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Excerpts from the Governor's Business Council Report follow:
IV. Dramatically improve the evaluation of teacher performance
V. Pay more to teachers who perform well and who take on greater and more difficult assignments
II. IMPROVE THE STATEWIDE COLLECTION OF INFORMATION ABOUT STUDENT, TEACHER, ADMINISTRATOR, AND SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
In-Service Professional Development. Currently, evaluations of professional development programs can only be done locally, and are hampered by small sample sizes and inadequate outcome measures. PEIMS should include the number of hours received, the type of instruction, and the identification of the instructor, and the identification of the providing agency or organization. Then, the impact of such programs on teacher performance can be evaluated based on the impact on teacher effectiveness, as measured by the value-added to student learning.
III. CREATE THE BEST TOOLS TO MEASURE THE ACADEMIC PROGRESS OF STUDENTS IN ORDER TO INCREASE TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS
Multiple models exist in tracking academic achievement and determining teacher effectiveness. Multi-level regression-based models are the most accurate. Other models may have other strengths, for example, in being simpler or being usable to meet the accountability requirements of NCLB. We propose that the state develop a growth model incorporating the best elements of these models, and implement a system that could be used both for school accountability as well as the evaluation of teacher effectiveness. The state should pay for and create incentives for this model to be used by local districts. Local districts would, however, retain the authority to use their own models of measuring student progress for the purpose of teacher evaluation, so long as they are approved by the state as being technically sound and significantly based on student achievement.
IV. DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE THE EVALUATION OF TEACHER PERFORMANCE
A fair, accurate, and sound method of evaluating teacher performance is essential to strengthening the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom. In Texas, as in other states, teacher evaluation is currently inadequate and insufficient. It relies more on inputs and efforts than on results and effectiveness. Further, it often blesses certain faddish and unproven pedagogies, and vague concepts such as “learner-centered instruction.” As a result, effective teachers are not properly rewarded, teachers in need of improvement are not properly helped, and persistently ineffective teachers are not properly removed.
We propose to base teacher evaluations primarily on the academic growth rates their students achieve over time. Thus, teachers deemed highly effective would be those who on a fair, or “value-added,” basis achieve a high amount of academic growth for students. Teachers deemed acceptable would be those who achieve acceptable student growth. Those with minimal growth rates, or even regression, would be deemed ineffective.
Any system that evaluates teacher performance must address certain challenges. Many courses are not tested by the state, such as foreign languages, art and music, and physical education. Certain grades are not tested at all. In high school, at least until our proposals are implemented, it is virtually impossible in most districts to measure growth from different student baselines to different levels of mastery of specific course content. Further, teachers do not have total control over student achievement, and the contribution to student achievement is often complex, involving the work of the school as a whole or several teachers. Some teachers have primary responsibility for students with serious disabilities. For these reasons, at least a portion of teacher evaluation must involve such factors as the acquisition of content knowledge and skills known to be related to student achievement, principal and multiple peer evaluations and other measures of value as part of goal setting determined at the local level under general guidance by the state.
The evaluation must be fair, have clear rubrics that are easily understood, and be administered multiple times. With such a design, claims of bias or favoritism will be baseless.
Necessary funds should be appropriated to the TEA to utilize the best available expertise and resources to develop within one year the essential criteria of a solid evaluation system and an actual model evaluation system. In so doing, the state will revise the Professional Development and Appraisal System to: (a) reflect research-based knowledge about effective teacher characteristics and practices; (b) evaluate teachers on outcomes that directly relate to student achievement; (c) base teacher evaluations on individual student and classroom-level achievement using value-added measures; (d) identify ineffective teachers using specific educational outcomes; and (e) secure validation of the system and criteria by nationally recognized experts. Criteria must be comparable in rigor for evaluating teachers in assessed areas as well as in non-assessed areas. Local districts should be free during the subsequent year either to choose the state model or modify their own systems consistent with these state criteria.
Administrators and teachers would at state expense be provided professional development on the proper and effective implementation of this evaluation system.
V. PAY MORE TO TEACHERS WHO PERFORM WELL AND WHO TAKE ON GREATER AND MORE DIFFICULT ASSIGMENTS
With the exception of recent reforms in HB1, our current teacher salary structure offers virtually no incentives to reward excellence. And a system that does not reward excellence is unlikely to inspire it. Moreover, research indicates that one of the reasons the teaching profession is failing to attract the most promising, high aptitude candidates is because of the severe compression of pay in education. Further, the teaching profession is failing to attract the most promising, highly motivated candidates because excellent teachers are not rewarded according to their effectiveness. Teachers with similar experience and credits get similar pay, regardless of their outcomes. Those teachers with greater seniority get paid more, regardless of their outcomes.
House Bill 1 begins to effectuate, and we propose to extend, the principle that a large component of all future increases in teacher compensation must be utilized as pay for performance.
Additional pay, honor, and recognition should be awarded both for performance and as incentives for:
- Teachers in schools that principally serve low income students and that are rated exemplary as well as those that show the greatest gains in student progress;
- Teachers whose evaluations deem them highly effective based on achieving a high amount of student gains, and other criteria , such as mentoring, principal and peer evaluations;
- Highly effective teachers who teach in hard to staff schools;
- Highly effective teachers who teach subject shortage areas, such as math and science, and in special education and English language acquisition; and
- Highly effective teachers who take on increased levels of academic responsibility and work, including serving as a master or mentor teacher.
The two programs in HB1 should be sustained at the very least at current funding levels in the next biennium. The TEA should be required to further develop criteria based on proven models for pay for performance systems. Local districts should develop systems consistent with such criteria. The legislature should commit to provide additional funding to districts that have adopted such systems to pay more for highly effective teachers as soon as the new evaluation methods are operational for identifying highly effective teachers.
VI. SUPPORT AND RETAIN TEACHERS THROUGH IMPROVED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND OTHER PROVEN ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
A. PROFESSIONALIZE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
We propose that state requirements in this area formally connect individual professional development with individual teacher evaluations and with efforts to improve teachers with less than effective performance.
VII. REMOVE PERSISTENTLY INEFFECTIVE TEACHERS
Personnel management that assures the most effective teacher in the classroom is an essential requirement of building a strong educational system. We seek great professionalism for our state’s teachers. That means greater respect and greater rewards for results. It also means more effective evaluation, the expectation of continuous improvement in performance, and removal, if performance remains persistently ineffective after proper support.
We believe strongly that principals should have full control over hiring teachers for their schools, and they should as well be fully accountable for student achievement in their schools.
There should be far greater scrutiny by principals of teacher effectiveness during a teacher’s first three years of service, the time during which teachers essentially work at will. Our first recommendation, therefore, is to train principals and administrators to better utilize the evaluation data and clear authority they have in the teachers’ first years of service, and to hold principals accountable, through their own evaluations, when they fail to remove persistently ineffective new teachers.
We propose the following reforms with respect to veteran teachers:
- A teacher who receives an ineffective evaluation based on student growth and other measures of effectiveness should be required to participate as part of a corrective action plan in an intensive, research-based professional development program tailored to that teacher’s particular needs with adequate, relevant, and ongoing coaching.
- If that teacher receives a second ineffective evaluation the following year, the principal and the district would have the discretion to remove the teacher, and the teacher would bear the burden of proof in any dismissal hearing. Should dismissal not be pursued, an appropriate and rigorous course of professional development would be required.
- If that teacher receives a third ineffective evaluation, the principal would be required to remove such a teacher, and the teacher would bear the burden of proof in any dismissal hearing.
Web posted: 02/02/07
