The following is a portion of the email exchange. Names have been deleted to protect the sender's privacy. I am publishing this with the author's permission.
Me:
Did you see this?http://www.doe.in.gov/news/2011/02-February/ modelevaluations.htmlAt first glance, I think I like it.
Your thoughts?
Friend:
Honestly- I can see where it can be completely and totally worked to make it seem like the teachers in our building are meeting the highest levels of the rubrics by still using their teacher editions and their current teaching methods:
Domain 1-Purposeful Planning- all the category 4 criteria can be "met" using the teacher edition of the basal. They used this to say they met the criteria for (ADMIN'S) differentiation lessons & criteria
Domain 2- