04.30.11
Posted in Evaluations at 7:48 pm by Daniel J. VandeBunte
In an office filled with legislators, educators, and journalists, Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels, signed Senate Bill 1 into law this morning, changing the way Indiana’s teachers will be evaluated. The new Teacher Evaluation law is a multi-faceted approach to recognizing and rewarding Indiana’s best teachers.
Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels, chats with legislators, educators, and journalists after signing SB 1 into law.
Meaningful, Annual Evaluations
Contrary to popular belief, the new evaluations do not require teacher evaluations to be based on ISTEP scores. Rather, school districts are now empowered to create local evaluations that are based in part on student growth and achievement. The data each school district uses to measure student growth is up to the school district. ISTEP scores could be used to measure teacher effectiveness, but the law also allows for schools to develop and use their own assessments or use tests such as ACT, NWEA, or others to measure student growth.
I teach Algebra 1 to 9th graders, so I always have it in the back of mind that the time for the students to take the End-of-Course Assessment (ECA) will eventually come. It does make me a better a teacher. After receiving ECA data it helps me better understand exactly how I should spend the time I have with students the following year. If our scores on Systems were lower than expected, I know I need to budget more time for Systems the following year and possibly reconsider the way I teach them.
Performance Ratings Categories
The new law creates four categories in which to place teachers; Highly Effective, Effective, Improvement Necessary, and Ineffective. One misconception regarding these four categories is that principals are required to place a certain number of teachers into each category. This is not the case. No one is interested in placing teachers into categories in which they do not belong. If a Principal feels that they have 90% of their staff that fall into either the Highly Effective or Effective categories, they should place them accordingly. However, if a school has shown with years of data that students in a particular school do not show much, if any growth, it would be a little suspicious to see 90% of the teachers rated as either Highly Effective or Effective.
Teacher Pay
Perhaps the most controversial and misunderstood portion of the new law is language regarding teacher pay. Throughout this process there were a lot of rumors circulating that the bill would take away money from teachers who had rightfully earned it under the old system. Teachers with a Masters Degree would lose as much as $10,000 of salary per year. Thankfully, this is not true. A teacher’s current salary will be their base pay under SB 1. Raises will be based on the results of the evaluations, student needs, leadership roles, seniority, and degrees held. Seniority and degrees are still an important factor in determining raises, but they may only count for at most 33% of the raise.
Teacher Classification
Senate Bill 1 creates three classifications for teachers; Probationary, Professional, and Established. The distinctions are important as the requirements necessary to dismiss a poorly performing teacher vary from category to category. Probationary teachers can be dismissed after one Ineffective rating. Once a probationary teacher earns three ratings of Effective or Highly Effective, they become a Professional teacher. Professional teachers cannot be dismissed until they receive two Ineffective ratings.
All current teachers will automatically be classified as Established teachers. Established teachers cannot be dismissed until they receive two consecutive Ineffective ratings or three ratings of Ineffective or Improvement Necessary in a five year span.
The way teachers are compensated and protected in Indiana changed drastically today. By placing the emphasis on protecting and rewarding the best teachers Governor Daniels and Superintendent Bennett have truly placed students first.
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10.20.10
Posted in A - F School Grading, Common Core Standards, Evaluations, Indiana Growth Model, Reading Framework, Teacher Licensing at 8:27 pm by Daniel J. VandeBunte
It was the best of plans. It was the worst of plans. Or at least that’s how it seems.
In the interest of full disclosure I should explain why I am writing a blog at all. Last July I received a phone call from the Indiana Department of Education (DOE) asking me if I would be interested in serving on a new Indiana Education Reform Cabinet. Not knowing when another opportunity like this would ever come along, I agreed to serve.
Like most Indiana teachers I had heard bits and pieces about the reforms that Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. Tony Bennett was pursuing, but I knew I did not have a complete picture. So I began to research the plan. I even attended the Season Opener at Highland High School in order to hear Dr. Bennett and other DOE experts explain and defend the plan in person. After the Season Opener I felt that I had a much better understanding of the plan, but had nothing to compare it to, so I went online to see if the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) or Indiana Federation of Teachers (IFT) had any education reform plans of their own. It turns out that AFT President Randi Weingarten gave a speech earlier this year outlining the AFT’s own reform plan, A New Plan Forward. The speech is available on the AFT’s website in both video and text form. Over the last few months I have spent a considerable amount of time reading and analyzing both education reform plans. As a teacher in the state of Indiana and a dues paying member of the AFT and IFT, education reform is something that will inevitably affect both my students and the way I will teach them. After scouring through whatever information I could find on both of these plans, the differences were painfully obvious. One of these reform plans puts the needs of students first. The other reform plan puts the needs of teachers unions first.
