By Tom
Suffice to say, this hasn’t been the easiest year to be a teacher. And with the Legislature back in session, figuring out where to make cuts, it’s likely to get even worse. To add insult to injury, our school, like many, recently learned that we’re going to lose one of our teachers. As you might expect, she’s young, talented and enthusiastic. The kids like her, the parents like her and the rest of us like her. But she was the last one in, so she’s the first one out.
Many of us would like to see her stay. We’d prefer to have someone else leave; someone who isn’t as good at teaching.
It would be nice to have the means to do so, and if certain legislators have their way, we soon will. We may end up with a law that forces districts to force the least effective teachers out during staff reductions.
But while that might sound like a good idea right now, I don’t think it’ll work out in the long run.
First of all, we don’t yet have an evaluation system that tells us who the most effective teachers are. The system we have right now only tells us that we’re all satisfactory. We’ve got a four tier system in development, but it’s not ready yet. It seems extremely premature to plan new uses for a system that hasn’t reached fruition.
But even when we all move to the new four-tier evaluation system, I still don’t think we should use it to fire the lowest-rated teachers. This system is being designed for teacher improvement, not teacher termination. Having four tiers gives supervisors more latitude to show teachers which areas they’re good at and which ones need work. Attaching such enormous stakes to an evaluation would inevitably lead to “score inflation” where principals essentially give threes and fours to the teachers that they want to keep and low scores to the teachers they’d like to get rid of, bringing us back to where we started, and no closer to where we want to go.
Furthermore, such a system would place enormous pressure on principals to collect sufficient evidence to justify any score they give. Sure, they should be doing that already, but most aren’t; not because they’re lazy, but because they simply don’t have enough time. The “tyranny of the urgent” has most principals trapped in the office all day instead of visiting classroom and watching instruction.
Besides that, when jobs are on the line, districts need to ensure that all principals are scoring the same performance the same way. And that’s going to take more than just having them all sit through the same PowerPoint. It would entail some pretty intensive initial training and frequent refreshers. On the other hand, using a four-tier system to simply help teachers improve wouldn’t require nearly the degree of calibration.
At a deeper level, I’m also very concerned that using evaluations as a basis for layoffs will damage collegiality and shared leadership at the building level. One of the biggest positive shifts I’ve seen during my career has been the increased involvement of teachers in building leadership. In order for that to work, teachers need to feel that they can express themselves openly and honestly, without concern that their honesty will come back to haunt them. The last thing schools need right now is an imperial principal with a faculty full of kiss-ups.
Using teacher layoffs to prune the faculty room is a short-sighted, passive-aggressive Band-Aid. If there’s an incompetent teacher in a classroom right now, shame on him and shame on every principal that hasn’t fired him. No school district anywhere has bargained away its right to fire the incompetent. It might be unpleasant and complicated, but it’s part of someone’s job.
And my colleague? The one who’s leaving us at the end of the year? We’ll miss her, but she’ll be fine. She’ll be teaching somewhere next fall. Maybe not our school, but somewhere.
I completely agree about the four tier system destroying the collaborative nature of our schools. I can’t imagine what education will be like if we all keep our “great” lessons to ourselves and not being able to reflect and share our practice with each other just because our colleagues may end up making more money of it than we do. One of the best things about teaching is working with other great teachers.
Tom,
You’re right, since you’re talking about the WEA.
Sorry – I was talking about SEA.
Kristin
Kristin? Seriously? If our union isn’t protecting excellent teachers, then what are they doing in Olympia – even as we speak – lobbying the Legislature to retain the National Board stipend? And what were they doing four years ago when they convinced the same Legislature to add a high need school bonus?
And to whom would an excellent teacher like you turn if you decided to employ pedagogy or curriculum that was right for your students but “wrong” in the eyes of your principal? Michelle Rhee? Arne Duncan? Rod Tom? Your buddies at DFER?
Probably not.
Tom, no. Our unions do not protect excellent teachers. First, our unions protect teachers with seniority. Then, our unions try to ensure that the firing of a teacher follows specific protocol.
I understand the protocol part, because it is possible a good teacher might be fired without just cause, but I’m not going to agree that our unions protect excellent teachers. I do not see that as a priority.
And frankly, maybe we should all stop pretending this is the case. As my husband says, a union’s job is to protect the jobs of its members, period. Because we have pride in what we do, our unions also try to claim some sort of quality control, but no. Our unions are not about protecting excellent teachers.
