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Senate passes teacher bill 21-14
Written by Todd Engdahl on Apr 29th, 2010. | Copyright © EdNewsColorado.org
[...] As Education News Coloradonotes, the bill is similar to legislation being discussed in other states, which is part of a national trend to reform how educators’ work is evaluated. Though the legislation could help Colorado obtain millions of dollars in federal “Race to the Top” funding, little debate has centered on that issue. Share or Bookmark This Post: [...]
As Diane Ravitch said so eloquently said Friday morning, April 30, 2010, tying fifty percent of a teacher’s evaluation to student performance on tests, deforms, not reforms, public education. And, as I stated previously in this newsletter, any teacher who would base one half of a student’s evaluation on testing, is either lazy or incompetent, or both. SB 191 should be scrapped and replaced by a teacher evaluation system based on justice and which is based on research rather than opinion. Certainly, teachers and students must be fairly and competently evaluated. During my 31 year teaching career in Denver Public Schools, I doubt that I ever was so evaluated. The administrators who evaluated me did the best they could given the limited amount of time and resources available. Finally, I am disheartened and disgusted that legislators would ignore the wisdom of State Reps. Judy Solano and Michael Merrifield, both retired classroom teachers, and accept the inexperience of State Sen. Michael Johnston, an inexperienced teacher and administrator, one definitively lacking in wisdom.
Whether educators want to acknowledge it or not, testing well is the gatekeeper to many of life’s important passages. How my daughter does on her ACT will determine if she qualifies for scholarships and entrance into universities. CSAP results have forced me to hire tutors because her math scores showed a lack of proficiency but her school did nothing to address the deficiencies that the data in the tests provided to them.
I support SB 191 because it links the principals’ evaluation to student growth. Watching my daughter’s data get ignored year after year, has led me to this role of advocacy for this bill. It is time that a law requires educators to examine what they are doing and improve.
For those who continue to blame the parents and the students, show me the verifiable methods of communication you engaged in with the individual students and their parents about the child’s lack of proficiency. Show me what you did to understand their current academic level and your plan to help them grow.
My name is Stephanie Rossi and I teach at Wheat Ridge Senior High. I have been a social studies
educator for the last 30 years, and despite all that goes on in the world of education today, I still believe I
HAVE THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD. Last year, I was fortunate to be recognized as one of the five
national finalists of the National Education Association’s (NEA) Excellence in Teaching Awards and it is in
that spirit of excellence that I come to you today, to discuss excellence and effectiveness in education.
While I do believe that the intention of SB 191 is to codify some type of accountability measures for
educators, it falls short in its efforts by setting unrealistic measures that may further damage the efforts to
develop an effective evaluation mechanism that authentically assesses a classroom teacher’s work.
Currently, SB 191 creates a yearly teacher and principal evaluation system that ties significant portions
of an evaluation to student achievement (academic growth). Furthermore, said evaluations must be ongoing
or a teacher could lose his or her job security, be returned to probationary status or terminated.
Frankly, I understand the motivation behind these measures. We as a society can no longer afford to let
students slip through the academic crack and simply wash our hands of it. In fact, most of my students will
demonstrate academic success and I am not worried about them, but as I began to reflect on the few
students I have this year (and have every year) I did begin to wonder how my evaluations would reflect
what I encounter every year.
Every year I diligently work to help students turn academic failures into successes. After the first
report card, I set up mandatory weekly help-sessions to keep students who have a D or an F. Some show
up and some do not. I call parents immediately when a homework assignment is not turned in; require
students to eat lunch with me to complete a missing homework assignment before the end of the next
school day. Not all show up. I call parents a 3rd, 4th and 5th time to explain we are partners in their child’s
success and I will not quit on their child and that I need their help to get their child back on track. Most are
very appreciative, but I also was told, “I don’t know what to do with him/ her either?” For kids who
continue to struggle I make modifications, provide extra time and help, paper, pens, pencils – and was even
ready to pay for an AP exam to help a student succeed.
Every year I select certain kids to be my student assistants (for the sole purpose of helping them
succeed academically and work with them one on one). A success story last year was two boys who were
my student assistants did not get suspended for an entire semester!! Academically, the success was not
evident, but socially they stayed out of trouble and this year they are doing much, much better academically.
Would that success have been taken into account in this new evaluation model? Those two young men had
to learn how to do school for a year – and now the success is paying off. Academically, they are still
behind, but they are on the right track and have begun to believe they can be successful students They are
even on the baseball team. And I am sure you know that despite all of those interventions – I still have
kids failing. Some of my students don’t attend school enough to know what is necessary to complete the
class; they do not bring supplies to class, do not complete homework assignments – NO MATTER WHAT
I DO – I cannot turn them around. My performance with these students would be reflected in my evaluation
and despite all of my ongoing efforts; the students who are still failing my class could affect my
employment. Would I blame my dentist for cavities I got because I did not do all that he asked of me to
maintain my oral hygiene? No.
What I, and many educators, ARE willing to do is to continue to support current efforts to develop a
collaborative evaluative mechanism that reflects an authentic classroom teacher’s experience; one that does not punish the teacher or the principal for doing everything in their power to achieve academic success with their students, but rather recognizes the efforts of the classroom teacher in a productive pro-active way. I believe I was, and continue to be, effective with my students, and despite all of my efforts, some of my students did not experience any academic success. Who is responsible for that?