answer every question, but those asked about the state’s problem-plagued standardized test spoke of the need to make improvements, not to dump it. “When the scoreboard breaks, you don’t just stop keeping score. You fix the scoreboard,” said Randy Boyd, a Republican businessman from Knoxville. Candidates also spoke of the importance of having an effective measuring stick to hold teachers accountable. “Teachers do not mind accountability; what they want is credibility in that accountability system and they want it to be useful,” Harwell said. “… We have come too far as a state to ever turn back in our accountability system.”

There was consensus that high-quality pre-kindergarten programs are a good investment.

More than two years after a Vanderbilt University study highlighted problems with Tennessee’s public pre-K programs for disadvantaged children, all of the candidates agreed that the focus now should be on lifting the quality of early childhood education, not abandoning it. “Not all pre-K is the same,” said Boyd. “We need to find programs that work well and duplicate those.” Meanwhile, Dean and House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, a Democrat from Ripley, said public pre-K should be expanded.

But there was disagreement over whether to provide in-state tuition for students who are undocumented immigrants.

Republicans said they would not sign legislation that would provide so-called “Dreamers” with the tuition break to attend the state’s higher education institutions, while Democrats said they would. “I’m the only person on this panel who has voted to do that, and I will vote to do that again,” Fitzhugh said of unsuccessful bills in Tennessee’s legislature during recent years. “It is cruel that we do not let these children that have lived in Tennessee all their life have in-state tuition,” he added. Republicans emphasized the letter of the law. “It doesn’t seem fair to me that we would offer something in college tuition to an immigrant that was here illegally that we wouldn’t offer to an American citizen from Georgia,” said Bill Lee, a Republican businessman from Williamson County.

Education is ultimately about jobs.

All of the candidates called for investments in career and technical education that could lead to certifications and jobs. Several highlighted the importance of dual enrollment programs that allow students to earn college-level credits while still in high school. They also discussed the challenge of equipping students to finish college in a state where only one in five high school juniors meet all benchmarks for college readiness. “The key is to seek improvement in K-12,” said Dean. “If students go into college prepared, … they’re much more likely to succeed.”

The candidates’ personal experiences with public education are mixed.

Since funding and overseeing public education is one of the biggest jobs of state government, the forum’s moderators said it was fair game to ask the candidates about their own family decisions on attending public schools. Dean and Harwell said they went to public schools but sent their children to private schools. Boyd said he went to public school and opted for public and private schools for his two sons. Lee said his children have experienced a mix of homeschooling and public and private education. Fitzhugh was the only candidate who said that he and all of his children are products of public schools, and that his grandchildren attend public schools as well.

Five of seven major candidates participated in the forum sponsored by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, Belmont University, USA TODAY NETWORK and Nashville’s NewsChannel 5. Absent were U.S. Rep. Diane Black, a Gallatin Republican who said she had a scheduling conflict, and Mae Beavers, a Republican and former state senator from Mt. Juliet, who bowed out after her mother died over the weekend.

Tennessee’s primary election is set for Aug. 2, with the general election on Nov. 6.

Tennesseans are about to get their first good look at candidates for governor on education

2018-01-23T01:04:07+00:00

For almost 16 years, two Tennessee governors from two different political parties have worked off mostly the same playbook when it comes to K-12 education.

This year, voters will choose a new governor who will determine if that playbook stays intact — or takes a different direction from the administrations of Bill Haslam, a Republican leaving office next January, and Phil Bredesen, the Democrat who preceded him.

Voters will get to hear from all but one of the major candidates Tuesday evening during the first gubernatorial forum televised statewide. Organizers say the spotlight on education is fitting since, based on one poll, it’s considered one of the top three issues facing Tennessee’s next governor. Both K-12 and higher education are on the table.

Candidates participating are:

Mae Beavers, a Republican from Mt. Juliet and former Tennessee state senator;
Randy Boyd, a Republican from Knoxville and former commissioner of Economic and Community Development and a Republican from Knoxville;
Karl Dean, a Democrat and former mayor of Nashville;
Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, a Democrat from Ripley and minority leader in the Tennessee House of Representatives;
Rep. Beth Harwell, a Republican from Nashville and speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives;
Bill Lee, a Republican businessman from Williamson County

The seventh major candidate, U.S. Rep. Diane Black, a Republican from Gallatin, is in the midst of a congressional session in Washington, D.C.

The next governor will help decide whether Tennessee will stay the course under its massive overhaul of K-12 education initiated under Bredesen’s watch. The work was jump-started by the state’s $500 million federal Race to the Top award, for which Tennessee agreed to adopt the Common Core academic standards for math and English; incorporate students’ scores from standardized tests in annual teacher evaluations; and establish a state-run turnaround district to intervene in low-performing schools at an unprecedented level.

Tennessee has since enjoyed steady student growth and watched its national rankings rise, but the transition hasn’t been pain-free. Pushback on its heavy-handed turnaround district led leaders to widen school improvement strategies. They also ordered new academic standards due to political backlash over the Common Core (though the revised standards are still basically grounded in Common Core).

A major issue now is whether the next governor and legislature will retain Tennessee’s across-the-board system of accountability for students, teachers, schools and districts. Snafus and outright failures with TNReady, the new standardized test that serves as the lynchpin, have prompted some calls to make the assessment just a diagnostic tool or scrap it altogether. Haslam and his leadership team have stood firm.

“We as Tennesseans made the right call — the tough call — on the policies we’ve pursued,” Education Commissioner Candice McQueen told Chalkbeat recently. “Nearly every other state has compromised in some way on some of these core foundational components of policy work, and we have not.”

The State Collaborative on Reforming Education, an advocacy group that works closely with Tennessee’s Department of Education, is a co-host of Tuesday’s forum. Known as SCORE, the group has sought to shape the election-year conversation with priorities that include teacher quality, improving literacy, and developing school leaders — all outgrowths of learnings during Tennessee’s Race to the Top era.

SCORE President David Mansouri said the goal is to maintain the momentum of historic gains in student achievement from the last decade. “The next administration’s education policy decisions will be crucial in determining whether Tennessee students continue to progress faster than students in other states and whether they graduate ready for postsecondary success,” he said Monday.

The one-hour forum will delve into a range of issues. College and career readiness, education equity, and school funding will be among the topics broached before each candidate is allowed a one-minute closing statement, according to David Plazas, a Tennessean editor who will help moderate the discussion.

“It will be really exciting,” Plazas promised. “We’re hoping the candidates are prepared to talk substantively on the issues and to avoid slogans.”

The event begins at 7 p.m. CT at Nashville’s Belmont University. Along with SCORE, it’s being co-hosted by USA TODAY NETWORK and Nashville’s NewsChannel 5. You can livestream the event here and learn more about attending or watching here.

Tennessee’s primary election is set for Aug. 2, with the general election on Nov. 6.

Hey, we heard you. You had a lot of questions about TNReady. We found answers.

2017-10-30T12:18:35+00:00

The news that Tennessee’s testing company scored some high school tests incorrectly this year uncorked a flood of questions about the validity of the state’s new standardized assessment.

Here are five things to know about the latest brouhaha over TNReady

We wanted to know how the brouhaha was impacting classrooms, so we asked our readers on Facebook.

Teachers: We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts about the revelation of some scoring problems affecting...
Posted by Chalkbeat Tennessee on Monday, October 16, 2017

You responded in droves.

We took your top concerns directly to the state Department of Education and asked for answers. Here’s what you wanted to know — and what we have learned:

Several readers asked why they should trust TNReady results, given the series of setbacks in the test’s first two years.

“I do not trust the results. We have had so many problems in the last few years, that I am suspicious of any results we do get. It bothers me greatly that the state uses these numbers to hold students and teachers and districts accountable, but they seem to be unable to deliver scores they believe are accurate in a timely manner.” —Rebecca Dickenson
“I no longer trust the accountability of the state nor its methods. My concern is if there is a teacher who has only one year of test data, how is it the same teacher shown multi-year growth when he or she had only last year of testing? This poses a huge concern.” —Mildred Williams

Tennessee Department of Education: “TNReady is fully aligned to Tennessee’s academic standards, and every question has been reviewed, edited, and approved by Tennessee teachers through a rigorous review process. We also have quantitative checks and processes after a test is over to ensure student responses are reliable. While more than 99.9% of TNReady tests were scored accurately this year, we want to improve on that next year, and our vendor (Questar) is taking new quality assurance steps to make sure their programming is error-free. Also, this year, as soon as the scoring error on some of the English I, II and Integrated Math II EOCs was identified, scores were updated and all TNReady tests were re-reviewed and verified for full accuracy.”

Some teachers told us that, given the delay in score deliveries this spring, many students don’t think the results will arrive in time to affect their final grades next spring. Those teachers are struggling to get their students to buy in.

“After two years of TNReady, it still hasn’t counted for my students. Going into year three, I will once again tell them with a hopeful, straight face that it will count as part of their report card grades and implore them to try their best. I quietly wonder what reason they have to believe me, given recent history.” —Mike Stein
“I struggle to get students to buy in to the importance of trying their best on state tests because the students are confident that the scores won’t come back in time to affect their grades (which has been the situation for several years now). The students see zero incentive for doing well.” —Nicole Mayfield

TDOE: “We believe that if districts and schools set the tone that performing your best on TNReady is important, then students will take the test seriously, regardless of whether TNReady factors into their grade. We should be able to expect our students will try and do their best at any academic exercise, whether or not it is graded. This is a value that is established through local communication from educators and leaders, and it will always be key to our test administration. We believe that when we share these messages and values — celebrating the variety of accomplishments our students have made, taking advantage of TNReady’s scheduling flexibility to minimize disruption, focusing on strong standards-based instruction every day, sending positive messages around the importance of the variety of tests that students take, and sharing that students should always do their best — then students will buy-in and TNReady will be successful.”

Other teachers asked what happens to writing scores for tests in English language arts.

“I can tell you that two years ago — when we first piloted the new writing test online — districts received not only every student’s scores (broken down by each of the four indicators) but also the actual student responses to each prompt. In my former district our supervisor shared them, and we analyzed them as a department. If you check with your principal, VP, or supervisors, there are some published “anchor papers” with scores available on edtools from this past year. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than we’ve had in the past. My hope is that if online continues, we’ll keep seeing the student responses in the future.” —Wj Gillespie II

TDOE: “The question appears to be referencing the process we had through the 2014-15 school year, when our writing assessment was separate. Since 2015-16, students’ writing responses on TNReady have been incorporated as part of their overall ELA score. Responses are scored based on our writing rubrics, and for educators, we have provided access to the “anchor papers” from the 2016-17 year, so they can see how students’ responses were scored based on the writing rubric, which can help them inform the feedback they give their students.”

On that same issue of writing scores, one teacher referenced the hiring of scorers off of Craigslist. We asked the state if that’s true.

“I continue to be curious about our ELA writing scores. Each year we are required to use state writing rubrics, attend PD related to the state’s four types of writing, etc etc…and yet our scores never come back. Students spend hours taking the writing portion of the test, scorers are hired off Craig’s list…, and yet we never actually get the scores back. It seems like every year this is swept under the rug. Where do these writing tests go?” —Elizabeth Faison Clifton

TDOE: “Questar does not use Craigslist. Several years ago, another assessment company supposedly posted advertisements on Craigslist, but Questar does not. We provide opportunities for our educators to be involved in developing our test, and we also encourage Tennessee teachers to apply to hand-score TNReady. To be eligible, each applicant must provide proof of a four-year college degree, and preference is given to classroom teachers. As part of the interview process, an applicant would have to hand-score several items for review and evaluation. Once hired, each scorer is trained based on materials that Tennessee teachers and the department approve — and which are assembled from responses given by Tennessee students on the exam — and scorers are regularly refreshed and “recalibrated” on scoring guidelines. Each writing response is scored at least twice; if those two responses differ significantly, they are sent to a third scorer. Each day, the department reads behind a sample of essays to ensure hand-scorers are adhering to the criteria set by our teachers. Any scores that do not align are thrown out, and those scorers are retrained. Any scorer who does not meet our and Questar’s standards is released from scoring TNReady.”

Finally, readers expressed a lot of concern about the complexity behind growth scores known as TVAAS, which are based on TNReady results and which go into teachers’ evaluations. We asked the state for a simple explanation.

“What formula is used in calculating the overall score for TVAAS when fallacies were determined as a result? My performance is weighed heavily on the state TVAAS score which is why this type of error has occurred before. This is quite disturbing. Teachers work tirelessly to ensure student achievement is a success; however, testing to measure performance seems to not be working.” —Mildred Williams
“No one can give me the formula for how my students’ scores are calculated to create my score in TVAAS. How is (t)hat transparency? Yet, I’m required, constantly, to “prove” myself with documentation of education, observations, professional development and the like; all in originals, of course, to numerous overseeing bodies.” —Rachel Bernstein Kannady
“I find it ludicrous that data from these tests are used to evaluate MY performance when I get little to no control over most of the variables regarding the test. How could a miscalculated, misinformed, and (for all I know) incomprehensible test demonstrate what my students have learned!? And don’t even get me started on that fact that the rigor of the tests was increased ten-fold, yet not scaffolded in.” —Nicole Mayfield

TDOE: “TVAAS is statistically valid and reliable, and we follow the recommendations outlined by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) on value-added measures. Conceptually, TVAAS looks at how students have performed historically on TCAP and TNReady and compares their performance to their peers who have had similar past performance. If students tended to grow at about the same rate as their peers across the state — the expected amount of growth — they would earn a 3. If students tended to grow faster than their peers, they would earn a 4 or a 5, depending on the amount of progress they showed. If they tended to not show as much growth as their peers, they would earn a 1 or a 2. The model itself is sophisticated and complex to be as fair and nuanced as possible for each teacher’s situation, and we are working with our educator preparation providers as well as district leaders to provide more training on specifically how the model calculates scores. Tennessee educators also have access to a TVAAS user support team that can answer any specific questions about their TVAAS data, including how the data was analyzed.

Because TVAAS always looks at relative growth from year to year, not absolute test scores, it can be stable through transitions — and that is what we saw this year. Students can still grow, even if their overall proficiency level is now different. You can think about it like a running race. If you used to finish a 5K at about the same time as 10 other students, and all 10 students made the same shift to a new race at the same time with the same amount of time to prepare, you should finish the new race at about the same time. If you finished ahead of the group’s average time, you grew faster than your peers. If you lagged behind everyone, that would indicate you did not grow as much as was expected. Because students’ performance will be compared to the performance of their peers and because their peers are making the transition at the same time, drops in statewide proficiency rates resulting from increased rigor of the new assessments had no impact on the ability of teachers, schools, and districts to earn strong TVAAS scores. Transitions to higher standards and expectations do not change the fact that we still want all students in a district to make a full year’s worth of growth, relative to their peers who are all experiencing the same transition.”

Reporter Laura Faith Kebede contributed to this report.

Teacher pay raises on schedule in Memphis despite possible changes to evaluation scores

2017-10-17T19:43:23+00:00

Memphis teachers will start receiving their performance-based salary increases in November, even though evaluation scores could change for hundreds of educators in Shelby County Schools.

Superintendent Dorsey Hopson emailed teachers on Tuesday to update them about the status of their paychecks after news emerged last week about scoring errors on state tests for some Tennessee high school students, as well as a data entry error that impacted teacher growth scores known as TVAAS. (Student growth scores figure into evaluations that affect teachers’ employment and salaries.)

Hopson said the district will use current evaluation scores when issuing pay increases in November, which will be retroactive to the first day of school in August. He assured teachers that their salaries will not decrease if their TVAAS ratings go down in the wake of errors by the state’s testing vendor, Questar.

“We stand with our teachers in ensuring that no more state-level scoring irregularities exist,” Hopson wrote. “If further issues are identified regarding your specific TEM score, we will only honor salary adjustments that POSITIVELY affect your pay.”

For the first time, the district is launching a merit pay plan this school year based on teacher evaluation scores. But the news of errors this year at the state level left some teachers wondering how and when possible revisions to their TVAAS score would hit them in the pocketbook.

Hopson said the state and the district have contacted educators who are impacted by the errors. Tuesday is the deadline for finalizing TVAAS scores in order to receive salary increases by November.

“We realize this issue has again shaken your trust in the measurements of our collective success, and for that, we’re deeply saddened. While we are frustrated by the (Tennessee Department of Education’s) error, we respect the state for acknowledging and working to repair the mistake,” Hopson wrote.

Up to 900 teachers statewide may see their growth scores change as a result of data entry errors. That’s about 9 percent of teachers who receive a score under the state’s model to identify a teacher’s impact on student growth. Hopson said 587 of those teachers are in Shelby County Schools, the state’s largest district.

Missing student data means 900 Tennessee teachers could see their growth scores change

2017-10-13T23:03:52+00:00

Tennessee’s testing problems continue. This time the issue is missing students.

Students’ test scores are used to evaluate teachers, and the failure of a data processing vendor to include scores for thousands of students may have skewed results for some teachers, officials said.

The scores, known as TVAAS, are based on how students improved under a teacher’s watch. The scores affect a teacher’s overall evaluation and in some districts, like Shelby County Schools, determine if a teacher gets a raise.

The error affects 1,700 teachers statewide, or about 9 percent of the 19,000 Tennessee teachers who receive scores. About 900 of those teachers had five or more students missing from their score, which could change their result.

The latest glitch follows a series of mishaps, including test scanning errors, which also affect teacher evaluations. A delay earlier this summer from the Tennessee Department of Education’s testing vendor, Questar, set off a chain of events that resulted in the missing student scores.

