My administration went over the new evaluation model that the state of Tennessee will be using to judge teacher effectiveness with the faculty today.
To our faculty's credit, we all took the news pretty calmly -- at least in the meeting. After having such an intense previous year, I think we're all a little harder to rattle. We all sat in the cafeteria as the new process of formal/informal evaluations, post-conference meetings, summative meetings, and evaluation rubrics was set before us. Honestly, up to this point I was feeling pretty hopeful. After all, nothing our vice principal said we would be evaluated on was something I hadn't attempted before or was averse to trying. Sure, the 15-minute observation (which could occur at any point in the lesson) sounded a little dicey, but how many times could any good teacher have the bad luck to have an evaluator walk in on a seat-work day? Somehow, with enough effort and a little empathy on all sides, we would make it work.
Then, we watched a video of a teacher going through a 45-minute geometry lesson, and were asked to evaluate it based on the lesson-plan rubric. The lesson wasn't great, but to a new-ish teacher like myself (and most of the people I talked to) the teacher in the video seemed to be doing a decent job. He asked lots of questions, kept the kids engaged through the whole lesson, and used some slick-looking technology to get his message across. My group came up with a little over a "3" average for the lesson, on a scale of 5. Keep in mind that to get and keep tenure, a teacher has to consistently score 4's and 5's on his/her evaluations. Our principal asked us to share our answers, then told us that the national evaluators gave the teacher a 2.7. Not even an "acceptable" score for a lesson that in many respects I thought was effective. We were told that a score of "5" meant that there was no room for improvement, which must mean that the odds of getting a 5 on your evaluation are about on par with being named "Teacher of the Year" and winning "American Idol" all in the same voting period.
Now I'm starting to wonder if we as teachers are being asked to play a rigged game, to throw balls into a basket half a mile away. Why even put "5" on the evaluation model if we're all human, and capable of improvement? With half of our yearly evaluations coming from student scores -- kids whose home-lives, choices, and hormones are all so far out of our control, I believe the next biggest portion of our overall evaluation are these observations. Having tenure means that before a teacher can be fired, they are guaranteed a hearing of their case -- no more, no less. It bothers me a little that tenure is fading away, but what bothers me most is that lawmakers are trying to make teachers look like we aren't good enough to deserve it.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteThere was a comment that really connected with me. You stated, "Somehow, with enough effort and a little empathy on all sides, we would make it work." That is exactly how I feel.
At AHS, I told the teacher's that “good teachers had nothing to worry about” at all; however, they would need to change the way they calibrated what is good teaching. The simple act of doing a lot of talking and explaining and asking open ended questions that are not necessarily directed to any specific person is not teaching. That is not in and of itself “checking for understanding”. The act of teaching is composed of two critical and equal components as follows: teacher teaching & students demonstrating a level of conceptual mastery. You will notice in the previous sentence that I said “A” level of conceptual mastery. In other words, the teacher knows where the student is on the horizontal continuum of non-mastery to full mastery. If the teacher taught and is aware that the student is rated Below Basic she/he has completed the act of teaching; however, it does not stop there. The intervention that the teacher takes with the student to move the pupil forward to basic, proficient and ending in advanced completes the teaching process.
The point that you made regarding tenure is totally understandable. I received tenure in 3 years; notwithstanding, I can honestly say that I never showed videos all day because there was nothing the administration could do because I was “tenured”. Tenure laws were constructed to keep teachers from being fired arbitrarily. Through the years, teachers took advantage of the tenure laws and some set back and did not put forth 100% effort knowing that the administration really could not do anything about their employment status. I have no sympathy for these teachers and there are multiple studies that I have read that suggest that in many urban schools the best teachers know the teachers that are not getting the job done. Let me give you an example that I gave my teachers today. I pose this question to the faculty, “If all teachers were the same, why would AHS teachers that have students at our school go to the guidance office and carefully pick which teachers they wanted their children to have? A simple harsh reality is that all teachers are not equally effective. According to an article I recently read titled “The Widget Effect” it states, “Having a series of strong or weak teachers in consecutive years compounds the impact.” My anecdotal hears of experience completely agrees with this assertion.
Take heart! Great teachers or good teachers that are working to greatness will have nothing to worry about. Sleep Well………….. by the way, as you know, I am a poor writer and I would love to be able to write like you and be clever. This is right now the best effort I have. If you can understand what I said, I suppose I have completed the communication process. Dad