Tennessee’s new way of evaluating classrooms “systematically failed” to identify bad teachers and provide them more training, according to a state report published Monday.

The Tennessee Department of Education found that instructors who got failing grades when measured by their students’ test scores tended to get much higher marks from principals who watched them in classrooms. State officials expected to see similar scores from both methods.

“Evaluators are telling teachers they exceed expectations in their observation feedback when in fact student outcomes paint a very different picture,” the report states. “This behavior skirts managerial responsibility.”

The data revealed:

• More than 75 percent of teachers received scores of 4 or 5 — the highest possible — from their principals, compared with 50 percent scoring 4 or 5 based on student learning gains measured on tests.
• Fewer than 2.5 percent scored a 1 or 2 when observed, while 16 percent scored a 1 or 2 when judged by learning gains.
• Of teachers who received the learning gains score of 1, the average observational score was, on average, 3.6.

In this first state review of evaluations the education department suggests some principals will need to be trained again on how to observe teachers. It’s one of numerous recommendations in a 45-page report that captures thousands of teacher and administrator responses to the evaluation program.

A federal Race to the Top grant spurred Tennessee to create an evaluation system tied, in part, to student test scores. Every teacher is evaluated every year, receiving a score between 1 and 5. Teachers can be denied tenure, or lose it, if they score 1s or 2s for two consecutive years. Some educators criticized the system as being unfair, time-consuming and rushed into place, and they unsuccessfully pushed for the first year’s results to be considered a trial run.

Half of each evaluation is based on observations. The other half comes from standardized tests and other measures of student performance.

But almost two-thirds of instructors don’t teach subjects that show up on state standardized tests, so for those teachers — including in kindergarten through second grade, and in subjects like art and foreign languages — a score is applied based on the entire school’s learning gains, which the state calls its “value-added score.”

The report recommends relying less on the school-wide scores, which many teachers fault for failing to capture their individual work. The state suggests bringing in other types of tests to measure these teachers.

The state is also pushing for ways to make sure districts across the state evaluate teachers consistently, although the report doesn’t say exactly how to do this beyond increasing training for evaluators.

The report outlines numerous other changes, and anticipates what could be annual tweaks. The first year drew feedback that included conversations with every school district superintendent, 7,500 conversations with teachers and 17,000 teacher and administrator surveys.

Educators wanted ways to streamline the evaluation process. Principals found their time consumed by class visits, with some responsible for as many as 36 teachers, but they may get a break. High-scoring teachers may get the chance to undergo fewer observations and to choose to use their value-added scores for 100 percent of their overall scores.

To read more, please visit http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120717/NEWS04/307160058/TN-education-reform-hits-bump-teacher-evaluation?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

The State Collaborative on Reforming Education, or SCORE, has released a new report, “Supporting Effective Instruction in Tennessee,” focused on the state’s teacher evaluation system.  The report follows a five-month listening and feedback process SCORE led on the evaluation system to identify what is working well, gather input on challenges and concerns, and report back with a range of recommendations to the Tennessee Department of Education and State Board of Education.  Tennessee is now completing the first year of implementing a new teacher evaluation system, designed to identify and support effective teaching.

SCORE heard consistent and positive feedback on many aspects of the evaluation, including that the system is improving both the quality of instruction and student results. SCORE also heard challenges related to the implementation of the new system, including perceptions that the evaluation is overly focused on accountability and not enough on improving and supporting effective teaching.

SCORE gathered this feedback and has provided seven specific recommendations to continue improving the evaluation system moving forward:

•  Recommendation 1: Ensure current and prospective teachers and leaders receive sufficient training in the evaluation system.

•  Recommendation 2: Link the feedback that teachers receive with high-quality, collaborative, and individualized professional learning opportunities so that they can improve their instruction..

•  Recommendation 3: Address challenges with the current quantitative and qualitative measures of teacher effectiveness. Many of the issues that have arisen are not due to problems with the First to the Top plan for teacher evaluation, but rather from the remaining gaps in the development and implementation of measures of the evaluation system. For example, [they] recommend the state offer teachers in non-tested grades and subjects (who do not yet have individual student growth, or value-added, data) the option of temporarily increasing the weighting of the qualitative portion of the evaluation.

•  Recommendation 4: Support school and district leaders in becoming strong instructional leaders capable of assessing and developing effective teaching – and hold them accountable for doing so.

•  Recommendation 5: Re-engage educators in those districts where implementation of the teacher evaluation system has faltered during the first year of work.

•  Recommendation 6: Integrate the ongoing implementation of the teacher evaluation system and the Common Core State Standards so that they work together to improve student outcomes.

