This series explores the impact of state and federal mandates on the Lansing Central School District.  In Part 1 we looked at what the new teacher evaluation mandate will cost Lansing in dollars and man-hours.  This week we look at the differences between the existing evaluation system and the new state-mandated version.  Next week we will explore the value of mandates vs. local programs.

In many people's minds the point of an evaluation system is to encourage or reward high performers, and identify low performers so they can be given a chance to improve their performance or be fired.  Tenure, state education law, and union contracts make termination almost, but not quite, impossible, which some say makes evaluating teachers pointless.

But that is not the only way teacher evaluation can be viewed.  Lansing School Superintendent Stephen Grimm says the current evaluation system is a process that encourages growth for great teachers.  The system that is in place only uses classroom eveluation for about a third of the process for tenured teachers.

"It allows for flexibility, especially for our master teachers," Grimm says.  "One of the best things a you can do to improve yourself as a teacher is to be reflective.  Two thirds of that type of system supports your own self-reflection, and helps with getting people to be creative about what they want to try.  Peer observations, especially when you get two master teachers, helps them to go into places that you're really not going to get if a principal comes in to watch you, or if I come."

Grimm says that Lansing has great, experienced educators who don't need him or anybody else to tell them how to be better teachers. 

"If we support them to be reflective and work with other great teachers they can go to places we couldn't even dream of," he says.

Comparing the Old and the New

Tenured Lansing Teachers have three options in the existing evaluation process.  In a 'self-directed year' a teacher selects a project to work on individually or with other teachers that is documented for evaluation.

The second option is peer coaching where two or more teachers observe each other and reflect on each other's performance, selecting specific skills they want to improve.

Finally there is an administrative review, which includes a meeting before being observed by an administrator, the observation itself, and then a post- observation meeting at which they are told the result.  Tenured teachers cycle through these options in four year chunks.  They are required to use all three kinds of evaluation within that time frame. 

All non-tenured teachers get three traditional classroom observations per year, plus pre-observation and post-observation meetings.  In their third year Grimm also observes them to help confirm whether or not the teacher should be tenured.

"Usually if there is some sort of problem we'll identify it before the third year," he says.  "My observation is more of an affirmation gauntlet."

The new system requires the more traditional observations/evaluations for all teachers.  60% of a teacher's 'grade' will be based on locally selected criteria.  Student attendance will also be factored into a teacher's effectiveness rating.   Teachers who are scored between 0 and 64 will be deemed ineffective.  'Developing' teachers will have scores of 65 to 74, 'Effective' teachers 75 to 90, and 'Highly Effective' teachers 91 to 100.

One key difference is that the new system will use student assessment results directly to classify how a teacher is performing.  40% of a teacher's 'grade' is going to be based on that student performance results.  Half of that 40% will be based on locally selected test measures, and the remaining half on a  student performance on state tests.  Student's performance and even their attendance will be directly connected to each teacher's score.

"It's going to be a very stressful for teachers, not because they're not confident or good, because most of our Lansing teachers are that," Grimm says.  "But how do you measure student learning, and how do you specifically measure the effect a particular teacher has had on it?"

Lansing Faculty Association President Stacie Kropp says that in addition to that stress the State has made compliance a moving target.  Albany does that regularly, requiring school districts to put budgets and programs in place before telling them what aid they can expect, or exactly what regulations they must comply with.  Kropp says a committee made of of teachers, administrators and a parent representative has been trying to make sense of confusing and conflicting requirements.

"The hardest part is that the information keeps changing from NYS and more layers keep being added, some without any explanation or detail, or without math formulas that work," Kropp says.  "It is an arduous task for all the folks who volunteered to put this plan together and it is only made harder by NYS putting deadlines and funding reductions over our heads. It's almost as if NYS just wants it to 'be in place' and not to actually work to the benefit of the schools, teachers or kids."

What Are The Outcomes?

The current system stresses personal growth and improvement as a teacher.  The outcome is supposed to be better teaching.  If a tenured teacher is doing such a bad job that he or she should be terminated state law requires districts to go through the 3020a process.

3020a is the section of education law that requires tenured school district employees charged with incompetence or misconduct to participated in what amounts to a 'shape up or ship out' process.  They may elect to have a hearing officer or three-member panel review the charges, and make recommendations as to penalty or punishment, if warranted. The board of education then has 15 days to implement the recommendations.

"That's very, very complicated, and very expensive, and very rare," Grimm says.  "Many districts will spend up to $300,000 in lawyers fees and back pay to execute a 3020a for a teacher, and that's when there are obvious competence problems or inappropriate behavior.  I don't think it's ever happened in Lansing."

Grimm says that the 3020a is designed to support a person, rather than to drive them out, designed similarly to the PIP (Personal Improvement Plan) process that many businesses use to deal with under-performing employees.

The new evaluation system will force an entirely different philosophy on Lansing's teachers: if your students do well you are a good teacher.  If not, you are a struggling teacher.

While the outcome is still meant to improve teachers, Governor Andrew Cuomo has also made it clear that the intention is to link it with more specific outcomes.  Cuomo has proposed an expedited 3020a process that, in concert with the new evaluation process, would give districts some more wiggle room when it comes to firing non-performing teachers.

Learning The Material or How to Take A Test?

One the one hand you can say that when we didn't have state tests educators were better at teaching and our students were better educated.  On the other hand there was no universal measure of how effectively a school was teaching before the tests.  While most people agree that 'teaching to the tests' limits student's knowledge and critical thinking skills, there is simply no objective way to prove it.

When President Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' legislation was passed educators complained that they would spend so much time teaching students how to take and pass government-required tests that they would have little time to teach the material and productive ways of understanding it.

Some teachers found ways to do both despite the bureaucratic bias that students' only motivation was to pass the tests.  Lansing School Business Administrator Mary June King decided to teach to the tests during the first half of the school year and them delve into the material in a more thoughtful way when she was U.S. History teacher.  Her students took the Regent's exam in January, leaving her the rest of the year to actually teach history.

One State Education Department administrator actually asked her why students would show up in her class once they had passed the Regent Exam.  She was outraged.

"I learned pretty quickly that I just had to teach these kids how to take the tests," she says.  "In the second half of the year we continued to learn American History, but we had fun.  They did things that were important to students, not to some curriculum writer."

The new teacher evaluation process puts even more focus on tests, limiting its definition of effective teaching.

"We do know that good teaching absolutely has an effect," Grimm says.  "But to try to quantify it in some way is very, very challenging.  That's the process the State is going to put us through."

Teachers who are good at 'teaching to the tests' will receive higher evaluation scores.  A teacher who is very good at teaching subject matter and cognitive thinking may receive a low score if he or she isn't also excellent at teaching how to do well on state tests.

There are many ways of evaluating a student's progress, but test scores are seen as the only objective measure because a test results in a score. Grimm adds that test scores in New York are not necessarily an objective measure of true performance.  He cites an incident some years ago when 70% of students across the state failed the Math A test.  To bring performance up to anticipated levels state education officials curved the results.  Another year there was a problem with the Physics results, so they were curved as well.

"Back in the old Regents days with the little green books you either got 65% or that was it," he says.  "Now you can get 50% of the exam questions right and that can be curved to score 65%.  or if they thought that it was too easy you could get 70 of the test questions right and end up with 50%.  They're manipulating it.  They haven't even been giving back passing grades until they get everybody's score.  They're trying to guarantee the overall validity of the exam results and that is very difficult to do."

Next Week: State or Local Control and Mandate Relief

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