Washington D.C.'s Teacher Evaluations... Worked?

[YankeeFan]

It looks like if you put together a program that offers incentives -- and penalties -- you can get better performing teachers.

Will we see more programs like this?

Impact, which began under Michelle Rhee while she was chancellor, has been a hotly debated program, and the new study is sure to attract attention from both supporters and critics of teacher evaluation. New York state’s plan to begin evaluating teachers has also been the subject of intense praise and criticism, as have such programs elsewhere.

The study found that Impact caused more low-performing teachers to leave the school system than otherwise would have been expected. The program also seemed to improve teaching quality – as measured by classroom observations and test scores – of teachers with both strong and weak evaluation scores.

“High-powered incentives linked to multiple indicators of teacher performance can substantially improve the measured performance of the teaching work force,” conclude the researchers, Thomas Dee of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education and James Wyckoff of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Evaluation programs, they add, can bring “substantive and long-term educational and economic benefits” both by “avoiding the career-long retention of the lowest-performing teachers and through broad increases in teacher performance.”

http://nyti.ms/173ZvMk

 

[Dick Whitman]

Test scores!

 

[printit]

Wow, provide

Test scores!

From the article:
"Test scores played only a secondary role for most teachers, along with principals’ assessments of the teachers’ contributions to the entire school."

So no, not just "Test scores!"
What a surprise. When you reward those who do well and run off those who don't, you get a better product. Moreover, you encourage those at the top to get even better. I can't believe something that has worked in every other successful business in this country works in schools too.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I can't believe something that has worked in every other successful business in this country works in schools too.

This isn't true.

 

[YankeeFan]

Getting rid of the worst performers is at least as important, and this appears to have done that, and done it better than was expected.

 

[Dick Whitman]

As you are well aware, I think education in this country is ****ed.

That said, I don't think turning teaching into "The Hunger Games" is the panacea Rush Nation thinks it is.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

As you are well aware, I think education in this country is ****ed.

That said, I don't think turning teaching into "The Hunger Games" is the panacea Rush Nation thinks it is.

It doesn't need to be like the Hunger Games, but they do need to have practices in place where teachers who have stopped caring and are going through the motions while waiting to retire are held accountable. When they have tenure they're not held accountable.

We've all had the teacher who makes the class read aloud for the majority of classes or shows films once a week or more. That's not to say they're not all like that, there are certainly great teachers out there, but there are also quite a few who are just sleepwalking through their jobs.

 

[Dick Whitman]

As you are well aware, I think education in this country is ****ed.

That said, I don't think turning teaching into "The Hunger Games" is the panacea Rush Nation thinks it is.

It doesn't need to be like the Hunger Games, but they do need to have practices in place where teachers who have stopped caring and are going through the motions while waiting to retire are held accountable. When they have tenure they're not held accountable.

We've all had the teacher who makes the class read aloud for the majority of classes or shows films once a week or more. That's not to say they're not all like that, there are certainly great teachers out there, but there are also quite a few who are just sleepwalking through their jobs.

No question. I think that the frequency of testing and the design of the tests is in question, along with, as I said, the lust for "Hunger Games"-style battle royale where union members kill each other for Republican sport.

I like the Common Core standards because it addresses writing, finally. But because it's Obama-backed, it's evil personified among the people who would typically support it.

 

[YankeeFan]

It doesn't need to be like the Hunger Games, but they do need to have practices in place where teachers who have stopped caring and are going through the motions while waiting to retire are held accountable. When they have tenure they're not held accountable.

You need to bounce the new teachers who can't hack it too.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Education policy has become almost as politicized and dogmatic as abortion. It's very frustrating. But it produces the best workers in the world, according to the president. So I guess it all must be working out great.

 

[cranberry]

One thing that hasn't improved in DC since the introduction of Impact four years ago is student achievement. Isn't that sort of the goal?

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I don't think you can do it based on testing because it penalizes teachers who are in schools where the kids don't come from families where education is emphasized and it basically encourages the teachers to cheat.

We dealt with an incident last year where my oldest's teacher was on maternity leave for the first four months of the school year and they had a teacher take over the class. She was horrendous. She wrote no notes on report cards and couldn't answer basic questions during the parent-teacher conferences. She wouldn't respond to emails and wouldn't return phone calls. After the parent-teacher conference where she couldn't answer basic, standard questions about how my kid was doing, I went to the principal and he said, "You're the eighth parent to call me about her."

She's still there.

 

[printit]

As you are well aware, I think education in this country is ****ed.

That said, I don't think turning teaching into "The Hunger Games" is the panacea Rush Nation thinks it is.

Come on, this answer is beneath you. Who cares that "Rush Nation", whatever that even is, supports this? I assume your Hunger Games analogy means teachers will compete against each other. Except they won't. All anyone is calling for is a baseline standard that is either met or not met. No one is firing the worst teacher in the building every semester. If you do nothing other than get rid of people who are below par employees, you will substantially improve your business. What is so controversial about that?

 

[Morris816]

Mizzou, do you know how long the teacher in question has been there? Because if she's tenured, that might explain a few things.

As far as tenure goes, I understand wanting to protect teachers who are truly good at their jobs from being cut simply because the district can find a cheaper option (regardless of how good or bad the replacement is), but then it allows the teachers who are simply going through the motions to effectively hide behind the fact that they have tenure.

I had my fair share of teachers who were truly good at their jobs and a few teachers who weren't good for one reason or another. It wasn't based on their years of experience that made them good or not.

I do agree with one remark made about testing: That's not the way to evaluate how a teacher is doing. It's better to evaluate a teacher based on many kids and parents believe they are learning things from the teachers, rather than evaluating a teacher based on how well he or she gets the kids ready to fill in a bubble sheet.

Because the latter is more likely to get you teachers who just go through the motions than the former.

 

[Dick Whitman]

As you are well aware, I think education in this country is ****ed.

That said, I don't think turning teaching into "The Hunger Games" is the panacea Rush Nation thinks it is.

Come on, this answer is beneath you. Who cares that "Rush Nation", whatever that even is, supports this? I assume your Hunger Games analogy means teachers will compete against each other. Except they won't. All anyone is calling for is a baseline standard that is either met or not met. No one is firing the worst teacher in the building every semester. If you do nothing other than get rid of people who are below par employees, you will substantially improve your business. What is so controversial about that?

I am completely on board with that, yes, so long as the evaluation metrics measure what they're supposed to measure and don't do more harm than good.

Frequently, though, "merit pay" is awarded on a curve, frequently within a school building. It has to be, of course, because everyone is fighting for a finite pool of money.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I do agree with one remark made about testing: That's not the way to evaluate how a teacher is doing. It's better to evaluate a teacher based on many kids and parents believe they are learning things from the teachers, rather than evaluating a teacher based on how well he or she gets the kids ready to fill in a bubble sheet.

The Atlantic had a story in its education issue a few months ago that cited some studies showing that student evaluations, properly designed, are tremendous indicators of teacher effectiveness.