To calculate a teacher’s growth score, students and their test scores are assigned to a teacher. About 3 percent of the 1.5 million student-teacher assignments statewide had to be manually submitted in Excel files after Questar experienced software issues and fell behind on releasing raw scores to districts.

RANDA Solutions, a data processing vendor for the state, failed to input all of those Excel files, leading to the teachers’ scores being calculated without their full roster of students, said Sara Gast, a state spokeswoman. The error will not affect school or district TVAAS scores. (District-level TVAAS scores were released in September.)

Gast did not immediately confirm when the state will finalize those teachers’ scores with corrected student rosters. The state sent letters to districts last week informing them of the error and at least one Memphis teacher was told she had more than 80 of her 120 students missing from her score.

In the past, the process for matching students to the right teachers began at the end of the year, “which does not leave much room for adjustments in the case of unexpected delays,” Gast said in an email. The state had already planned to open the process earlier this year. Teachers can begin to verify their rosters next week, she said.

97 percent of New York City teachers earn high marks on latest evaluations, union president says

2017-10-10T20:05:48+00:00

Nearly 97 percent of New York City teachers were rated “effective” or “highly effective” last school year, compared to 93 percent the previous year, the city teachers union president said at a recent meeting.

About 26 percent of teachers earned “highly effective” ratings during the 2016-17 school year, a 4 percentage point bump from the previous year, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew told union members, according to people who attended the meeting. Just over 71 percent of teachers received “effective” ratings — the same share as the previous year, Mulgrew said.

Just 3 percent of teachers received the lowest ratings — “developing” or “ineffective” — down from 7 percent in 2015-16, Mulgrew said at the Sept. 27 meeting.

The figures he presented were shared with Chalkbeat by a meeting attendee. The blog NYC Educator first reported the numbers, which the city education department and the teachers union would not confirm.

Any city evaluation figures are still preliminary. The city education department has not yet sent the state those numbers, which are due Oct. 27, officials said.

If the city’s preliminary numbers do not change, they show that more New York City teachers are earning positive ratings under the current evaluation system — which may be partly related to changes in how the city rates teachers.

In an effort to hold educators to a higher standard, Governor Andrew Cuomo led the charge two years ago to create a tougher evaluation system that relied heavily on test scores. But the measure sparked outrage across the state, causing policymakers to temporarily remove grade 3-8 math and English test scores from evaluations.

In the first year of the test-score moratorium, the percentage of New York City teachers rated “highly effective” roughly doubled. (Still, even after that spike, a much larger share of teachers statewide earns that rating.)

New York City and the teachers union struck a deal last December that would allow teacher ratings to incorporate more “authentic” measures of student learning, including tests in additional subjects and compilations of student work. The new measures have not yet been factored into evaluations, city officials said.

State policymakers currently are reassessing the evaluation system. The most recent ratings — which show that virtually all teachers receive positive ratings when evaluations do not include state test scores — may help frame the discussion, which will likely focus in part on how much weight to give test scores in the evaluations.

In the past, the evaluations were derided as meaningless since nearly all teachers were labeled “satisfactory.” Test scores were introduced in part to limit the number of teachers earning top ratings.

Patrick Wall contributed reporting.

After a two-year gap, Tennessee is about to release test scores for grade-schoolers. Here’s what to expect.

2017-10-03T23:31:46+00:00

Teaching and learning haven’t stopped during Tennessee’s two-year gap in standardized testing, but the scores that help gauge how students, teachers and schools are doing have definitely been interrupted.

That void will start to be filled on Wednesday morning when the State Department of Education releases this year’s statewide TNReady scores for grades 3-8. (District- and school-level scores will come later this fall.)

Circumstances have changed significantly since 2015 when the last state scores were available for Tennessee’s elementary and middle school students. This spring marked the first time that those grades took a harder test in alignment with Common Core academic standards.

As such, this year’s scores are expected to drop significantly from 2015, just as they did for high schoolers in 2016 during their first year of testing in the TNReady era.

Preliminary data backs that up. In August, Tennessee’s State Board of Education set thresholds for what constitutes passing scores at each grade level, offering an early glimpse of this year’s results for grades 3-8. Only about a third of those students scored on or above grade level in English language arts, while a slightly higher percentage passed in math.

The “new baseline scores,” as state officials are calling them, are part of the “reset” that Education Commissioner Candice McQueen has been talking about since becoming the state’s education chief in 2015. Before a series of snafus prompted McQueen to fire the state’s testmaker and cancel 2016 tests for its youngest students, she warned that scores would drop initially under TNReady, then begin to climb, as they did for high schoolers this year in their second year of testing.

But the initial tumble in scores also will be accompanied by a sigh of relief from education leaders across Tennessee. Once again, they’ll finally have the testing data that serves as the lynchpin of the state’s system of education accountability. Without that data, they’ve been challenged to track progress, especially of historically underserved groups of students.

The blip has prompted temporary changes in the way the state rates its teachers and schools. This year, for instance, student growth scores that were released last month will count for only 10 percent of teacher evaluations, compared to up to 50 percent in 2015.

The Achievement School District also pushed pause on its takeover of low-performing schools during the testing transition — a retreat that has been extended as the state has made the turnaround district a tool of last resort under its new education plan for the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Tennessee teachers are warming to evaluations as a tool to improve their work, survey says

2017-08-09T22:33:58+00:00

When Tennessee launched a massive overhaul of its education system in 2011, the biggest outcry came from educators upset about the new process for evaluating their work.

Most questioned the fairness and accuracy of capturing good teaching on a scale of 1 to 5. Others called the process burdensome and bewildering. Making student test score data a lynchpin of the change prompted even more concern.

But after six years of rating teachers and refining its process, Tennessee is getting a warmer response from educators about their teacher evaluations.

The state’s latest educator survey, released on Wednesday, shows that 74 percent of teachers found evaluations helpful last year in improving their teaching, almost double from 2012. First-year teachers were especially positive, with 85 percent giving the process good marks.

The results are encouraging for state, district and school leaders who have sought to make the evaluation process a tool to promote better teaching, rather than just a personnel-related checklist for both principals and teachers.

“This shows a huge positive shift in teachers’ perception of the evaluation system and its impact,” said Jason Grissom, an associate professor at Vanderbilt University who helped design the survey and collect the data.

“Educators are viewing evaluations as less about judgment of their performance and more about identifying the areas where they can improve. And schools are figuring out how to provide targeted support and professional learning opportunities.”

Still, a fourth of the state’s teachers say the evaluation isn’t helping them improve — and that’s not just from educators who received low scores.

Teachers who found the evaluation most useful also reported receiving specific feedback from administrators, along with classroom materials, access to staff expertise, and adequate time to collaborate and prepare.

The race to transform teaching

Spurred by a half-billion-dollar influx of funding through the federal Race to the Top competition, Tennessee has been a national leader in transforming its teacher evaluations. Its system combines student growth from test scores, classroom observations by administrators and, for teachers in non-tested grades and subjects, school- and district-wide measurements of growth on other kinds of assessments and student work.

And as state tests — and new evaluation systems that rely on them — have faced pushback across the country, Tennessee has mostly stuck with its strategy. (The state did temporarily reduce the weight of test scores in the transition to a new standardized test.)

But the road to the new, tougher evaluation model has been bumpy.

Critics blame the process, especially the student achievement component, for an exodus of teachers from the profession. Teachers complained that feedback from classroom observations was initially fuzzy, and its misalignment with student growth results has led to ongoing changes in training and coaching for evaluators.

“Teachers have never been opposed to being evaluated. They just want a system that accurately identifies the areas in which they are excelling and the areas where they could improve,” said Barbara Gray, president of the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union.

Leaders of the Professional Educators of Tennessee say there’s still lots of room for improvement.

“We hear from our members that evaluators are better trained today and provide better feedback,” the group said in a statement. “We must continually look at the element of support provided by districts to teachers.”

Lagging professional development opportunities are a key shortcoming identified in the educator survey. A third of teachers report not receiving any feedback on their classroom evaluations, and half of the state’s teachers reported that they take part in training once a month that’s a waste of time. They say it’s usually prescribed by their school or district.

That statistic troubles Grissom.

“Part of the purpose of evaluations is to create growth opportunities,” he said. “Professional learning is the big lever that schools and districts can pull to move the needle on instruction.”

A statewide snapshot

Conducted last spring, the survey is Tennessee’s most comprehensive tool for gathering feedback from its educators.

Responses were up by more than 5,000 educators this year, representing 56 percent of the state’s teachers and 60 percent of its administrators. District and school-level data is available if their response rate was 45 percent or more.

You can find the state’s report about the survey here.

Colorado testing an updated teacher evaluation system that will take less time but set a higher bar

2017-08-09T21:58:43+00:00

Lori Petersen, principal of Arkansas Elementary School in Aurora, is a huge fan of teacher evaluations. But as she sees it, there are two critical problems with the state’s system that need fixing:

First, the system is cumbersome and overly time-consuming. Second, too many teachers in Aurora and across the state are earning high ratings while student test scores continue to lag.

