Option proposed for review holes

Public school teachers who get poor evaluations even though their students scored well could get special consideration, state Superintendent of Education John White said Thursday.

However, White emphasized that the issue likely applies to only 40 or 50 of Louisiana’s 55,000 teachers.

“Evaluating the teacher in a different way would be a positive solution,” he said.

White made his comments after meeting with teachers and others at South Highlands Elementary Magnet School, where complaints about parts of Louisiana’s new teacher evaluation system surfaced earlier this month.

Under a 2010 state law that takes effect this school year, half of a teacher’s annual evaluation will be based on the growth of student achievement and half on classroom observations.

But some teachers at South Highlands, which is the top-rated elementary school in the state, said they were rated as “ineffective” in trial runs even though their students scored among the highest in the state.

Since then, educators at high-performing schools in Baton Rouge and elsewhere have made similar comments.

The problem, they say, is that students who achieve high scores one year might fare well the next year but still show a drop.

That results in the teacher getting a low rating for failing to produce the gains that the state says is necessary to demonstrate their effectiveness.

The issue is significant because teachers who get back-to-back poor evaluations can lose their jobs.

White has written letters to some lawmakers and members of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education addressing the controversy.

Under his proposal, teachers rated at the highest levels on a state standardized test but score in the lowest category on their evaluation would be rated solely on classroom observations.

Students who score in the top two levels on key tests while their teachers are rated poorly “might not be the right outcome,” White said.

The change would require approval from the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Any such effort would spark controversy, in part because teacher unions and others contend the evaluations are unfair.

Backers contend the new evaluations end a system where teacher reviews amounted to little more than rubber stamps in which 99 percent received the state’s highest rating.

Opponents call the new plan unreliable and one that is being implemented without enough vetting.

Comments

1) Comment by Iamhopeful2 - 21/10/2012

Florida same problems. If White didn't have his head in a hole he would know this. http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/vam-the-new-teacher-evaluation-system- stirs-concern-confusion/1257409

2) Comment by Iamhopeful2 - 21/10/2012

Again White exposes his lack of any educational expertise. #1. If teachers with high performing students should be exempt, it would indicate that all teachers of high performing students are effective and their students' high performance is a result of their stellar teaching. I am perfectly willing as a teacher of gifted to acknowledge that as a false assumption. #2. If teachers are in inclusive classrooms with a mixture of high performing students and low performing students, the previous false assumption would indicate that the teacher is effective but the low performing students are. . . well. . .low performing. I'm not going to go there because White would accuse me of making excuses like poverty, IQ, lack of parent involvement, hormones, violence at home etc. He would have to assume I had self-serving motivations of one kind or another and was selectively giving attention to my "pets." #3. This scenario in #1 would mean that teachers with classes of all low performing students (an anomaly unless artificially produced via strategies like selective enrollment, siphoning off students to magnet schools, vouchers, alternative schools etc. hhmmmmmm) would mean that teachers of low performing students are ineffective and should be fired. I dare say that John White would agree with that because he agrees with our new COMPASS method of evaluation. So if student performance is in fact a direct result of teacher effectiveness it would mean that #1. Teachers should only agree to teach high performing students or #3. Students who are low performing should be grouped and assigned state certified unionized teachers w years of experience so White can with good conscience have them fired or grouped in classes assigned Teach For America instructors who will only last two years anyway and have no certification to lose and can then move up through the TFA ranks to communications director or even State Superintendent. My suggestion would be to scrap the bogus COMPASS system and adopt a system that uses multiple measures of assessment such as quite a few offered up by organizations like the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. NBPTS could even do the evaluations for the state as a far lesser cost than COMPASS and thereby assure quality control.

3) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 19/10/2012

Superintendent John White and I agree on something! He says, “Evaluating the teacher in a different way would be a positive solution.” Finally, we agree! Nothing in the current evaluation system, for schools, for districts, or for teachers, makes any sense at all, and cannot be backed up with any data or research, hence the lack of willingness on the part of the state to provide either.

4) Comment by civitasiveritas - 19/10/2012

Oops! John White stepped in it now. And the little "oops" only applies to "40 or 50" teachers? Let's play this out. What if, for once, John White isn't lying, and it truly is "only" 40 or 50 teachers, who went to school for four years, or more likely six years to learn the subject matter and the teaching practices that best enable students to become better citizens. And these teachers are raising families, and paying taxes in Louisiana. And a totally random and patently illegitimate Value Added Measure renders them "highly ineffective" one year. What's the harm in that? John White really doesn't get it, folks. He doesn't have a clue. And by the way, Will Sentell doesn't get it either. He must have read too much of the "rhetoric of the reformers." If these 40 or 50 teachers, and we all know this is truly the tip of the ice-berg, receive just one "highly ineffective" though totally incorrect rating, they now have to face the fact that they have no job protection. They can be fired "at will" by a young, inexperienced, unqualified principal who might have, as their only experience in the profession these teachers have dedicated their lives to, a five week summer "boot camp" and a couple of years in teaching. Yes, it only takes one (1) year of this false label, and they have no recourse if this new principal feels threatened by their vast years of training and experience, they are gone! Families, mortgages, their role in the community, uprooted by a new arrival in this state who couldn't care less. Yes, this is the world that John White represents. White lies.