Bassett Questions Harsh Evaluations
Do the highest performing schools in the state have more Highly Effective - and less Ineffective - teachers than the average? No, says State Superintendent John White.
Thursday,
eighteen
high-performing schools were recognized for
awarding low numbers of the highest ratings to teachers. Each school
ranked in the top ten percent of either student proficiency or
improvement in proficiency rate on state assessments.
According to the
Compass
Report on teacher evaluations, statewide,
over half the teachers were rated Highly Effective for student growth as measured
against their Student Learning Targets. However, in these
18 schools, less than ten percent of teachers received that rating.
They also rated teachers as Ineffective at over four times the state
average.
Student Learning
Targets (SLTs) are goals set for students by teachers and principals
at the beginning of the year. Teachers are evaluated by how well
their students attain those goals.
“These schools show the great results that can be achieved when educators have high expectations for the students they teach,” said State Superintendent John White. “By raising the bar for what children are expected to achieve academically, educators raised the bar for what they could achieve professionally, which is the goal of Compass.”
Educator Herb
Bassett questions White's logic. According to Bassett, the ratings
failed to reward teachers in several schools for high achievements and White praises a
policy of failing teachers by design. "Common sense dictates
that these schools' high performance should be reflected in high ratings for their teachers. Instead, the Superintendent celebrates a tainted
process where teacher ratings are much lower than student achievement
warrants. The data raises red flags about the fairness and
reliability of these ratings."
Joseph S. Clark
Preparatory High School received dual praise for its improvement in
student proficiency and stringent teacher evaluations. The school
ranked in the 99th percentile for improvement in student proficiency
yet gave the final rating of Ineffective to 68 percent of its
teachers.
Clark Prep, along
with Samuel J. Green Charter School, Arthur Ashe Charter School, and
John Dibert Community School were schools praised by White. In these
schools, 70, 68, 54, and 35 percent respectively, of teachers were
given the rating of Ineffective on their SLTs. The state average was
less than three percent.
All four schools
are run by Frontline (Charter) Schools in New Orleans.
In the Compass
teacher evaluation system, two components are averaged to yield a
final rating. The Professional Practices Score is based on two
principal observations during the year. The Student Outcomes Score
is based on student achievement as measured against either SLTs or
student growth targets set by LDOE's Value-added Assessment Model
(VAM).
In the VAM
system, teachers are ranked by a computer model, and assigned labels
based on quotas set by LDOE. Within each content area, the bottom
ten percent are ranked Ineffective and the top twenty percent Highly
Effective. Less than a third of teachers are evaluated by the
computer model.
The Compass
Report calls for "alignment" of ratings by the different measures.
Evaluators are being encouraged by the DOE to adjust future ratings to match the
quotas set in the VAM system. This blog pointed out in our post last week that such a practice would not be in accord with Act 54.
There are stark
contradictions between the state's VAM computer model results and
Frontline Schools ratings. Since SLTs and VAM rankings measure
student growth in different ways, the discrepancies call into
question the reliability of the two measures.
At
Arthur Ashe Charter School the computer model ranked 77 percent of
the teachers Highly Effective and 23 percent Proficient. No VAM
teacher received a lower rating. However, 54 percent of all teachers
at that school were rated Ineffective on their SLTs.
Results for
Samuel J. Green Charter were similar. Sixty-nine percent of the VAM
teachers were ranked Highly Effective but 67 percent of all teachers
were rated Ineffective on their SLTs.
These schools
held up a questionable standard for the Professional Practices
Scores. No principal awarded any teacher a rating of Highly
Effective based on the classroom observations.
Overall, the VAM
system ranked 71 percent of these teachers Highly Effective; but the
SLTs yielded only seven percent Highly Effective, and by the
principal observations, no teacher was Highly Effective. The
disparity between the VAM rankings and the other measures show
possible collusion among these principals to withhold the highest
ratings from their teachers.
"If
these schools truly are among the state's top performing schools, it
makes no sense to put over one third of their teachers on a fast
track to being fired," Bassett commented. "White chose to
praise rather than condemn the evaluations of these teachers."