“I was shocked,” she said, recalling a meeting where she learned that most of the suburban school district’s teachers received an “effective” rating or higher — even as Aurora faces state intervention for chronic poor performance on state tests.

This year, the state is trying out changes to the evaluation program in 40 districts, including Aurora, that would address both of Peterson’s worries. The overhaul is aimed at making evaluations easier for principals to conduct — by halving the number of practices they are supposed to observe — and harder for teachers to ace.

Most of Colorado’s 178 school districts use the state’s system. But some large districts such as Denver have developed their own and are not part of the pilot.

The changes to the state’s system come seven years after Colorado led the nation in updating its teacher evaluation system, which included the controversial move of linking teacher ratings to student performance on tests.

The new law required that all teachers be evaluated every year, a change from every three. They’d be issued a rating from “ineffective” to “highly effective” — and teachers who earned a low ratings for two straight years would lose job protections.

The effort has failed to provide backers with what they wanted: better data identifying teachers who need help. Nearly 90 percent of Colorado teachers in 2015, the most recent year available, received a rating of effective or higher. States across the nation have seen similar results from their efforts to better evaluate teachers.

Instead, teachers and principals alike often complain that the system is cumbersome and time-consuming — and far too subjective.

Now, Colorado officials hope the updated version will alleviate detested paperwork, freeing up principals and teachers to focus more on the craft of teaching.

“We want to see a reduction in time spent on checking boxes, and that time spent in a more meaningful way,” said Mary Bivens, the state education department’s director of educator development.

The biggest change to the teacher evaluation system is the number of classroom practices principals need to monitor. The list has been cut nearly in half from 336 to 181.

The reduction comes from eliminating dozens of near-duplicative strategies that were supposed to be measured in different sections of the evaluation, said John Madden, an assistant principal at Overland High School in the Cherry Creek School District who helped with the revisions.

For example, he said, multiple parts of the current rubric ask principals to look at how teachers are incorporating technology and literacy skills, and developing challenging lessons. In the pilot, each of those topics gets addressed only once or twice.

“These changes will help teachers and principals focus on the practice and not on the tool itself,” he said. “It helps clarify some of the expectation and it cuts down on the enormity of the document. It doesn’t feel so cumbersome and hard to get through.”

Petersen, the Arkansas Elementary principal, is participating in the pilot. She said she’s reviewed the new rubric and found it to be clearer. She said she plans to monitor each classroom more carefully throughout the year instead of just checking off a box if she sees a teacher use a particular strategy just once — like she used to.

“We [were] just giving instant credit,” she said. “I now have the expectation that I have to see it over time.”

The skinny version should help her complete the 24 informal visits she plans for each of her 20 teachers.

In total, Petersen estimates that she was spending upwards of 500 hours — the equivalent of three months of work — on the evaluation process each year. That includes multiple rounds of goal setting, regularly monitoring student progress and giving her staff midyear reviews.

“It’s time-consuming,” the third-year principal said. “I had never counted the hours before.”

The state will be monitoring data from informal visits that principals track in the state’s system throughout the year and it will collect anecdotes from districts piloting the rubric. What the state wants to see more than anything is principals spending more time coaching teachers.

“We’re studying that conversation,” said Colleen O’Neil, executive director of educator talent for the state education department. “We’re focused on the growth of the people.”

Not all of the changes under consideration are aimed at simplifying the process for educators. Some are meant to raise the bar on what it takes for a teacher to earn a top rating.

Previously, teachers could earn the state’s highest rating if they earned roughly 68 percent of the total points from classroom observations. Under the pilot, teachers will be eligible for the highest rating only if they’ve earned about approximately 78 percent of points. But that number could change as a result of the pilot, state officials said. In both cases, students must show more than expected academic growth on state tests and other course work in order for a teacher to earn a highly effective rating.

The Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union and a critic of using student test scores in Colorado’s evaluation system, declined to comment on the changes, saying the pilot was too new for the union to have formed an opinion.

Elizabeth Ross, managing director for state policy at the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit that advocates for more stringent evaluations systems, applauded Colorado’s work to update its evaluation system.

“It’s crystal clear that the system is not working as it was supposed to in Colorado,” she said. “It’s not giving them the information to figure out where there are teachers who need more support to improve their practice.”

Drop TNReady scores from teacher evaluations, urge Shelby County leaders

2017-04-19T21:38:53+00:00

Just as students have begun taking Tennessee’s new standardized test, Shelby County officials are calling on state leaders to back off of using those scores to evaluate teachers.

The Shelby County Board of Commissioners, the local funding body for Memphis schools, voted unanimously on Monday to urge the state to use TNReady results as only a “diagnostic” tool. Currently, the board says, state scores are being used as a punitive evaluation of both teachers and students.

The board’s call gets to the heart of a debate that has lingered since a 2010 state law tied standardized test results to teacher evaluations. That was several years before TNReady was introduced last year as a new measuring stick for determining how Tennessee students — and their teachers — are doing.

TNReady testing, which began this week and continues through May 5, has intensified that debate. The new test is aligned to more rigorous academic standards that Tennessee is counting on to improve the state’s national ranking.

But Shelby County’s board is questioning whether reforms initiated under Tennessee’s 2010 First to the Top plan are working.

“While giving off the appearance of a better education, this type of teaching to the test behavior actually limits the amount of quality content in deference to test taking strategies,” the board’s resolution reads.

The board also cites “unintended consequences” to the teaching profession as nearly half of Tennessee’s 65,000 teachers are expected to leave or retire in the next decade.

“Record numbers of quality teachers are leaving the teaching profession and school districts are struggling to recruit and retain quality teachers due to the TN standards imposed in regards to standardized testing,” the resolution reads.

It’s true that school districts statewide struggle to recruit and retain effective teachers in some subject areas. But there’s little evidence to support that incorporating test scores in evaluations is the primary reason teachers are leaving the profession.

It’s also unlikely that Tennessee will back off of its teacher evaluation model, even as some states have recently abandoned the practice. The model is baked into reforms that the state initiated through two gubernatorial administrations to improve both teacher and student performance.

Want education equity? Make sure your teachers feel valued, say lawmakers

Commissioner David Reaves

Shelby County’s resolution was introduced by Commissioner David Reaves, a former Memphis school board member who says he hears a “continual outcry” from teachers and parents over high-stakes testing.

“Allow the local (school district) to assess and classify teachers and use the test results as a tool, not as a stick,” Reaves told Chalkbeat.

In Tennessee, test scores in some form count for 35 to 50 percent of teachers’ evaluation scores. TNReady scores currently count 10 percent but, as the state settles into its new test, that will gradually increase to 25 percent by 2018-19.

Classroom observations and evaluations did play a factor in retention rates for effective teachers in a 2014 study by the Tennessee Department of Education before the transition to TNReady. Where teachers reported consistent and objective classroom observations, effective teachers were more likely to stay.

State and local teacher surveys also differ on the quality of Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system known as TEAM, which mostly relies on classroom observations.

In Shelby County Schools, exit surveys show issues like levels and stability of teacher pay — not test scores in their evaluations — are cited most often by teachers leaving the district.

Superintendent Dorsey Hopson told the school board last month that most Shelby County teachers find the state’s evaluation system unfair, but the same majority think their own score is fair.

Another survey by the Tennessee Department of Education suggests that satisfaction with the state’s evaluation system is on the rise as teacher feedback continues to be incorporated.

The Shelby County board, which oversees funding for Tennessee’s largest district, is sending its resolution to Gov. Bill Haslam, Education Commissioner Candice McQueen, and the Tennessee General Assembly. Below is the full text:

It’s past the halfway point at the Tennessee legislature. Here are proposals that still could change the state’s schools.

2017-04-14T19:25:46+00:00

Only time will tell which bills passed by the Tennessee legislature will end up altering the lives of the state’s students and teachers.

Sometimes, like in the case of a bill requiring more recess last year, the impact is accidental, and lawmakers have to rush back to undo what they did the year before. And other times, bills end up barely making ripples, like a 2015 law that created a voucher-like program with special education students — that as of now, has only 35 participants.

After nearly three months of meetings, less than half of the more than 150 separate education proposals originally filed with the Tennessee General Assembly are still standing. They touch on issues ranging from school discipline to the Achievement School District.

And 10 measures have already passed both chambers. Of those, four have received Gov. Bill Haslam’s signature, making them law.

Here are some of the topics we’ve been watching, and where they stand.

School vouchers still face cost questions

The biggest decision legislators will likely face in the next few weeks is whether to widen the door for school vouchers by creating a Memphis pilot program. The committees in charge of keeping state spending in check still have to approve the program before it’s considered by the full House and Senate, and opponents won’t let the proposal through without a fight. The proposal would cost the state $300,000 a year — and potentially up to $18 million a year for Shelby County Schools and the Achievement School District, whose students would be the only ones eligible to use the public funds used on them to pay private school tuition. Still, more expensive voucher programs have made it through the finance committees in years past, and limiting the program to Memphis has also limited the overall cost.

