The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
Update to Proposed Final Regulations on Evaluation of Educators, 603 CMR 35.00
To clarify a few matters about which questions have been raised, I made several changes to the Final Regulations on Evaluation of Educators, 603 CMR 35.00, that I provided to you on June 21, 2011. Tomorrow (Monday), I will provide you with a revised version of the regulations and a redlined version.
The changes from last week's version are summarized in the attached document, entitled, "Summary of Changes to Educator Evaluation Regulations Since June 21, 2011." In short, the changes from last week are as follows:
603 CMR 35.02 Definition of District-Determined Measures
We received feedback that the definition of "District-determined Measures" was unclear. To address this concern, we made explicit that District-determined Measures include measures of student learning, growth and achievement related to the Massachusetts Vocational Technical Education Frameworks, as well as the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks.
603 CMR 35.06 Evaluation Cycle
The regulations contained an inconsistency regarding whether an educator who has been rated Needs Improvement and has low impact on student learning should be on a Directed Growth Plan or an Improvement Plan. In my view, it is sufficient to place such an educator on a Directed Growth Plan. By providing the educator with a Needs Improvement rating, the evaluator has determined that there are areas of concern with the educator's practice, but that the educator's practice is not unsatisfactory. A Directed Growth Plan allows the educator the opportunity to work on the issues that have been identified. To make this result clear and eliminate the inconsistency, I made the appropriate changes in 603 CMR 35.06(3)(e)(3,4) and 603 CMR 35.06(7)(b,c).
It is our intention that a summative evaluation occur at the end of the period of an Educator Plan. To remove any ambiguity, we deleted the language "but at least annually" from 603 CMR 35.06(7)(b)(1) and 603 CMR 35.06(7)(c).
We had inadvertently excluded the language "and whose impact on student learning is moderate or high" from the provision concerning the formative assessment or formative evaluation of experienced educators rated proficient or higher. 603 CMR 35.06(5)(b).
603 CMR 35.09 Student Performance Measures
The student performance measures are used as the basis for determining an educator's impact on student learning, growth, and achievement. This is clarified in 603 CMR 35.09(1). Finally, we clarified that the Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment (MEPA) must be used as a measure when available (603 CMR 35.09(2)(a)(1)) and that additional District-wide measures as determined by the superintendent may be used in addition to MCAS Student Growth Scores and MEPA scores when that data is available, but must be used when either MCAS growth or MEPA scores are not available. (603 CMR 35.09(2)(a)(2)).
603 CMR 35.11 Implementation and Reporting
The new Section 8 clarifies that these regulations are not intended to abridge Massachusetts General Law.
In addition, as noted on the attachment, several technical corrections were made.
Enclosure: