We’re almost a decade into the “new” teacher evaluation program (TPEP), and this year OSPI has introduced a change that I think has the potential to shift the model closer to its intention: promoting improvement of teacher growth and practice.

Of course, the middle of a pandemic is a rough time to add yet a potentially non-essential change to systems and policies…or it is precisely the perfect time. That’s not what I’m interested in debating.

For background: State law requires that “student growth” be considered in a teacher’s evaluation. To assess a teacher’s impact on student growth, one or more of five universal rubrics are used to evaluate their impact on student growth (it is “one or more,” because it depends on where the teacher is in their evaluation cycle… it is less complicated than I’m making it sound).

To really simplify it: Teachers are assessed on the growth goals they set for subgroups of students or for whole rosters of students. We often refer to this as the “inputs,” or the elements we as professionals have control over (writing goals, choosing assessments, etc.). To be proficient for “whole roster” goals, our work must match this description:

PROFICIENT (6.1sg) Establishes appropriate student growth goal(s) for whole classroom. Goal(s) identify multiple, high-quality sources of data to monitor, adjust, and evaluate achievement of goal(s).

Yes, there is a ton of ambiguity and subjectivity there. “Appropriate.” “Multiple.” “High-quality sources of data.” That’s what happens when we try to craft a tool that will apply fairly to kindergarten music, 8th grade history, and 12th-grade calculus.

But it works, when applied well, because evaluators are encouraged to create opportunities for evaluation conversations with teachers to deconstruct and explore how these ambiguities become concrete in a teacher’s practice.

If a goal is the “input,” the data that results is the “output.” This is where we are seeing a change for 2020 and beyond. In the previous scoring rubrics, proficiency was described like this:

PROFICIENT (6.2sg) Multiple sources of growth or achievement data from at least two points in time show clear evidence of growth for most students.

Okay, fine. The intent was that we prove we’ve done our job of helping students grow. What good is this data, though? What has happened in many circles is that student growth has become so focused on producing “good data” for a teacher’s evaluation, that some have lost the whole point of why the data matters to a proficient teacher in the first place. Student data should cycle back in to my practice as useful information to help me serve my students better: If my data is only “for my evaluation,” then I’ve missed the point.

At the start of this school year, OSPI released new guidance about student growth (official bulletin here; guidance specific to student growth here). Specifically, the latter document details the importance of reflection and analysis of student growth data, reinforcing the core premise that student growth data should inform us about what to do next with kids, not just inform our evaluators which box to check.

Now, proficiency for the “outputs” is not only based on our students’ performance, but also how we as practitioners reflect on and analyze this performance data:

*NEW* PROFICIENT (6.2sg): Teacher provides evidence of student progress, which includes both formative and summative assessments. There is evidence of student engagement in assessment of their own learning. Teacher reflection addresses learning experiences for students at all three levels of progress, including success factors and barriers (where appropriate), and next steps. Teacher reflections demonstrate receptivity to student perceptions of their learning experiences, and ideas about next steps for instruction and support.

Yes, there is still ambiguity; there is really no way to avoid that. What is present, though, is language that will leverage teachers toward examination of their practice:

• Is there evidence of student engagement in self-assessment?
• Does the teacher reflect on the results of learners at all three levels of progress? (The three levels are defined on page two of this document.)
• Has the teacher considered student perceptions of their own learning experiences?

These are all research-based practices that we know improve teaching and learning. And I have to admit, this revised “output” rubric made me pause to think about how I intentionally use growth data in my work with kids.

As with all things TPEP, I’m a huge advocate that our evaluation should be based on a natural harvest of authentic information and artifacts, not some contrived set of extra-work-forms-to-fill-out-and-essays-to-write…

My worry, then, is that “teacher reflection” as named the rubric is going to turn into a form to be filled out or an essay to be written. In my gut, I know this is not the intention: Though I was not involved in these student growth revisions, I have been involved at the local and state level in nearly all things TPEP since shortly after its inception. I currently am the co-lead for the Marzano TPEP Instructional Framework statewide. I know that the intention of “teacher reflection” is that this occurs through conversation between a teacher and their evaluator, and encourage any teacher or evaluator to push back on their supervisor if this rubric shift becomes “just more paperwork to do.”

If we can avoid that paperwork trap, I think this change has the potential to make student growth data truly meaningful to teaching practice…as it should be.