A bill to expand Tennessee’s special education voucher program is also still alive. The proposal from Rep. Roger Kane, a Republican from Knoxville, and Sen. Dolores Gresham, a Somerville Republican, also awaits votes in the House Finance committees. The fiscal review committee has not yet posted the potential cost to the state.

The state is changing its approach to low-performing schools

A bill to change the way the state intervenes in low-performing schools has already passed both chambers, and the governor’s signature on it is a foregone conclusion. The proposal from the Tennessee Department of Education came out of its plan to comply with the new federal education law, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, and significantly curbs the authority of the Achievement School District, the state’s turnaround district.

The weight of test scores in teacher evaluations is (temporarily) going down (again)

Due to the rockier-than-expected transition to Tennessee’s new state test, TNReady, the Department of Education went to lawmakers with another proposal to temporarily tweak how much students’ improvement on standardized tests counts in teacher evaluations. Under the measure, which has already passed both chambers, student growth from TNReady would count for only 10 percent of teachers’ evaluation scores this year and 20 percent next year. That’s compared to the 35 to 50 percent, depending on the subject, that test scores counted in 2014-15 before the state switched to its more rigorous test.

Lawmakers are trying to figure out how often kids should be playing at school

Haslam has signed a law that rolls back a year-old recess requirement for multiple sessions of “unstructured” play a day. Now Tennessee teachers will have weekly requirements, instead of daily ones: 130 minutes of physical activity per week for elementary schools, and 90 minutes for middle and high schools. Meanwhile, a bill to require elementary school students have physical education instruction at least twice a week still awaits votes in finance committees.

The state wants to strike a compromise between school districts and charter schools

The fight over Haslam’s proposed gas tax has continually delayed the House Finance Committee’s vote on the High-Quality Charter Act, a wide-ranging bill written by the State Department of Education in an attempt to address the often rocky relationships between the state’s 105 charter schools and the districts that oversee them. It’s also almost through the Senate, where it’s awaiting placement on the calendar.

Are schools about to get a $250 million bonus from the state?

A bill to increase school spending by $250 million sounds almost outlandish, but Rep. Craig Fitzhugh and Sen. Jeff Yarbro, both Democrats, are receiving a surprising amount of traction for their K-12 Block Grant Act, which reallocates excess tax revenue to the state’s public schools. The money wouldn’t be able to cover salaries or other recurring expenditures. Instead, it would go to the extra school improvement projects that the state’s education funding formula, called the Basic Education Program, doesn’t cover. The bill awaits a vote in the House and Senate finance committees. It doesn’t yet have Haslam’s support, but Fitzhugh says he’s in talks with the governor.

William Sanders, pioneer of controversial value-added model for judging teachers, dies

2017-03-20T21:05:03+00:00

William Sanders, the Tennessee statistician and researcher who came up with the nation’s first system for evaluating teachers based on student growth, kicking off a contentious, decades-long debate about how best to measure learning, has died.

Sanders died late last week of natural causes in a hospital in Franklin, Tenn., his family said. He was 74.

A former professor at the University of Tennessee and senior research fellow with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Sanders is best known as the developer of the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System, or TVAAS. That model has become the foundation for judging the effectiveness of teachers in Tennessee public schools, and has been emulated in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and cities across the nation — playing a key role in one of education reform’s central debates.

Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen called Sanders’ death “a loss to the education community.”

“During his career, Dr. Sanders made significant contributions to the conversation on how to distinguish our most effective educators in terms of improving academic achievement,” McQueen said in a statement on Monday.

Sanders’ value-added model, also known as the Educational Value-Added Assessment System, became a lightning rod for criticism by many teachers and teachers unions skeptical about whether it yields fair and unbiased estimates.

The model has prompted numerous federal lawsuits charging that the evaluation system, which is now tied to teacher pay and tenure in Tennessee, doesn’t take into account student-level variables such as growing up in poverty. In 2014, the American Statistical Association called its validity into question, and other critics have said TVAAS should not be the sole tool used to judge teachers.

The method measures the effects of a teacher, school or district on student performance by tracking the progress of students against the progress they would be expected to make based on their previous performance. The formula is complex, the method requires a huge database, and the name is a mouthful to say. But the model is meant to show the “value” that was added by each teacher, school or district when measured by the change in student test scores each year.

Sanders’ research soon zeroed in on teachers as the most important part of the equation.

“Determining the effectiveness of individual teachers hold the most promise because, again and again, findings from TVAAS research show teacher effectiveness to be the most important factor in the academic growth of students,” he co-wrote in a 1998 paper. “A component linking teacher effectiveness to student outcomes is a necessary part of any educational evaluation system.”

Sanders went on to become a national leader in policy discussions on value-added assessments.

In his obituary, his family said that Sanders’ findings challenged decades of assumptions that the impact of student family life, income or ethnicity superseded the quality of classroom instruction. That conclusion has been complicated by other research showing that teachers matter more than other aspects of a school, but not as much as outside factors like poverty.

Sanders “stood for a hopeful view that teacher effectiveness dwarfs all other factors as a predictor of student academic growth,” his family said. He believed that “educational influence matters and teachers matter most.”

Growing up on a Tennessee dairy farm, Sanders devoted most of his research to agricultural or wildlife questions at the University of Tennessee until 1981, when he came across a newspaper article suggesting that there was no way to hold teachers accountable based on test scores. He disagreed and wrote the office of then-Gov. Lamar Alexander to say that the effectiveness of teaching could be measured against the rate of student progress.

“Basically, all I was trying to do is [say] here’s the statistical methodology that solves the problem that some of the critics are talking about,” he told Nashville Public Radio in 2014.

The Tennessee Department of Education commissioned his first wave of research beginning in 1982, and Sanders began by looking at student and teacher data in Knox County. He found that he could measure the impact that a teacher had on a student’s trajectory if he tracked that student’s data over time.

The resulting TVAAS methodology linked student academic outcomes to educational evaluation for the first time. Tennessee teachers began using the data in 1997, and their evaluations became tied to the tool under a 2010 state law.

While teachers and teachers unions pushed back, state lawmakers followed the urging of then-Gov. Phil Bredesen, who said changing the way teachers are evaluated would help the state win a $500 million Race to the Top grant, which Tennessee went on to receive.

TVAAS made Sanders a target for some teachers, who felt like he didn’t understand their work and created a system that was used against them unfairly. But colleagues remembered him as a teacher himself who cared about teachers and students.

“Pennsylvania has Bill to thank for changing the conversations about students — from why they can’t achieve to discussions about growing student[s] at all levels,” said Kristin Lewald, who spearheaded the TVAAS counterpart in that state.

For third straight year, TNReady prompts Tennessee to adjust teacher evaluation formula

2017-03-16T22:32:08+00:00

First, Tennessee asked lawmakers to make temporary changes to its teacher evaluations in anticipation of switching to a new test, called TNReady.

Then, TNReady’s online platform failed, and the state asked lawmakers to tweak the formula once more.

Now, the State Department of Education is asking for another change in response to last year’s test cancellation, which occurred shortly after the legislative session concluded.

Under a proposal scheduled for consideration next Monday by the full House, student growth from TNReady would count for only 10 percent of teachers’ evaluation scores and 20 percent next school year. That’s compared to the 35 to 50 percent, depending on the subject, that test scores counted in 2014-15 before the state switched to its more rigorous test.

The bill, carried by Rep. Eddie Smith of Knoxville, is meant to address teachers’ concerns about being evaluated by a brand new test.

Because testing was cancelled for grades 3-8 last spring, many students are taking the new test this year for the first time.

“If we didn’t have this phase-in … there wouldn’t be a relief period for teachers,” said Elizabeth Fiveash, assistant commissioner of policy. “We are trying to acknowledge that we’re moving to a new assessment and a new type of assessment.”

The proposal also mandates that TNReady scores count for only 10 percent of student grades this year, and for 15 to 25 percent by 2018-19.

The Tennessee Education Association has advocated to scrap student test scores from teacher evaluations altogether, but its lobbyist, Jim Wrye, told lawmakers on Tuesday that the organization appreciates slowing the process yet again.

“We think that limiting it to 10 percent this year is a wise policy,” he said.

To incorporate test scores into teacher evaluations, Tennessee uses TVAAS, a formula that’s supposed to show how much teachers contributed to individual student growth. TVAAS, which is short for the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System, was designed to be based on three years of testing. Last year’s testing cancellation, though, means many teachers will be scored on only two years of data, a sore point for the TEA.

“Now we have a missing link in that data,” Wrye said. “We are very keenly interested in seeing what kind of TVAAS scores that are generated from this remarkable experience.”

