ARCHIVED INFORMATION Horizontal line

The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education

Update on Educator Evaluation: The Need for Evaluation Overhaul

To:
Members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
From:
Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D., Commissioner
Date:
December 10, 2010

In October 2010 the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education received an update on the work of the Task Force on Educator Evaluation that the Board established on May 25, 2010 Download Word Document. Since that time separate work groups of the Task Force have been meeting to consider specific elements of the evaluation framework which the full Task Force will consider over the next two months as it formulates its recommendations to the Commissioner and Board.

Some of the critical challenges the Task Force will address in its recommendations were highlighted in the presentation provided to the Board in October:

Massachusetts is not alone in confronting these challenges. Strengthening evaluation was a central focus of the Great Teachers and Leaders section of the U.S. Education Department's Race to the Top Request for Proposal. Several recent research reports have critiqued current practices in evaluation around the nation and in Massachusetts, notably:

So Long Lake Wobegon? (2009) summarized similar concerns over educator evaluation, among them: evaluations often do not lead to meaningful improvement, pay inadequate attention to student learning and growth, are seldom coupled with adequate supervisor training, and too often rate teachers on a binary scale (satisfactory/unsatisfactory) resulting in overwhelmingly satisfactory ratings (the "Lake Wobegon" effect).

The lack of variability in educator ratings and failure to differentiate teacher effectiveness based on performance is a lost opportunity for: 1) providing improvement-oriented feedback that leads to professional growth; 2) identifying highly effective educators and distilling lessons from their practices; 3) tapping the expertise of outstanding educators for systematic support and improvement as teacher leaders and peer coaches; 4) providing struggling and developing educators (in the first years of practice) the support they need to improve or grow as professionals; and 5) linking compensation to performance. Perhaps most importantly, the failure of evaluation systems to identify weak performers and either secure instructional improvements or dismiss ineffective educators condemns successive cohorts of students to subpar instruction.

Massachusetts' current regulations on educator evaluation were adopted in 199 and have not been revised since then. In Task Force discussions, many knowledgeable educators from around the state have expressed the view, reflected in the Board's May 25th vote, that the regulations are in need of overhaul. A consistent theme in Task Force deliberations has been the need to match improved regulations and guidelines with effective support for their implementation. The Commonwealth's Race to the Top application contained a strategy and significant resources for providing such support, including:

The Department continues to review and refine these strategies. Moreover, the Task Force's report will include additional recommendations in this area. Some will require the kinds of resources provided through RTTT; others will depend on reallocation of existing resources, along with changes in existing practices, attitudes, and culture.

Timeline

The Task Force has been meeting since August 2010, with Working Group meetings informing the work of the larger Task Force. Meetings generally occur every other week, with Department staff supporting the work, providing Task Force members with research to support the critical examination of current practices and advance toward a fair, improvement-oriented evaluation framework for all educators. The Task Force will continue meeting through the end of January 2011. At that time, the group will present its recommendations to the Commissioner. I plan to discuss the recommendations with the Board at the February 2011 meeting and expect to present proposed regulations for initial review in February. The Board would promulgate the new regulations later in the spring.

Once new regulations are adopted, districts will need to identify changes in their evaluation procedures are needed to conform to the new state framework, and as necessary, enter into collective bargaining to make those changes. Districts will be asked to submit revised evaluation systems for state approval on the following timeline:

Conclusion

Improving evaluation is not simply an important end unto itself. Strengthening educator evaluation will help address equitable distribution of effective educators, and in so doing help close proficiency gaps. Improved evaluations will lead to more informed personnel decisions, and will provide educators with the support they need to improve their practice. With more accurate representations of educator effectiveness, we can begin to examine and strengthen practices in preparation, induction, professional development, and compensation.

In addition, districts will be able to identify and recognize highly effective educators and provide them with the opportunity for additional roles and responsibilities, supported by a new career ladder, to be developed through endorsements in the licensure system envisioned in our RTTT application. Collectively, such changes will help to develop the professional expertise of our educators and tap it systematically to improve outcomes for our students.

Enclosure:

View External Link
The Widget Effect- Executive Summary
View HTML Page
603 CMR 35.00: Evaluation of Educators