Earlier this year, Washington state received a high risk warning from the federal government regarding its teacher evaluation system. One issue: whether state test results can be used in teacher evaluation, or whether they must be used. Randy Dorn has requested that the state legislature address this issue in the upcoming session.
The high risk warning letter concerns one of the "inputs" of teacher evaluation–the potential use of state tests. Yesterday, OSPI issued a report concerning one of the "outputs" of our evaluation system–human resource decisions. The report, "Using Teacher and Principal Evaluations to Inform Human Resource Decisions," was put together by OSPI and the education research organization American Institute for Research (AIR). They surveyed and conducted forums with Washington stake holders and looked at national trends. It includes interesting data about teacher and administrator views–see the graph up to the left.
Clearly, evaluation results can already be used in human resource decisions such as non-renewal. Recent changes to the law mean that by 2015-2016, evaluation results will also be included in human resource decisions such as layoffs, RIFs, transfers, and moving from provisional to continuing contract status. Some districts are using evaluation results for decisions on leadership opportunities and professional development. This affects a lot of people–we need to have a good system here.
An interesting section of the report talks about some of the unintended consequences of using evaluations in human resource decisions. A few quotes:
"Teachers expressed a desire to use their focused evaluations as an opportunity to try new strategies that might not result in a Proficient rating. Some teachers would be deterred from trying new approaches if employment decisions would be based on those results."
"By using teacher evaluation data in HR decisions, particularly employment decisions, participants worried that teachers would begin to compete with each other rather than cooperate to improve student learning."
One striking trend that emerged in the report was time. This is the first year that ALL school districts in the state of Washington are using TPEP evaluation. Educators wanted time to ensure that both evaluators and those being evaluated received appropriate training, and also wanted time to test out the new system itself.
The report states (p. 13) that in the upcoming legislative session, OSPI is pursuing a change to current state law that would delay the use of evaluations in human resource decisions until the 2016-17 school year. A delay like this is a good idea: let's try our new system out before increasing the high stakes consequences attached to it! We need to get this right.
I agree. At this point no one’s been doing this long enough to really know what they’re doing. Once we figure it out, then we can see if TPEP can be used for HR decisions.
This is one of those domains where comparisons to the private sector don’t work… my friends who work in other fields earn promotions, new positions, or have greater mobility as a result of their performance reviews. I’m not in favor of my evaluation being the key to higher pay, especially if my evaluation involves state test data.
Your closing comments are right on: we need time to understand the system and how to make it work before we start making major decisions about what to do with whatever rating, data, or evaluation, comes out the summative end of the process.
Great post. I think the trouble is that, when things like assessment data MUST be used in an evaluation are part of the law’s language, it can be abused by some administrators.
But I also think the reality is that most administrators are reasonable educators who want what is best for their students and schools.
For example, when I asked to switch from LA/SS to a reading intervention class, I was definitely forging new territory. I received minimal training on the reading curriculum, and have never even been formally trained as a reading specialist. I remember my principal and Regional Director observing me last year and saying to them, “I hope you can appreciate I’ve gone back to ‘barely proficient’ by doing this.” They laughed and brushed it off, and my evaluation was just fine, but they are both administrators who see the big picture of a teacher’s skill set and impact.
How can we hold administrators accountable to see the big picture? How can we ensure legislators and ed-advocacy groups, who push for the big data-driven reforms, see and value the big picture? Kids do. Parents do. Teachers do. Most administrators do. But it’s not written into the law.
Thanks for sharing this, Maren. I would much rather try new strategies to improve my craft and work closely with my colleagues, and I would rather not lose my job because of it or even worry about losing my job! If I’m doing poorly overall, then I can understand HR not renewing my contract, I would expect that, but if I’m doing my job well and I get a basic on a new strategy I implemented I should not worry about my job. I should get feedback and ideas to improve. That’s what I’ve come to expect from TPEP.