Our union already protects excellent teachers. Unfortunately, it’s also under contract to “protect” non-excellent teachers. And it does that by making sure someone who’s about to be fired is being fired for actually doing something wrong.
We can do better than LIFO.
We are people who assess every single working day. We design assessments for something as unmeasureable as narrative writing – surely we can design an accurate assessment for instruction.
I’ve seen kids fight for their GED as 20-year olds because someone decided they hadn’t earned the right to a high school diploma. Meanwhile, teachers who are failing as teachers continue to come to work every day and put in the time to take their pay.
I do not support the “we’re not ready yet!” mentality. We should do what it takes to be ready. Teachers should participate in designing a meaningful evaluation system that protects excellent teachers, and we should push our unions to protect excellent teachers.
In meetings about the implementation of the new four-tiered evaluation system I have attended it has been presented as a dual purpose tool: improve teaching AND be a factor in the RIF process. I agree with Mark that an evaluation system meant to improve teaching should be separate from RIF decisions in order to remain credible as means for professional growth. However, an evaluation system that can objectively reflect teacher effectiveness is a far more equitable basis for RIF decisions than our current last in first out process. If there is a way to develop a Matrix based on multiple indicators of teacher effectiveness as suggested by others here, I would welcome the use of evaluations as a part of a matrix.
I would love to be observed just once a year, if it came with concrete suggestions as to how I could improve as a teacher. That doesn’t happen. 12 times a year? Wonderful. If there were a metric that could “rank” teachers, why not use to “support” those teachers who “rank” low. Why look for new ways to fire teachers? In a state that ranks near the bottom in class size and money spent per students, why pretend that our biggest problem is finding more efficient ways to fire teachers.
It seems like a mean-spirited distraction.
Not only that, it won’t even work. If you talk to most school superintendents, they’ll tell you that nearly every teacher who gets Riffed gets re-hired over the summer.
This is a sad point in the school year. I have faced it several times myself as I moved from one district to another. With regard to a system to evaluate, I agree with you, Tom. In theory, it is a good idea, and I think for the longevity and evolution of education in America, it will become necessary. I would love for my profession to have only great teachers. It benefits the students. It benefits the image of the profession. It benefits me.
Yet, I would cautiously go into any agreement as to a system. Such a system would be iffy at best … and iffy for many years … and depending on how it was implemented, or who made it, the system could be faulty.
I recall when Oregon tried to pass a measure that would have an evaluative procedure in place for teachers. It would help with quality and consistency. It would turn around Oregon’s troubled schools. It was a good idea. I was for the IDEA. However, the evaluation system, as the measure stated, would be left up to the district to decide. That is scary if not down right stupid. Leave the employment decision up to an inconsistent and fallible set up. Stupid.
I would like to see some system. Perhaps NBPTS and ProCert can play a part in this. However, for now, it is just not a good idea.
I like Rob’s essential idea of multiple visits from multiple evaluators–and in my perfect world, that’d probably be the model of teacher evaluation I’d start with as well. Logistically, and cost-wise, it is impossible. Unfortunately, considering the nature of our funding, the teacher-evaluation model will not be based on what is best for kids or what is best for teachers, but will be based on what is cheapest and easiest to administer. We can tell ourselves the former all we want, but the latter is the reality.
Regarding your stance on RIFs, I agree. But other reasonable people see RIFs as an opportunity to cull the herd. I can’t fault their logic.
I am wondering where there is room to compromise (if any). Imagine if teachers were observed 12 times over a year: 4 times by a cohort of “master teachers”, 4 times by your building principal, once by a district level administrator, once by a union rep, and twice by another in-district principal. This would include some combination of drop in evals. & some scheduled. This would, perhaps, decrease the variability & lower the chance for vindictive evaluations. Then combine these with some measure of student data. But more importantly have teachers evaluated based on their ability use assessments to guide instructional choices. And if, teacher seniority was given some credit, along with education and perhaps National Boards might that be enough to get a clear enough picture of teacher effectiveness? (Especially considering (in my opinion) a person can walk the halls of a school for a week and get a pretty good picture of who are the most effective teachers.)
Tom, no trap in this question: If a metric were developed which reasonably ranked teachers according to effectiveness (however defined) would you support reform of the RIF process to keep the most effective* teachers?