The rest of this entry is devoted to demonstrating exactly how Dr. Tony Bennett is getting education reform right, and how the teachers’ unions are getting it wrong.
Dr. Bennett
Dr. Bennett is pursuing a plan consisting of the following reforms; Common Core Standards, a Reading Framework, the Indiana Growth Model, School Letter Grading, Teacher Evaluations, and Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability (REPA).
Common Core Standards
The Indiana State Board of Education officially adopted the Common Core Standards (CCS) in August, 2010. The purpose of the CCS is to make sure that when a student graduates from an Indiana high school they can compete at the same level as their counterparts all across the country and world. The CCS are different than our current state standards and implementing the CCS will take work. The DOE has already developed an implementation and testing schedule for the CCS. The DOE has also committed to establishing collaborative teams of teachers to create curriculum maps so that all teachers will know exactly when each standard should be taught and instruction can be lined up with the assessments. Training will also be made available through both the DOE and local Educational Service Centers.
While the DOE will be doing a great deal to help teachers implement the CCS, the work is being done so that Indiana students will have access to a better education. Adoption of the Common Core Standards is a pro-student reform.
Reading Framework
The Reading Framework requires students to read at grade level before being promoted to 4th grade. To do this, the Reading Framework will address reading instruction in early grades, improve all student reading and comprehension levels, and intervene with struggling readers. If a student is not reading at grade level they can be held back up to 2 times in order to give them the opportunity to get back up to grade level.
I have to admit, the thought of so many students being held back was frightening to me when I first heard it. In fact, one educator raised this concern at the Season Opener I attended. Dr. Bennett’s response, however, revealed that much more thought and consideration had been put into this requirement than one might assume. When most of us think of a student being held back, we probably think of a struggling student who received poor marks sitting in the same class the following year listening to the same lessons being delivered by the same teacher. Essentially reliving the same educational experiences they experienced a year before. With the amount of data available to teachers and administrators, however, students being held back can now receive targeted instruction to address their specific needs.
As I thought about this reform initiative and the potential damage that could be done to a student by being held back, I was forced to think also of the much more certain damage done to a student by not seriously addressing reading deficiencies early on. Though the possibility of holding a student back is not appealing to this educator, I understand that it is done for the benefit of the student. Given the importance of high level reading skills, the Reading Framework is a pro-student reform.
Indiana Growth Model
As a Mathematics teacher, the Indiana Growth Model appeals to me because of the way it uses data to accurately assess both a student’s progress and a teacher’s effectiveness. The models is based on the assumption that no matter where a student begins the school year, we should expect at least one year of academic growth by the end of that school year. Students will be grouped each year into peer groups of other Indiana students with a similar testing history and then compared at the end of the year with only those students.
The Indiana Growth Model will create vast amounts of data about students and teachers. This data can be used to determine which interventions any particular student needs, which teachers are the most effective at keeping high performance students performing high, which teachers are the most effective at getting low performing students to grow the most, which teachers are the least effective and where they need to improve, and so much more.
The amount of data that the Indiana Growth Model will create will make it possible for teachers and administrators to confidently make decisions that are in the students’ best interests. The Indiana Growth Model is a pro-student reform.
Letter Grading
Imagine if your child came home with a report card that said, “Commendable Progress”. How would you interpret that? Letter grades are more clear and unambiguous than the current categories used to classify school performance.
Under this plan schools will be given letter grades corresponding to their level of performance as determined by the Indiana Growth Model; A, B, C, D, or F. Schools receiving grades other than A will be subject to additional scrutiny by the community so that a grade of A will be achieved next time. Since the letter grade is determined by student performance as measured by the Indiana Growth Model, the only way to improve a school’s overall grade is to improve student growth.
Letter grading forces schools and communities to take very seriously the degree to which the school contributes to student growth. Letter grading is a pro-student reform.
Teacher Evaluations
Too often the teacher evaluation process begins and ends with very little fanfare. An observation is made and some notes are written down and a form is filled out and a meeting is held. And that’s it until the next semester.
Dr. Bennett’s plan seeks to make the teacher evaluation process ongoing, so that the teacher is observed and evaluated several times throughout the year. This allows for more immediate feedback to be given to the teachers so that the feedback is actionable. With more frequent and immediate feedback, teachers can begin implementing positive instructional changes to affect student growth long before the next semester.
