Chicago Teacher's Strike

[Judge Jude]

"parents' and students' evaluations are not part of the process."

sure, what do THEY know?


some teachers in here - is parent and student input used in some cases? is there a reason it shouldn't be at least a modest factor, in terms of helping to weed out truly awful teachers?

[OaklandA's]

Is parent and student input used in some cases? is there a reason it shouldn't be at least a modest factor, in terms of helping to weed out truly awful teachers?

Ideally, it should be an important factor. But the reality is that for too many students and parents, the teacher evaluation has a very high correlation with the grade the student receives in the class. Give the student a bad grade, and the student gives the teacher a bad evaluation. And too many parents won't bother to fill out an evaluation; most don't even know enough about the teacher to make a decent evaluation, especially as the students get older and have 6 or 7 different teachers.

[Judge Jude]

I baked all that into my "at least a modest factor."

[B-Fly]

Sure, but the devil is in the details. The plan proposed by Chicago bases the majority of the evaluation on "Teacher Practice" which is an observation-based measurement. It only involves school/district administrators - parents' and students' evaluations are not part of the process. Around 20-30% of the process is based on Value-Added metrics (for elementary schools) or other Expected-Gains metrics (for high schools). The high school tests include versions of the PLAN/ACT tests to measure student progress.

Right, whereas in the past, teacher evaluation was presumably based 100% on observation-based measurement, and teachers' unions fought for all sorts of due process constraints on termination because they believed it was unfair to allow their job security to be based on the subjective judgments of their principal. But isn't the subjective judgment of our boss what most of us have to rely on for our own job advancement/job security prospects? Presumably, having some percentage of the evaluation based on value-added metrics or expected-gains metrics, with appropriate weights and adjustments for students' whose progress is impacted by disabilities or English-language deficiency, etc, should provide a reasonable check on the potential bias of the principal. And then vice-versa, the principal or school evaluation team's observation-based measurements provide a check against anomalous value-add metric results.

Ultimately, no employee evaluation system is going to be perfect, but almost all of us have to live with one combination or another of objective and subjective assessment of our job performance. And I don't think the education of students has been well-served by the old status quo of lockstep pay, last-in/first-out layoffs, seniority-based assignments, and lifetime tenure after three years after which one essentially needs to commit a crime to get fired.

Yes, teaching should be a well-paid profession, given its importance and the level of education we now generally expect teachers to attain. And good teachers work harder than almost anyone I've ever seen in terms of the time they spend outside of the work day lesson planning, grading, working one-on-one with students, communicating with parents, etc. It's an awesome job and an awesome responsibility and there are a ton of great, talented, dedicated folks in the profession. When collective bargaining agreements preclude merit-based programs to attract, reward and retain those great teachers while hampering the ability of principals and school districts to remove those teachers who put less into the job and whose kids take less away - there's a major problem.

And to frae's point, every program requiring differentiation among teachers absolutely has to be able to account and adjust for the dramatic differences among the students/families being served.

[DMT]

Well said.

[OaklandA's]

B-Fly, I agree with almost all of your post, especially that there needs to be a method to evaluate and reward the best teachers. But I just don't think the details have been worked out or explained well enough. For example, things like using "value-added metrics with appropriate weights and adjustments for students whose progress is impacted by disabilities or English-language deficiency" - those weights and adjustments are very important, and I haven't seen any data on what they are or how they would be implemented.

I am sure people have been working on the proper adjustments, and maybe they just haven't been revealed publicly. But without seeing them, I don't know if I trust the results provided by the value-added metrics.

[Bob Kohm]

The major flaw to Brian's approach from my point of view is that he is speaking as an Administrator in a school system where it is illegal for teachers to strike and it is the Administrators who will ultimately set and design these metrics and weightings. It does make quite a difference, lol.

[B-Fly]

The major flaw to Brian's approach from my point of view is that he is speaking as an Administrator in a school system where it is illegal for teachers to strike and it is the Administrators who will ultimately set and design these metrics and weightings. It does make quite a difference, lol.

They may not be allowed to strike. But my school system is bound by its past collective bargaining and by the State legislature. Any changes to teacher evaluation in New York has been subject to collective bargaining. And as a result, we still don't have anything remotely resembling an effective teacher evaluation process or a merit-based promotion/incentive/retention policy. So far, we've been rolling out these metrics to evaluate schools and principals and make decisions about closing ineffective schools. And we've been engaged in continuous analysis of the data to permit us to improve the "settings" of our weights and adjustments for certain student sub-groups to make the value-add measurements as equitable as possible.

[frae]

The major flaw to Brian's approach from my point of view is that he is speaking as an Administrator in a school system where it is illegal for teachers to strike and it is the Administrators who will ultimately set and design these metrics and weightings. It does make quite a difference, lol.

And my biggest problem with administrators who speak to their faculty is that they are often so far removed from the classroom or never taught in it at all that they do not understand what it is really like or choose to forget. Admins go to conferences and meet with other admins and share ideas. My admin finds an idea he likes and we spend 3 years implementing it until he hears about something else. We spend another 3 years on the new idea and so on and so on. What you learn in an education class, masters, class or any other program is simply not what really matters in a classroom each day.

Small example, we are currently being asked to put our daily targets into our agendas and to publish them online. This is supposed to help our kids. I have no problem posting an agenda and always do so just so i can at least say it is there if anyone wants to see it. You know how much my students care about the BS name of the target that I am teaching to that day? Not one little bit. They want to know their assignment and if we have a test or quiz. Our admins of course think that this will help focus our kids which is the kind of pie in the sky BS you get in masters class or at conference with other people who don't teach. I would like anyone who goes into administration to have worked at least 10 years in the classroom, but I don't see that ever happening.

Anyway, sorry for the rant there, but the beginning of this school year has been particularly frustrating with our admins.

[DMT]

Frae, I agree with your comments and would like to see more teacher input as to how best handle teacher evaluations.

At the same time, I used to work with various human service agencies and creating an evaluation system that they agreed with was virtually impossible for a couple of reasons. First, as Oakland mentioned, evaluation outcomes for things like educational achievement and 'life progress' are, quite simply, very difficult to measure and analyze. Social or 'soft' scientists have always had a chip on their collective shoulders because the 'hard' sciences are able to run true experiments and have made significantly more progress over the course of their fields than social scientists have. But, because both inputs and outputs are so difficult to measure, I can certainly understand where they're coming from. Second, no one likes to be evaluated. They are fearful of the repercussions if the outcomes are negative or insufficient and they know in their hearts that they are doing the best they possibly can given their circumstances. Add in the insufficient pay (not talking just about teachers but about social workers and counselors, etc) and it's no wonder that many don't feel they should be held to the highest standards. Nonetheless, the evaluation component was part of their funding so they had to comply. Despite it's flaws, evaluation is critical in improving how socials services are provided so all of these comments to the effect of, 'well since we haven't perfected teacher evaluations, it's unfair to subject anyone to them' is completely ridiculous. If they don't like the current evaluation metrics then offer alternatives that will reward the good teachers and weed out the bad. Because, let's face it, there are a LOT of bad teachers, and the union's continuing efforts to shield them from evaluation is shameful IMO.

[B-Fly]

Deal today; back to school tomorrow?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-both-sides-see-progress-as-teachers-strike-reaches-day-4-20120912,0,482612.story

[onejayhawk]

B-Fly, I agree with almost all of your post, especially that there needs to be a method to evaluate and reward the best teachers. But I just don't think the details have been worked out or explained well enough. For example, things like using "value-added metrics with appropriate weights and adjustments for students whose progress is impacted by disabilities or English-language deficiency" - those weights and adjustments are very important, and I haven't seen any data on what they are or how they would be implemented.

I am sure people have been working on the proper adjustments, and maybe they just haven't been revealed publicly. But without seeing them, I don't know if I trust the results provided by the value-added metrics.

As a Union steward, this is one thing that tears me up. The Union is 100% against performance based pay increases, promotion or job prequalification (posting points for vacancies). Bonuses should be across the board. Job tenure above all else.

J

[frae]

As a Union steward, this is one thing that tears me up. The Union is 100% against performance based pay increases, promotion or job prequalification (posting points for vacancies). Bonuses should be across the board. Job tenure above all else.

J

OK, this is a serious question then. I teach an elective. There are not state or national tests to measure performance. Will I ever get a raise?

[B-Fly]

OK, this is a serious question then. I teach an elective. There are not state or national tests to measure performance. Will I ever get a raise?

Every proposal I have seen around teacher evaluation uses value-added metrics one of numerous inputs. For subjects that don't currently have state or national tests, the options are to (i) develop tests (which I know there are committees working on in NYS), and/or (ii) increase the percentage weight of the other evaluation inputs for teachers who don't teach tested grades or subjects.

And from my perspective, I'd love to at least be able to start with "signing bonuses" for teachers who take on the toughest students in the toughest schools, then expand to reasonable and negotiated evaluation-based pay incentives.

[Bob Kohm]

Shockingly, I disagree. Bonuses for taking on "the toughest students in the toughest schools"-- or combat pay, as teachers invariably call that concept-- doesn't bring the best teachers to those schools, only the ones willing to put up with the most crap for an unfair pay advantage. Teaching English, math or music to students in schools with high record sof achievement is every bit as important as teaching those subjects in schools failed by their school systems in areas failed by their municipalities.