State Sen. Mike Johnston
State Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, is expected to introduce his much-anticipated bill to overhaul educator evaluation, tenure and hiring early next week.
Johnston outlined the bill last Wednesday and took questions from an audience of about 50 at a community meeting sponsored by Padres y Jovenes Unidos, which advocates school reform on behalf of low-income minority students.
Scroll down to bottom to see videos of Johnston’s talk.
Click here to read a draft of Johnston’s bill, which like all drafts is subject to last-minute revisions.
He described four key components of his bill:
- Create an evaluation system for principals and teachers based partly on multiple measures of student academic growth – at least 50 percent for teachers. For principals, 66 percent would be based on student academic growth and the demonstrated effectiveness of their teachers.
- Identify the most effective educators, pay them more and share their work so other teachers and principals can learn from them.
- Ensure teachers earn tenure or due process rights “based on real demonstrated performance and that they keep that privilege based on demonstrated performance.”
- Implement hiring by mutual consent so that principals hire the teachers they want and that teachers work at schools where they choose to be. Teachers would have “multiple opportunities to earn a position” but would be placed on unpaid leave if they did not.
“Those are the four big ideas. They don’t seem crazy or controversial but they are,” said Johnston, a former teacher and principal who has advised President Obama on education policy.
“And they are because we have for a long time lived in a system where we don’t believe we know what really makes a great teacher or what makes a great principal,” he said. But,”We now have the ability to look at what kind of impact educators are having, and figure out who really is having a great impact and who isn’t.”
Johnston has been talking about the bill since before the 2010 Legislature convened in January. But it was sidelined when Gov. Bill Ritter appointed a Council on Educator Effectiveness as part of the state’s bid for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant competition.
The council, made up of 15 members including three teachers appointed by the statewide teachers’ union, was seen as a more collaborative – some said slower - approach to the issue of improving educator quality.
Monday, Colorado learned it wasn’t among the states winning the first round of the national Race and Ritter said some legislation may help the state’s chances in round two of the competition, which has a June 1 deadline.
“I know there’s been some bills that we’ve held off on until now to see what happens with Race to the Top,” Ritter said. “They may very well be introduced, they may be debated and passed and signed into law by the time the next application is due and that may help us.”
Johnston last week said he believes his bill, if passed, could help the state win Race or other federal dollars. Ritter announced Tuesday that Colorado will apply in the second round of the Race grant competition.
Audience members questioned Johnston about his bill.
“I think we have a very good chance of winning round two if we could pass this bill,” Johnston said. One of the states that won, Tennessee, had a bill that “looks almost exactly like this one.”
The bill “clarifies” the Council on Educator Effectiveness, according to a fact sheet prepared by Johnston’s staff, by speeding its deadline to December 2010 and requiring the State Board of Education to make recommendations on any issues the council either does not address or cannot reach consensus on.
Audience members peppered Johnston with questions about which tests would be used to evaluate teachers, how teachers of electives such as art could be judged and potential fiscal impacts of the bill.
One audience member asked how the best teachers would benefit from the plan, prompting a lengthy response. Johnston described four possible steps on a new career ladder that includes differentiated pay:
- Master teachers would serve as role models. Their names would be posted on the Colorado Department of Education web site and other teachers could sign up to visit their classrooms to observe their work.
- Mentor teachers would share their work. A new seventh-grade math teacher could search on the CDE site to find the best seventh-grade math teachers in the state and watch videos of them teaching or study their lesson plans.
- Teacher coaches would spend part of their day teaching and part of their day coaching other teachers, a practice already used in some school districts.
- Peer evaluators or teachers wanting to become principals or assistant principals would spend part of their time evaluating other teachers, giving them experience evaluating while other teachers get more feedback.
“Those are some of the roles we’re thinking about,” Johnston said. “What we want to do is really call attention to people doing great work so we can learn from them.”
Click on the video below to hear Johnston explain the four key components of his plan:
Click in the video below to hear Johnston talk about basing 50 percent of teacher evaluations on growth:
Click in the video below to hear Johnston talk about using growth, CSAP and evaluating electives teachers:
[...] Let’s follow the lead of the other winning state Tennessee. Our state could pass a new law that overhauls teacher tenure and professional evaluations, as well as pay and professional growth opportunities, to link them more closely to student academic growth. Now that would be just the sort of step to put Colorado into contention. As Ed News Colorado reports, that’s what state senator Michael Johnston of Denver now seriously proposes to do. [...]
I guess that my questions center around what’s meant by multiple measures of student growth. Are we measuring out students’ abilities to learn how to succeed on high stakes assessments such as CSAP or are there other ways that Mr. Johnston proposes that we measure not only student growth but student understanding. Because I believe that what gets tested gets learned and in the current climate of high stakes testing we are helping students learn to take tests and that’s all we are teaching them. If on the other hand, Mr. Johnston has a vision of a way to truly measure student growth as thinkers and learners then I agree that teachers can and should be held responsible for moving their students in that direction. School can and should be about promoting critical thinking and growth as learners and not about simply creating another generation of highly proficient test takers.
Johnston appears to believe that teachers are the most important factor in a student’s success or failure even while acknowledging the role of poverty, racism and environment. That appears to be contradictory. Teachers, even the best, have little, or no, control over such extraneous factors in a child’s life. Johnston offers some interesting ideas such as mentors and master teachers, proposals that have been proposed by and supported by educators for decades. These ideas and so many other worthy and excellent ideas are dependent upon adequate funding. Underfunding of public education, K-20, has been the ugly truth that politicians and many education administrators have been ignoring for decades. Instead, elected officials such as Gov. Bill Ritter compliment students, teachers and parents for doing well with less. Where is the courageous and wise political leader who will explain, in plain language, that Colorado is mired in educational medicrocity and that the only way out of the hole we’re in is to stop digging? Reversing three decades of underfunding must begin by convincing taxpayers of the need to rebuild our educational infrastructure by recommiting to the common good.
When was the last time the Senator has been in the classroom, or our Govenor, or most parents . . . it is very easy to point fingers about issues like “teaching to the test” when you have not taken the time to be in schools and see ALL of the requirements that teachers have to meet in their day. I have wroked within the educational setting at the elementary, middle and high school level for thirteen years. In that time I have seen few “bad” teachers . . . what I have seen eachers subjected to is a TON of scrutiny from administration, parents and outside interests who can only criticise. Senator Johnston gave cursory acknowledgement to the impact of poverty, racsim, and environment, but what is overlooked, in my opinion, is that the educational system has a student for approximately eight hours a day and that is not enough to have a positive impact on the other negatives a student has to contend with in their life.
I also agree with a previous responder regarding Colorado’s educational mediocrity; the truth is that Colorado placed 49th out of fifty states in funding education. The general public is not aware of the budget deficits school districts are currently facing and the measures districts are being forced to take in order to balance their budgets, which puts education in more jeopardy . . . the vast majority of educators I have had the priviledge to work with are hard working; they get to school early and leave late to be sure they have done all they can in order to support student growth and achievement. These teachers are also generous in spirit and giving of their time and knowledge and are always looking for better ways of educating YOUR children. I would like to ask parents, and community members . . . .what are you willing to do in order to stand up for better education for YOUR children. How will YOU support the excellent teachers who are on the front lines day-in and day-out?
As Edward Augden eluded, Colorado has clearly articulated it’s unwillingness to fund education. According to the posting on the very site dated March 17, 2010, Colorado is sorely lacking a feeling of responsibility for public education.
“Between 1992 and 2001, Colorado declined precipitously from 35th to 49th in the nation in K-12 spending as a percentage of personal income. As of 2006, the state maintained its low ranking among the states at 48th.
Colorado’s average per-pupil funding fell by more than $600 relative to the national average between 1992 and 2006.
Colorado’s average teacher salary compared to average pay in other occupations declined from 30th in the nation in 1992 to a low of 50th in 2001, and edging up only slightly to 49th in the nation as of 2007.”
With this said, I find it difficult to believe that teachers in the trenches will get anything resembling support for any plan that comes through legislature. Even more, I have to wonder if the teachers whose pay is positively impacted by a program such as this should fear for their jobs when the next inevitable round of cuts comes racing our way.
It seems like a good idea to pay teachers what they’re worth and I don’t see a problem with deciding what they’re worth based on performance. My problem surfaces when this proposal comes from a government body whose educational priority seems higher than only one state in our great nation.
Students rise to expectations. If teachers make it clear that something is not important, student devotion is low. Why should this phenomenon be different in this instance?
[...] Johnston details bill at community group meeting AKPC_IDS += [...]
Senator Johnston is on the right track for sure. I am hoping to be able to attend some of the committee’s meetings (I am guessing they are open to the public) to support the work they are doing. One component we must analyze thoroughly is the data collection component of this and student progress as it relates to all students, including those wtih special needs.
Regarding Ms. Howes response. Although we may not agree with all that Senator Michael Johnston is proposing I can assure you that he has been in the classroom as both teacher and principal and under some very challenging conditions. He is an educational visionary and worthy of some attention. Attend some committee meetings, express your opinion. It’s the American way.