Another major change in the teacher evaluation process being sought by Dr. Bennett is that student growth must be taken into consideration and may be used to influence personnel decisions, including; recruitment, retention, and promotion. With so much riding on student growth, every teacher will be forced to act in the best interests of the students. For some teachers this will be easy, they already do it. For others it may be more difficult. But it will be undeniably better for all students. Tying teacher evaluations to student growth is a pro-student reform.
Rule for Educator Preparation and Accountability
When I had first heard about the new Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability, I was a little worried. I can either spend the money to take classes so I can renew my license. Or I can try to accumulate 90 “Professional Growth Points”. The prospect of spending 90 hours over the course of 6 years outside the classroom attending what would be mostly pointless presentations trying to reach that coveted 90th PGP was not appealing to me. After an intense Q and A with Pat Mapes, Indiana’s Director of Teacher Licensing, I realized my fears were unfounded.
It turns out that many of the things educators already do throughout the year already count for PGPs. Does your school do Professional Learning Communities? Those may count. Textbook Adoption Committee? That would count. Take a class? That would count. The impression I got from Pat Mapes was that if you really tried, you could probably come up with 50 – 60 PGPs that you already have.
Instead of teachers spending thousands of dollars on classes in order to renew their licenses, they can now obtain PGPs for many of the things they already do throughout the school year. This keeps them in their classrooms with their students, where they ought to be. REPA is a pro-student reform.
The AFT
The AFT is pursuing a four-point plan consisting of the following reforms; Constructive Evaluation, A Fresh Approach to Due Process, Tools, Time and Trust, and Public Education and the Labor-Management Relationship.
Constructive Evaluation
At first glance, this seems to be on par with what Dr. Bennett envisions; changing teacher evaluations, account for student achievement, use evaluations to inform tenure, employment decisions, and due process proceedings. In essence, making it possible for evaluations to determine whether a poorly performing teacher keeps their job or not.
That’s what it seems like. In reality, however, this could be nothing more than another opportunity for the Teacher’s Unions to further tie the hands of the administrators who want to dispose of poorly performing teachers. According to Randi Weingarten, the evaluation systems should be comprehensive, robust, rigorous, performed by trained experts, peer evaluators, and principals, based on professional teaching standards, best practices, and student achievement, and there should be multiple means to evaluate teachers. But with an evaluation system that requires so much in order to be compliant, it would be easy to justify keeping any teacher in the classroom, especially if any one requirement is not met. Failure to be in complete compliance could be used by the Teacher’s Union to fight dismissal, regardless of what effect that teacher may have on students.
Allowing the unions to determine the evaluation process is a sure-fire way to make sure few if any poorly performing teachers are ever removed or dismissed. That is a pro-union reform.
A Fresh Approach to Due Process
The AFT’s “fresh” approach to due process may look new, but in reality it is based on the same assumption that the current due process approach is based on; the Teacher’s Union gets to decide how, when, and why a teacher will be dismissed. Should the AFT’s version of teacher evaluation be put into place, no due process proceeding will end in the termination of a poorly performing teacher unless the district has complied with 100% of the process’ requirements, which will no doubt be part of the local collective bargaining agreement, or it has been determined that the teacher has committed an act of serious misconduct. But even then, those teachers should be “removed from the classroom immediately”. Being “removed from the classroom immediately” is not necessarily the same as being fired. The difference is subtle but important. Teachers who are merely removed from the classroom would still be receiving all the benefits of their employment while their case is being adjudicated.
Any due process procedure in which the teachers’ unions determine the rules will result in bad teachers being paid to do something other than teach because the union has no motivation to cut ties with those teachers entirely. As long as those teachers are employed they’re still paying their dues. Making it even more difficult for administrators to dismiss poorly performing teachers is a pro-union reform.
Tools, Time, and Trust
The “tools” that Weingarten referred to in her speech are; “small classes, safe schools, solid curriculum, healthy and adequate facilities (including the most current technology), and opportunities for parental involvement”. Weingarten, however, never goes into detail about what these things mean, so I guess I get to do that myself. Small classes mean hiring a lot more (dues-paying) teachers. The most current technology is always changing, so making sure each school has it would be a monumental and expensive task. What Weingarten is really getting at is that school funding must be increased to astronomical levels in order to guarantee that all of these tools are available to teachers and students in every school. While she does not explain what these things mean, she does insist that school corporation should be held accountable for providing all of them.
The “time” that Weingarten is talking about is time teachers would be given during the school day for collaboration with other teachers regarding any number of issues. This would mean less time those teachers are actually teaching students. That seems to be a step in the wrong direction.
The “trust” that Weingarten is talking about is administrations treating teachers (and their unions) as “partners” (i.e. equals) in reform. If the teachers unions could be trusted to do things right, we might not be in the position we now find ourselves; scrambling desperately to implement massive reform agendas to fix our public schools.