• Recommendation 7: Drive continuous improvement of the teacher evaluation system at the state, district, and school levels. Leaders and educators must commit to improving the teacher evaluation system on an ongoing basis to maximize its impact on student achievement. [State Collaborative on Reforming Education]

To read the full report, please visit http://thescoresheet.org/2012/06/11/score-releases-report-following-teacher-evaluation-feedback-process/

In a new chapter of the issues plaguing Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) has announced its plans for a statewide feedback process on the system (background information).  The process is designed to gather input from all stakeholders, but particularly educators, and is a response to Gov. Bill Haslam’s request for a formal, independent feedback process.

Jamie Woodson, President and CEO of SCORE, has stated that his organization’s role for the next four months will be to listen to what people have to say about the system.  “Critical to the success of this implementation [of the teacher evaluation system] work is robust and extensive feedback from educators and community leaders to identify what is working and what can be improved.”  Through May 2012, SCORE will be gathering feedback in four ways:

–Regional Roundtables:  Eight public roundtables across the state will be held and include participation from all stakeholders.

–Online Survey:  Starting March 1, an online survey will be launched to gather feedback from educators.

–Discussions with existing groups and networks:  These groups and networks will include superintendent, principal and supervisor study councils, as well as leaders and educators from each of the four evaluation models.

–Educator Work Team:  A representative group of teachers and principals from across the state will be gathered to provide ongoing feedback.

Following the feedback process, SCORE will release a report to the Tennessee State Board of Education and Department of Education that will detail the feedback on the four evaluation models and recommend a range of policies with which to move forward.

To learn more, please visit www.tnscore.org/feedback

When Tennessee was one of the first winners named in the federal Race to the Top competition, Secretary Arne Duncan praised the state’s officials for having “the courage, capacity and commitment to turn their ideas into practice that can improve outcomes for students.”  Now, it appears that commendation was premature.

The new teacher evaluation system, based on students’ test scores and classroom observations, has had some unanticipated consequences.  “I’ve never seen such nonsense,” says Will Shelton, principal of Blackman Middle School, “In the five years I’ve been principal here, I’ve never known so little about what’s going on in my own building.”  You see, the evaluation system has translated into four observations per teacher per year, regardless of their past performance, with each observation taking over two hours (pre-observation conference = 20 minutes; observation = 50 minutes; post-observation conference = 20 minutes, and completing a 19-variable rubric = 40 minutes).  If a school has a teaching staff of 20, that works out to be a minimum of 29 full school days each year the principal must spend on teacher evaluations; for a staff of 50 it’s 72 days.

Furthermore, for untested subjects the evaluation rules are complicated and somewhat nonsensical—math teachers can be evaluated on the school’s reading scores, music teachers on the school’s writing scores, and a number of other questionable requirements.  One of Shelton’s teachers has confided to him that morale “is in the toilet…it [the evaluation system] causes so much distrust.”

Many observers, both within and outside of Tennessee, view the chaos as proof that it is always necessary to “look before you leap,” particularly when it comes to education.  Federal officials claim that they did not pressure the state to quickly roll out their program without proper preparations, and that other RTT winners have been given extensions to meet their targets.  State officials, after sticking their ground for the past few months, are now quietly discussing “tweaking” the evaluation requirements.  However, tweaking may not be enough.

In Tennessee, not only are principals increasingly disconnected from their schools, but teachers are still not being evaluated fairly, particularly in the untested subjects.  Teachers without state tests (and thus quantitative results) are evaluated based on the scores of other teachers at their school with test results.  So, for example, a first grade teacher is evaluated based on fifth-grade writing scores.  For 15 percent of their testing evaluation, teachers without scores can choose which subjects they want to count in their evaluation.  This usually leads to a bit of horse-race style gambling: teachers pick subjects in which they think the school’s students will perform well, even if it has nothing to do with their own content area.  The situation has even led educators who are in favor of increased teacher accountability, such as Principal Shelton, to become jaded.

Michael Winerip of The New York Times sums it up well: “In the end, it’s all about distrust: not trusting principals to judge teachers, not trusting teachers to educate children.”

To read more, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/education/tennessees-rules-on-teacher-evaluations-bring-frustration.html?_r=2&emc=eta1%20%20

Last month, the Tennessee State Board of Education adopted a state-recommended, state-wide teacher evaluation model currently being used in South Carolina.  The Board also adopted three alternate models for districts to choose from, and the state will monitor each district closely in the coming year to make sure that teachers are being judged fairly regardless of the evaluation model they are working under.  So far, only a few districts have asked to stray from the state-wide model.

Starting this year, teachers and principals will be evaluated with 50 percent of their score based on student achievement: 35 percent will be the teacher’s value-added score from both tested and untested subjects; fifteen percent will be based on graduation rates, AP coursework, and other school-selected data.  The remaining 50 percent of the evaluation will come from at least four classroom observations using the state-approved evaluation models.

To read more about Tennessee’s new evaluation system, visit http://www.tnscore.org/

*Core Education is pleased to assist states and districts in crafting comprehensive evaluation systems for teachers and school leaders as well as plans for the thoughtful implementation of these systems. See http://www.coreeducationllc.com/evaluation.php for a description of the services we provide.