You go to a teacher college and student teach for free. An unpaid internship for a semester or longer awaits you and if you are lucky, you are hired out of a hiring pool of most likely 1,000-2,000 applicants and maybe ten people are interviewed for a scant few openings. You are the best of the best most personnel directors would like to think. The thing is, some in The Lansing Department of Education (DOE) would like to change the perception that 97% are effective in the classroom. This figure is derived from data compiled by the DOE where administrators evaluate teachers and make almost everyone mildly or highly effective. When everyone passes according to Lansing, why evaluate teachers at all. In a story by the Detroit Free Press, they break down how teacher evaluations will occur as soon as next year.
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Grading teachers proves difficult: Staffs at some of state's worst schools get gushing reviews
November 29, 2012
By Lori Higgins
Detroit Free Press Education Writer
A first look at how effective teachers are across the state
provides a clear picture of just how far school districts must go to
have strong evaluation systems in place that give teachers the kind of
feedback they need to improve.
The new state data find that about 97% of the state's 96,000 teachers were rated effective or highly effective during the 2011-12 school year -- the first year districts had to assign one of four ratings to teachers. Those ratings were: highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective.
Some of the state's worst-performing schools doled out favorable ratings to teachers: 48 of the state's 146 priority schools -- so named because they are in the bottom 5% academically -- rated all of their teachers in the top two categories. Several said all of their teachers were highly effective.
Related content
• How does your school rate its teachers' effectiveness? Search this database
• PDF: Report on need for smart teacher evaluation in Michigan (2.1 MB)
• PDF: Michigan Dept. of Education report on teacher effectiveness ratings
But state data also show that more teachers in priority schools were rated in the bottom categories than other schools.
The data isn't surprising given that it was the first year districts had to report the effectiveness ratings, said Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Education.
The ratings will likely change, she said, "once there's a more common system and a common measurement."
That common system will come via the work of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness, a panel working to develop a statewide system for evaluating educators, as well as guidelines for districts that opt to develop their own systems.
The fact that few teachers were rated ineffective makes the work of the council crucial, experts say.
It tells the council "that districts need a lot of support and assistance in how to move forward," said Sandi Jacobs, vice president and managing director of state policy for the National Council on Teacher Quality.
That point is also illustrated in a report the Education Trust-Midwest released today. It analyzed the evaluation systems in 28 school districts and found few of the systems met a set of standards they say research indicates are necessary for a strong system.
"All of them fell short on at least one component. Many fell short on all of them," said Drew Jacobs, a data and policy analyst for the Education Trust-Midwest, a Royal Oak-based nonprofit education policy organization.
Among those standards: having annual observations; using state test data in evaluating teachers for whom the data is available; providing specific directions on how to score all criteria that teachers are evaluated on, and having a sophisticated observation process.
The observation process -- in which an evaluator comes into a teacher's classroom to observe -- is where schools tend to struggle, said Robert Floden, co-director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.
What's missing, he said, are resources. Teachers should be observed multiple times by an evaluator, but that's often difficult given the amount of time that goes into multiple observations.
"The system we have -- and Michigan is not unique -- says it's really important ... but the system does not invest resources in making that happen," Floden said.
Those resources are crucial, however.
"In order for this to have the kind of impact educators and families want to see ... there needs to be a significant amount of investment so teachers really benefit and grow as educators," said Nate Walker, a policy analyst at the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan.
Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6651 or lhiggins@freepress.com
The new state data find that about 97% of the state's 96,000 teachers were rated effective or highly effective during the 2011-12 school year -- the first year districts had to assign one of four ratings to teachers. Those ratings were: highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective.
Some of the state's worst-performing schools doled out favorable ratings to teachers: 48 of the state's 146 priority schools -- so named because they are in the bottom 5% academically -- rated all of their teachers in the top two categories. Several said all of their teachers were highly effective.
Related content
• How does your school rate its teachers' effectiveness? Search this database
• PDF: Report on need for smart teacher evaluation in Michigan (2.1 MB)
• PDF: Michigan Dept. of Education report on teacher effectiveness ratings
But state data also show that more teachers in priority schools were rated in the bottom categories than other schools.
The data isn't surprising given that it was the first year districts had to report the effectiveness ratings, said Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Education.
The ratings will likely change, she said, "once there's a more common system and a common measurement."
That common system will come via the work of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness, a panel working to develop a statewide system for evaluating educators, as well as guidelines for districts that opt to develop their own systems.
The fact that few teachers were rated ineffective makes the work of the council crucial, experts say.
It tells the council "that districts need a lot of support and assistance in how to move forward," said Sandi Jacobs, vice president and managing director of state policy for the National Council on Teacher Quality.
That point is also illustrated in a report the Education Trust-Midwest released today. It analyzed the evaluation systems in 28 school districts and found few of the systems met a set of standards they say research indicates are necessary for a strong system.
"All of them fell short on at least one component. Many fell short on all of them," said Drew Jacobs, a data and policy analyst for the Education Trust-Midwest, a Royal Oak-based nonprofit education policy organization.
Among those standards: having annual observations; using state test data in evaluating teachers for whom the data is available; providing specific directions on how to score all criteria that teachers are evaluated on, and having a sophisticated observation process.
The observation process -- in which an evaluator comes into a teacher's classroom to observe -- is where schools tend to struggle, said Robert Floden, co-director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.
What's missing, he said, are resources. Teachers should be observed multiple times by an evaluator, but that's often difficult given the amount of time that goes into multiple observations.
"The system we have -- and Michigan is not unique -- says it's really important ... but the system does not invest resources in making that happen," Floden said.
Those resources are crucial, however.
"In order for this to have the kind of impact educators and families want to see ... there needs to be a significant amount of investment so teachers really benefit and grow as educators," said Nate Walker, a policy analyst at the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan.
Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6651 or lhiggins@freepress.com
Have we looked enough at poverty and it's role in "failing" schools? How many schools that are in the bottom 5% in test scores are in the highest poverty areas?
ReplyDeleteIn Oakland County where I teach, MEAP scores are ranked one for one for 27 districts when you compare test scores and poverty rates. Lower poverty rates=higher test scores. Higher poverty rates=lower test scores.
Silence Do-Good,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more. Many in the legislature follow the philosophy, "if you can't teach, make laws for those that can." We all know that the average person representing us could not last a week with our students and that is with the laws they passed. Can you imagine Rick Snyder lasting a few days in a classroom where the students did not recognize him? Let him go to any classroom in the inner-city.
The problem is the laws are ignorant. When I taught in Florida I taught in a school that was upper class socio-economically and the state paid bonuses to teachers who taught in schools that made an A or improved the schools grade. I sure liked my bonus but it was truly not fair. In other schools in that same county that had Title One kids, the teachers I taught with later were quality teachers. Unfortunately, they never got their bonus because they had a ton of transient kids that were low readers and many were in a gang. When I taught there later on I saw the great job they did but never had a chance at the state bonus. they spent their own money for breakfasts, school supplies and so on but were labeled inferior because the kids they had had more problems and came from cultures where education was not valued. If you switched the teachers at the Title 1 teachers with the upper socio-economic ones, they results most likely would have been no different and the results would have been reversed. This happened all over Florida. Guess who the Governor wa sat the time? Jeb Bush. It has gotten much worse under Rick Scott. Snyder is cut from the same cloth.