Union Shifts Position on Teacher Evaluations

[steven johnson]

Two steps forward, one step back.

By SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: July 4, 2011

CHICAGO — Catching up to the reality already faced by many of its members, the nation’s largest teachers’ union on Monday affirmed for the first time that evidence of student learning must be considered in the evaluations of school teachers around the country.

In passing the new policy at its assembly here, the 3.2 million-member union, the National Education Association, hopes to take a leadership role in the growing national movement to hold teachers accountable for what students learn — an effort from which it has so far conspicuously stood apart.

The policy calls for teacher practice, teacher collaboration within schools and student learning to be used in teacher evaluations. But for tests, only those shown to be “developmentally appropriate, scientifically valid and reliable for the purpose of measuring both student learning and a teacher’s performance” should be used, the policy states, a bar that essentially excludes all existing tests, said Douglas N. Harris of the University of Wisconsin, a testing expert.

Mr. Eubanks said, “We believe that there are no tests ready to do that,” though he added that with the new national Common Core curriculum standards being rolled out, new tests might be created that could meet the bar.




Union Shifts Position on Teacher Evaluations

[patrice]

1. I hope this evolves into a discussion of Authentic Assessment.

It seems that could be a concrete way of evaluating both the teacher and the students.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. It is way late for this to be happening

Our unions have really hurt us by being in denial over this. They should have been out front

[patrice]

5. That's what I was saying when I left the field over 10 years ago.

I also thought we should be talking about year-around school in regular blocks interspersed with significant blocks of vacation.

There should be enough professional staff to keep the doors open 8a-8p, for all ages.

My colleagues used to just stare at me, when I said things like this.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Eubanks needs to take a closer look at Common Core

This is downright scary.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. If the evaluations were fairly drafted and executed and ONLY a factor,

I might get on board. And of course, if the process minimalized the results of the standardized testing (if NCLB is reformed or eliminated).

[tortoise1956]

6. Hear Hear!

The main problem will be with determining what progress the students have made DURING THAT SCHOOL YEAR. If it is just a raw score for their age group and grade, then you will run into problems with those students who were already behind the power curve.

My mother is a prime example. Near the end of her teaching career, she taught students who were considered to be educationally or emotionally handicapped. They were often 2 or 3 grades behind. In most cases, she was able to bring them up by the equivalent of 2 grade levels or more during the course of the school year. However, using raw scores only could cause that to be interpreted as failing since they still might not have reached their actual grade level.

So, the answer is to construct a series of tests that will accurately determine a student's level of achievement, Adan administer them both at the beginning and end of each school year. In addition, the school system will have to be more rigorous on identifying students with issues, and building a path for them to succeed and reach their potential. I'm not very hopeful about this occurring within the next couple of years.

And yes, NCLB needs to go into the dustbin of failed ideas. It was good in theory, but how could anyone with any statistical training have ever thought that 90% of all students could achieve the level of proficiency they were demanding?