Although TVAAS, in theory, measures a student’s growth, it really measures how a student does relative to his or her peers. The state examines how students who have scored at the same levels on prior assessments perform on the latest test. Students are expected to perform about as well on TNReady as their peers with comparable prior achievement in previous years. If they perform better, they will positively impact their teacher’s score.

Using test scores to measure teachers’ growth has been the source of other debates around evaluations.

Historically, teachers of non-tested subjects such as physical education or art have been graded in part by schoolwide test scores. The House recently passed a bill that would require the state to develop other ways to measure growth for those teachers, and it is now awaiting passage by the Senate.

Minority students less likely to have teachers rated effective, data show

2017-02-06T20:16:11+00:00

An overwhelming majority of Colorado teachers and principals received the state’s two highest evaluation ratings during the 2014-15 school year, according to data released Monday.

But by at least one measure, the state’s most at-risk students were less likely to have teachers or principals with those high marks — another example of a disparity in schools based on factors including students’ race and family income.

About 88 percent of teachers and 83 percent of principals received one of the state’s top two ratings.

Colorado schools with the highest concentration of minority students had fewer teachers and principals rated as effective or higher compared to schools with the smallest minority populations.

Eighty-two percent of teachers and 74 percent of principals in schools with the highest minority populations were rated effective. Meanwhile, in schools with the smallest minority population, 91 percent of teachers and 87 percent of principals were rated effective.

Monday’s release comes nearly seven years after state lawmakers adopted Colorado’s landmark teacher and principal evaluation system with bipartisan support. The 2014-15 school year was the first year it was fully in effect.

Colorado’s evaluation system became a national model to many education reform advocates because it links a teacher’s rating to student performance. But the system has been under constant attack from teachers unions and some Democratic lawmakers. Among other criticisms, opponents believe teachers have too little control over how a student performs on standardized tests.

The evaluation system requires that teachers and principals receive an annual review. The ratings measure factors such as how well teachers know their content areas and how they manage their classrooms, based on observation.

The most controversial measure is student growth data. Student growth measures how much a student learns year-over-year compared to their academic peers. While each school district gets to decide how to measure growth, the law suggests using results from the state’s annual math and English tests.

School districts were required to measure and report student growth during the 2014-15 school year, but the results did not have to factor into a teacher’s overall rating. That led to some confusion, and some districts did not report growth, state officials said.

Beginning in the 2015-16 school year, all evaluations must include student growth data.

Because school districts have great discretion over how teacher and principal evaluations are carried out, the state cautioned against comparing districts’ results.

Seven education storylines to watch as the Colorado General Assembly gets to work

2017-01-07T01:57:16+00:00

As Colorado lawmakers return to the Capitol on Wednesday to begin crafting education policy and setting spending priorities, they face significant budget challenges, an uncertain transition in Washington and a growing chorus of educators fatigued by change.

The topics lawmakers are expected to address — including testing, school accountability and funding — are familiar. But the nation’s new education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, and the likelihood the Trump administration will relax regulations in public education could provide lawmakers with new opportunities to rethink the state’s own education laws.

Still, how the state funds its schools is likely to take up the most oxygen, lawmakers and Capitol observers agree. Economic forecasts since June have shifted, creating a moving target for budget drafters. As of December, the economy was rosier — but classrooms still could see cuts because of Colorado’s complicated tax laws.

How the state’s education landscape looks four months from now when the legislature adjourns is anyone’s guess. In the past, the state has been recognized for both being on the forefront of education reform and for spending so little on students.

It’s been an epicenter in the debate over standardized tests, but avoided a showdown over academic standards that establish what students are expected to know at each grade level.

Lawmakers and observers agree that substantial changes this session are unlikely. But a foundation could be laid for bigger changes in 2018.

The status quo — at least for another year — would be welcomed by school leaders who have spent nearly a decade putting in place education reform efforts ranging from literacy requirements for young students to updated graduation guidelines.

“A year with fewer education bills would really be a great year,” said Diane Doney, Littleton Public Schools’ chief financial officer and president of the Colorado Association of School Executives. “But I would love to see the funding figured out.”

Here are seven storylines we’ll be watching this year based on more than a dozen interviews with lawmakers and Capitol observers:

State Reps. Bob Rankin and Millie Hamner want to transform the way the state funds its schools.

Last session, Rankin, a Carbondale Republican, and Hamner, a Democrat from Frisco, hosted several unofficial study sessions to discuss school finance. That work carried over through the summer in private conversations with a diverse group of lawmakers including state Reps. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat, and Jim Wilson, a Salida Republican, and state Sen. Owen Hill, a Colorado Springs Republican.

While they’re not quite ready to introduce legislation on opening day, two concepts are in play.

The first would be a bill, which has not been drafted yet, that would ask voters to reset a statewide tax rate, known as mills, on property. Currently, every county and school district taxes personal and business property at varying rates. Some school districts like Weld earn large sums from their local property taxes, while others like Fountain gain very little.

Sen. Andy Kerr, Rep. Millie Hamner and then-Rep. Kevin Priola discussed the 2016 session at a Chalkbeat event. (Nicholas Garcia/Chalkbeat).

A combination of constitutional amendments and state statutes leave school districts powerless in setting their tax rate. The effect has been the portion of local tax dollars put toward school funding has shrunk and the state has had to increase its share in per pupil funding.

Rankin and Hamner have yet to decide what the new tax rate would be.

They face a difficult path. In an interview, Hamner said she wants the Joint Budget Committee to sponsor the bill that would refer the measure to the ballot. That would require unanimous support from all six members. If the budget committee agrees to sponsor the bill, it would need to win support from two-thirds of both chambers.

So far, neither Senate nor House leadership has given much thought to the proposal, which was first discussed at a Joint Budget Committee meeting in December.

Hamner and Rankin’s second concept would set up a committee and hire a third party to establish a new long-term vision for Colorado’s education system, including what modern classrooms should look like and how they should be paid for. Colorado currently funds its schools based on a formula written in the 1990s.

“The leadership has to come from the legislature,” Rankin said.

Rankin and Hamner are currently working with legislative legal services’ deputy director, Julie Pelegrin, who has helped draft most of the state’s education laws since the 1990s, on their bill. They’re also lobbying their peers to shore up support before they introduce anything.

“It’s very delicate,” Hamner said. “We want to make sure when we do introduce a bill, it has a lot of support from the very beginning, or else it could be destined for failure.”

It’s probably going to take a lot of creative accounting to keep cuts from schools.

Back in November, Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, proposed a slight increase in per pupil funding while still increasing the school funding shortfall, known as the negative factor, by about $46 million.

In December, the state learned that the economy was doing better than expected, it might have to issue refunds to taxpayers, and that the state was going to have to lower the personal property tax rate to meet a constitutionally required ratio with business property taxes.

Bottom line: lawmakers are going to have to make some very difficult decisions.

“I’m so depressed because of our situation,” Hamner said. “Unless we can reach some bipartisan agreement of how we think about the refunds, I think we’re going to have a really tough budget year.”

The biggest policy fight will likely be over charter school funding — though the outcome seems clear.

Hill, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, is ready to bring a proposal to require that local school districts share voter-approved tax increases with their charter schools.

While his proposal last year had bipartisan support in the Senate, House Democrats spiked it at a committee hearing.

With similarly split chambers this year, the same fate all but certainly awaits Hill’s bill.

Several lawmakers are ready to rethink ninth-grade testing. And they might have a way to convince the governor to support their plan.

Two years ago when lawmakers first took on revamping the state’s testing system, there was disagreement about whether to eliminate ninth-grade testing. But Hickenlooper insisted on keeping the tests and his veto power ensured they would remain.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper at his 2016 State of the State Address.

Lawmakers are anxious to test whether might Hickenlooper might budge when pressed again.

One of the first education-related bills you can expect to see introduced will be from state Sen. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora. While the details are still being worked out, Todd’s bill would provide some flexibility around ninth-grade testing.

Currently, ninth graders are required to take the state’s PARCC English and math test. Todd’s bill would allow districts to choose between the PARCC test or administer an exam more aligned to a college entrance exam such as the SAT, which Colorado juniors will begin taking this year as their required test.

The nation’s new education law — and nominee for education secretary — are wild cards.

When lawmakers first heard about the Every Student Succeeds Act, the nation’s new federal law, they were gleeful. In their minds, Colorado would have full control of its own education system, with no interference from Washington.

Just over a year later, legislators aren’t so sure.

“I think part of what’s going on is that there is an effort to understand the freedoms that ESSA will give us, and the freedoms ESSA doesn’t give us,” said state Rep. Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican.

Both parties are expressing caution.

“I think it’s important to take the opportunity to make our system better,” said Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat from Lakewood and chair of the House Education Committee. “But we have to do it responsibly — and that takes time.”

Just how long it will take lawmakers to start putting their ideas to paper is unclear. They’ll be taking some signals from new leadership in Washington. Next week, confirmation hearings will begin for President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, Michigan billionaire and school choice advocate Betsy DeVos.

“I think we may see some big things,” said Lundeen, who plans on taking a very close look at the state’s accountability system. “There’s just not black letters on white paper yet.”

Is this the year rural schools get the flexibility they want? Rep. Jim Wilson hopes so.

One of the lawmakers who was most excited about the new federal education law was Rep. Jim Wilson, a Salida Republican. He’d hoped the new law would provide some relief for rural schools.

Wilson has regularly run bills trying to eliminate paperwork and provide flexibility for rural schools.

“If districts are doing well, why are they required to turn in the same reports with the same frequency?” he said, suggesting some schools shouldn’t have to file regular reports that track goals and progress.

Wilson and other Republicans also hope to make headway on the issue of teacher hiring. Teachers in Colorado are required to hold a license to teach. Some want to relax those rules for rural schools, where hiring a licensed teacher can be difficult.

“It’s always a battle,” Wilson said.

One possible logjam for rural flexibility is a proposal from the State Board of Education. The board hopes to find a sponsor to carry a bill that would put some limitations on waivers they grant. Currently, once the state grants a waiver from state law, the board cannot revoke it or review a school district’s progress. Members, at the least, want some sort of authority to check in on how the waivers are working in school districts.

The board has not found a sponsor for its proposed legislation.

Don’t expect too much help on the state’s teacher shortage.

Lawmakers on the state’s education committees are more than aware that the state is in a crunch. Colorado’s teacher prep programs aren’t producing enough teachers to replace the number of teachers retiring. That’s especially true for middle and high school math and science teachers. And rural schools are especially at risk of being short teachers.

Stanley Teacher Prep resident Lily Wool works with kindergartner Samori McIntosh at Tollgate Elementary School in Aurora. Wood’s residency program is merging the Boettcher Teacher Residency program.

Remedies are not quick to come, though.

There’s the usual talk about rewriting the state’s teacher evaluation law. The law requires teachers to be evaluated every year, and 50 percent of the evaluation must be based on students’ academic growth.

And some unfinished business on Hickenlooper’s agenda includes reforming the state’s teacher licensing process. For teachers to obtain a license, they must pass a series of tests. The law governing teacher licenses hasn’t been updated since the 1990s.

But whether there’s a compromise to be found between Hickenlooper and different camps of lawmakers — those supported by the state’s teachers union and those supported by education reform groups — is the big question.

Todd, the Democrat from Aurora, is a former teacher. She agrees that teacher prep programs need to be updated. But, she said, “My hope is that when we talk about teacher evaluations, quality of teachers, preparation of teachers, that all of those things are really strengthening the individual to go into the classroom and make them successful.”

In a win for the UFT, city reaches deal that moves further away from evaluating teachers based on multiple-choice tests

2016-12-21T20:47:21+00:00

New York City teachers may soon be rated based in part on collections of their students’ work, under a deal struck by the city that continues a shift away from using multiple-choice tests to judge teachers.

The announcement answers a big question raised last year when New York policymakers banned the use of grades 3-8 math and English state tests in teacher evaluations: What should replace those scores?

Districts across the state were on the hook to come up with an answer by the end of 2016. On Wednesday, schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña and leaders of the city’s teachers and principals unions said they had agreed on new options which would provide more “authentic” measures of learning, including city-created tests in a variety of new subjects, lengthier projects, and “student learning inventories,” or compilations of student work.

“The best evaluation tool is the work that students do day-to-day in the classroom,” Fariña said. “Sometimes it’s not the end product that matters but the process to get there.”

That’s a significant shift from what city officials were saying in 2010, when they were battling over the use of test scores in teacher ratings for the first time. Spurred by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the prospect of extra money from the Obama administration, lawmakers had overhauled the state’s evaluation law to require teachers be rated in part based on how much their students’ test scores went up — then left many details up to districts and their local teachers unions.

Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted to make sure the new evaluations would lead to low-scoring teachers losing their jobs, while the United Federation of Teachers argued that test scores aren’t a useful measure of student learning. A multiyear showdown between the union and the city followed.

The evaluations have seen many rounds of changes in the years since, but few teachers were ever removed because of their low ratings. Meanwhile, anti-testing sentiment has grown, and Cuomo’s 2015 push for a teacher evaluation law increasing the weight of state standardized tests in evaluations helped inspire a testing boycott movement — and a moratorium on the use of those exams.

The new evaluation scheme will go into effect this school year, officials said Wednesday, if it receives state approval. It will likely be in place for the next three years.

Under the new plan, the other main ingredient in New York City teacher ratings, classroom observations, will not change see big changes, union officials said.

A new legal requirement that some observations be conducted by outsiders, not school administrators, was supposed to kick in this spring. But after districts including New York City complained about the burden, the Board of Regents decided to offer waivers from the requirement. New York City plans to apply for one, officials said.

Schools will also continue to be able to choose from a menu of tests for deciding how to evaluate teachers. Some of the options will remain in place, like the “Measures of Student Learning” created by city teachers in recent years that consist of essay prompts or performance-based exams. The new option to present portfolios of student work would include assignments coming from teachers and others created centrally by the Department of Education.

Advocacy groups that have fought for evaluation systems that identify more low-performing teachers and remove them from schools immediately criticized the new system. Jenny Sedlis, executive director of StudentsFirstNY, called it “Mayor de Blasio’s scheme to rate every teacher effective.”

But there was little tension between union and city officials, who stood side by side and presented a coordinated message Wednesday morning.

“This is the first time where I can stand here before you and say we are moving in a better direction,” teachers union chief Michael Mulgrew said.

Your guide to district- and school-level TNReady scores

2016-12-13T01:47:31+00:00

Tennessee soon will release district- and school-level scores from the state’s new, and supposedly harder, standardized test. And for many, the results will be grim.

While the State Department of Education released statewide scores last month, this week’s scores will provide the first look at how individual high schools and districts fared in the first year under the state’s new testing program, called TNReady.

The statewide scores showed far fewer high school students scoring on grade-level than in years past, though state officials have cautioned against comparisons. Education Commissioner Candice McQueen emphasized that drops in math, English and social studies are because the new tests for those subjects are harder and are aligned to more rigorous standards.

Tennessee is only releasing scores for high schools because end-of-year tests for middle and elementary schools were cancelled in April after a series of logistical and technical challenges. The testmaker, Measurement Inc., was fired.

Here’s what you need to know about the new test scores, and how they will be used:

Scores are supposed to provide more accurate information about postsecondary readiness.

Statewide scores mirrored Tennessee’s ACT scores, which suggest that they more accurately reflect how ready students are for college. With more open-ended questions and fewer multiple-choice ones, TNReady and the state’s new social studies TCAP aim to measure critical thinking skills necessary to succeed after high school. The math and English tests also were aligned for the first time to the Common Core State Standards, which have been in all Tennessee classrooms since 2012 and are supposed to be geared more toward college readiness than previous benchmarks. (The state is rolling out revised standards based on the Common Core next school year.) Science scores are the exception, as the state won’t revamp science tests until new standards are phased in during the 2018-2019 school year.

Scores from this year and last year are apples and oranges.

Most schools will see declines in passing rates, but that doesn’t mean that the schools declined in quality. State officials emphasize that any big differences in scores are a reflection of the new test, not changes to the schools or districts.

But the state is still measuring growth.

Even though direct comparisons of test scores are invalid, they still can measure growth, say state officials.

As always, Tennessee is using its complicated value-added formula, which is supposed to show how much teachers contribute to individual student growth. In theory, the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System, or TVAAS, measures a student’s growth, but it really measures how a student does relative to his or her peers. This year, the state examined how students who scored at the same levels on prior assessments performed on TNReady in 2015-16. Students were expected to perform about as well on TNReady as their peers with comparable prior achievement. If they performed better than their peers, no matter how their performance compares to last year’s, they will positively impact their teacher’s or school’s score.

Teachers can choose whether to count scores in teacher evaluation scores.

High school teachers can choose not to have TVAAS calculated with their 2015-16 evaluation scores if it doesn’t boost their overall score. Instead, they can use TVAAS from years past.

This year’s scores won’t be able to put schools on the state’s “priority school” list.

Schools on the state’s priority list — which identify those in Tennessee’s bottom 5 percent — have been eligible for state takeover in recent years. But this year’s scores can’t land a school on that list. To address this year’s bumpy transition to TNReady, the State Department of Education plans to release two priority lists in 2017: one that includes available TNReady data from this year, and one that only includes data from the 2014-15 and 2016-17 school years. A school must be on both priority lists to be eligible for state intervention.

The score reports will look different.

This year’s scores no longer will be categorized as advanced, proficient, basic or below basic. The state has rebranded performance levels as mastered, on-track, approaching grade level, and below grade-level. State officials also unveiled a redesigned score report this fall. It’s designed to help students, parents and educators understand better what the student scores say about their college readiness. The reports also will offer next steps for improvement.

