House Democrat urges delay in teacher reviews
A Louisiana House Democratic leader said Wednesday that he wants the state’s new teacher evaluation system delayed for one year.
State Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, said there are too many questions surrounding the reviews to launch them this fall.
“If we don’t have a system that is fair and reasonable, it will fall under its own weight,” Edwards said.
Edwards, who is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, has filed a bill that would delay the teacher reviews until the 2013-14 school year.
In addition, the model used by state officials would have to be approved by the state House and Senate education committees before it is used.
The legislation will be debated during the 2012 regular legislative session, which begins March 12.
State Superintendent of Education John White said Wednesday the state will be ready to begin the evaluations this fall.
The issue stems from a 2010 law that will link teacher evaluations in part to the growth of student achievement.
Backers said the change is designed to ensure that all students have quality teachers.
Teacher union leaders and other critics have disputed the validity of the reviews, and criticized the use of scores on standardized tests for measuring teacher effectiveness.
The new rules were pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal and won heavy support in the Legislature, including the backing of Edwards.
But Edwards said a last-minute change to the 2010 law aimed at ensuring legislative oversight of the plan to be used to rate teachers will do no such thing.
The current law gives the House and Senate education committees the option of turning down the state’s teacher review plan if they conclude it is “arbritrary or not evidence based.”
However, committee action is not required.
“There is no guarantee of that at all,” Edwards said.
He said his bill will force a discussion of an issue that otherwise will not occur.
Louisiana’s top school board in December approved a plan that will link the job status of many public school teachers to how they fare on a scale of 1 to 5.
About 17,000 math, English and other teachers will be affected by the 1 to 5 rating, with half of the evaluation linked to the growth of student achievement.
Details are still being worked out on how the other 33,000 or so teachers will be rated.
Edwards said possible review systems for those teachers just began.
“We can’t have a way of knowing whether we are ready to go statewide with that,” he said.
Edwards also noted that, under Jindal’s public school proposals, teacher pay, tenure and other issues could be linked to the results of the evaluations.
But White said some of the evaluations are in their third year of testing and that reviews for other teachers will be ready to go later this year.
He said delaying the evaluations for a year would be a mistake.
“It has a real impact on the kids,” White said.
White also said the job reviews are similar to what has gone on in private industry “since the dawn of time” and are just arriving in education.