The AFT’s “Tools, Time, and Trust” plan does nothing more than place unrealistic mandates on school corporations, forcing them to spend massive amounts of money in order to fulfill those mandates. It holds the school corporations accountable but not the teachers. And it takes teachers out of the classrooms where they are needed so they can sit around and chit chat with other teachers on the tax-payers’ dime. No thanks. Tools, Time, and Trust is a pro-union reform.
Public Education and the Labor-Management Relationship
Seriously?
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10.10.10
Posted in Indiana Growth Model at 10:58 pm by Daniel J. VandeBunte
On Thursday, October 7, 2010 the Indiana PTA sponsored a Growth Model Forum at Morton High School in Hammond, IN. Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. Tony Bennett, was present.
After the presentation Dr. Bennett met with parents from the community to answer questions and address concerns that they had about the Growth Model specifically and education reform in general. Dr. Bennett later joined up with Indiana Education Reform Cabinet members Traci Davis and Daniel J. VandeBunte to have a similar discussion with local educators.
Educators took turns firing questions at Dr. Bennett. That was the point of the discussion. That is the purpose of the Indiana Education Reform Cabinet.
One of my biggest concerns about such an aggressive reform agenda is getting teachers who would otherwise be disinterested holdouts to the table. Even if you get them there, you have to get them to come along. I taught in Hammond for two years. I am familiar with the political climate in Hammond as it relates to public education. I knew going into the meeting that Hammond was not likely to be an easy crowd for Dr. Bennett. In that respect it was everything I expected.
Near the end of the meeting, however, there was a glimmer of hope. One long-time Hammond educator openly admitted that he had heard a lot of negative things about Dr. Bennett. He went on to say that now that he had a chance to hear what it is that Dr. Bennett is saying, he agreed with him. And that gives me hope.
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09.22.10
Posted in Indiana Growth Model at 9:05 am by Daniel J. VandeBunte
On 09/18/2010 the Indiana Education Reform Cabinet met at the Department of Education in downtown Indianapolis. While there was well over an hour of intense Q & A with Dr. Tony Bennett and other DOE officials, the main presentation was Indiana’s Growth Model (IGM).
The IGM is a mathematical model of student growth from one year to the next. Students are put into a peer group based on their ISTEP score. The only students in that peer group are students in Indiana who received the identical ISTEP score for that grade in that same year (more on this later). That peer group becomes the basis for student growth calculations for the next academic year. When those students take the ISTEP the following year, their growth is measured only with respect to the other students in that peer group. These students are then placed into three categories; low growth for students at or below the 34th percentile among their peer group, typical growth for students in the 35th through 65th percentiles among their peer group, and high growth for students at or above the 66th percentile among their peer group.
Teachers should love this model for recognizing student growth. Every teacher I know has had students in their classes who come in below grade level, learn a great deal, and still fail. The IGM recognizes the growth the student made in their classes.
For a list of FAQ’s about Indiana’s Growth Model, go the Growth Model FAQ page on the Indiana Department of Education web site.
I mentioned earlier that students are placed in a peer group with only those students who received the same score for the same grade level in the same year. I still believe this is the best way to define a peer group. It is completely blind to student attributes. One change I would like to see is for students to be placed in another peer group of students who received the same score for the same grade but in all years. This would create two very valuable pieces of student data; a contemporary measure of student growth and an historical measure of student growth. I think both measures are important.
Without historical data, 34% of current Indiana students will be labeled “low growth” every year. But if those students have learned much more at that grade level than their historical counterparts, why should they be so labeled? By using historical data, it makes it possible for the 34th percentile and below to be populated by former Indiana students.
If student achievement and growth do begin to rise, using historical data will also lead to a slow but steady rise in the historical median scores. Contemporary data can be up one year and down the next, making it difficult to identify real historical progress. A rising historical median is what will ultimately drive increased student achievement because it will be less susceptible to the ups and downs of year-to-year data.
Using historical data would lead to four categories in which students could fall; 1) above both the contemporary and historical median growth, 2) above the historical median growth but below the contemporary median growth, 3) above the contemporary median growth but below the historical median growth, and 4) below both contemporary and historical median growth. Teachers who historically have a high percentage of students in the first category should be the teachers leading professional development. Teachers who historically have a high percentage of students in the middle two categories should be attending that professional development. And teachers who historically have a high percentage of students in the fourth category should probably not be in the classroom at all.
Some may find that last sentence a bit harsh. I will not apologize for it. Education is, after all, about the students. If a teacher is not helping students grow, we cannot be afraid to let someone else try.
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