These 16 school districts haven’t updated their teacher contracts to comply with evaluation law, report finds

2016-12-07T01:04:31+00:00

Some of Colorado’s largest school districts have not updated contract language governing layoffs to factor in teacher performance as required by state law, according to a new report.

Such layoffs are exceedingly rare — and representatives from two districts named in the Independence Institute report said they would follow the law if the situation arose.

The report, released Monday by the Denver-based libertarian think tank, found 16 school districts including Denver and St. Vrain have provisions in their teacher contracts that violate the state’s educator effectiveness laws.

Passed with bipartisan support in 2010, Colorado’s educator effectiveness law changed the way schools were supposed to evaluate teachers, and lay them off if necessary.

That provision of the law went into effect in 2012 and requires schools to include a teacher’s performance as a factor in deciding whom to lay off if teaching positions must be cut.

The report says that 16 school districts — slightly less than half of all the Colorado school districts that negotiate with teachers unions — are not considering performance when they need to reduce the overall number of teachers.

A true “reduction in force,” when a district must make layoffs, is a rare event, said Ross Izard, the author of the report.

Michelle Berge, deputy general counsel for Denver Public Schools, said the district’s policy has long expired and is not enforceable.

“DPS had the option to renegotiate new provisions regarding (layoffs) in order to align with SB191 requirements,” Berge wrote in an email. “We elected not to do so because we have been projecting student enrollment growth for so many years that we knew we would not have the conditions for a reduction in force.”

Officials from DPS were unable to identify the last time the district had to use across-the-board layoffs. The district has cut teaching jobs at individual schools.

The St. Vrain School District last laid off teachers about nine years ago, said Ella Padilla, assistant superintendent of human resources.

Like Denver, the district has not prioritized updating that section of its teachers contract due to resources, she said. She added, “state law trumps the district’s agreement.”

Padilla said she believes the district is in compliance with all other provisions of the state’s effectiveness law.

Izard said just because a school district hasn’t hasn’t had to lay off teachers in recent memory doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

“The economy is volatile,” he said, noting a sluggish economic forecast for the state.

One school district named in the report said it has updated its policies. In 2014, The Cherry Creek School District wrote a new “displacement” policy that outlines how teacher positions are eliminated.

It “does address using evaluations to determine how teachers would be dismissed in the event the board of education took formal action to eliminate positions,” said Tustin Amole, the district’s spokeswoman. “And it would require board action to eliminate positions to start the layoff process which is outlined in the policy.”

Here are the 16 districts the report says has out for out of date policies:

Boulder Valley School District
Brighton 27J
Centennial R-1
Center 26 JT
Cherry Creek School District
Denver Public Schools
Gunnison Watershed RE-1J
Lake County R-1
Mapleton Public Schools
Pueblo County 70
Salida R-32J
St. Vrain Valley School District
Summit RE-1
Telluride R-1
Trinidad 1
Westminster Public Schools

Update: This post has been updated to reflect new information from the Cherry Creek School District. An earlier version said the district has not updated its policy, but it has. This post has also been updated to better reflect when a reduction in force can occur.

Union pushing more ‘authentic’ assessments in teacher evaluations

2016-09-20T10:00:39+00:00

When the dust settled after this year’s legislative session, New York state’s 2015 teacher evaluation law had been effectively dismantled.

That evaluation system, designed to give more weight to standardized test scores, could no longer include grades 3-8 math and English state tests — and districts were given an extra few months to figure out how to fill that gap.

Now, details are emerging about what that might look like in New York City.

In an email sent to United Federation of Teachers chapter leaders, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said the union is currently negotiating with the city to add more “authentic” measures of student learning in teacher evaluations.

“Our goal in the current negotiations is to have as many options as possible of authentic student learning not based on standardized test scores,” the email reads.

Mulgrew reiterated that point at a UFT meeting last week, where he reportedly told UFT chapter leaders he would not agree to a new teacher evaluation system until he had secured more such “authentic” student learning measures. (Chapter leader Arthur Goldstein blogged about it after the meeting.)

The union did not comment further on what those assessments might include, since they are still hashing out the details of the new evaluation system with the city. The new evaluations must be finalized by the end of December, but in Mulgrew’s email to chapter leaders, he said he hopes to finish earlier in the school year.

New York City already has a system of exams, beyond the state’s traditional standardized tests, that schools can choose to factor into their teacher evaluations. These exams are called “Measures of Student Learning” or MOSLs, and they take a number of forms, including essays, oral reading assessments, or performance-based music exams. In the email to chapter leaders, Mulgrew indicated that MOSL options might expand before the end of negotiations.

In an April op-ed in City & State, Mulgrew called for more semester-long assessments. “As New York weans itself off its reliance on fill-in-the-bubble tests, it should be looking at strategies like projects and portfolios that cover an entire semester or even a year of work and offer a real assessment of what students can do,” he wrote.

Jake Jacobs, an art teacher at New Directions Secondary School in the Bronx, said assessments that show learning over time would be a more “authentic” way to measure a teacher’s work.

“What ‘authentic’ assessments mean in my department is actual student work, sometimes with teacher feedback on it, sometimes showing progress,” Jacobs wrote in an email. “Maybe in a portfolio, digitally, or on display where it can be analyzed to determine what’s going on in that classroom over time.”

Experimenting with new types of assessments is in line with the State Education Department’s priorities. Commissioner MaryEllen Elia wanted New York to participate in a pilot that will allow seven states to experiment with new types of assessments, though that project may be derailed by a lack of funding.

State officials have to approve any new assessments used to evaluate teachers, but so far they seem open to more creative options. Officials said they welcome applications that include more authentic measures of student learning, as long as those assessments are valid and reliable.

Most Memphis teachers are due a 3 percent raise this year, but who and when?

2016-08-29T23:03:10+00:00

Like many educators in Tennessee’s largest school district, Comeshia Williams was a little confused about her first paycheck of the new school year.

A 17-year veteran of Memphis schools, Williams and her colleagues at Northaven Elementary School got their first check in mid-August. But their salaries didn’t reflect the 3 percent raise allotted for top teachers under Shelby County Schools’ 2016-17 budget.

“The whole pay scale for the district has changed over the past few years,” Williams said. “There hasn’t been a lot of conversation. That’s led to a lot of confusion among teachers.”

Details about the new compensation plan emerged last week when Superintendent Dorsey Hopson emailed teachers with an update.

Educators will get the raise if they rank a 3, 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 to 5 on their last evaluations, he wrote. That includes not only teachers but librarians, counselors, instructional facilitators, coaches, social workers and psychologists. (Last year, 89 percent of district educators scored a 3, 4 or 5 on their evaluations.)

Hopson said the increases will show up in teachers’ paychecks beginning in October after the district receives teacher performance data from the State Department of Education. The raises will be retroactive.

In Tennessee, teacher evaluations are tied to student scores on the state’s standardized tests. But due to the cancellation of TNReady tests for grades 3-8 last spring, Shelby County Schools will rely on guidance from the State Department of Education’s evaluation model for rating teachers of those grades, said district spokeswoman Kristin Tallent.

Evaluations for high school teachers will still include student test scores, since TNReady wasn’t canceled for those grades. But those scores are a source of anxiety for secondary teachers, said Josalyn Tresvant, an instructional facilitator at Kate Bond Elementary School and a former teaching fellow with the U.S. Department of Education.

“We’re not confident the data will truly reflect the hard work put into students. There was so much stress surrounding the rollout of the test,” Tresvant said.

Tikeila Rucker, a district teacher and president of the United Educators Association, was surprised to learn that the district will plug TNReady data into evaluations for high school teachers.

“We were petitioning that all teachers receive a raise this year,” Rucker said. “I don’t really understand waiting to factor in results from a test that wasn’t ready. … But the fact remains that cost of living keeps increasing and our pay hasn’t, so this raise will be a very good thing for most of our teachers.”

Shelby County’s raise is being funded using new state money for teacher pay increases, according to Tallent.

This spring, the legislature approved Gov. Bill Haslam’s plan for a 4 percent increase for Tennessee’s K-12 educators. However, not all teachers will see that increase in their paychecks because of a provision that gives spending leeway to districts that already match or better the state’s weighted average salary of $43,216. Shelby County Schools has the highest average weighted salaries in the state at $54,187. (Read Chalkbeat’s explainer on why the disbursement of Tennessee’s two-year investment in teacher raises can vary from district to district.)

This year’s raise by Shelby County Schools will be the second significant increase for teachers since the 2013 merger of Memphis City Schools and legacy Shelby County Schools. The district awarded raises in 2015 based on seniority. This year’s raises are the first awarded based on performance.

Tresvant said the change in how the district awards raises is all the more reason to clearly communicate the process.

“They need to be even more transparent in their messaging around raises,” Tresvant said. “It would have been awesome to know at the beginning of the year what was going on, so teachers weren’t questioning or confused. Teachers don’t want to feel like this is coming on the backend.”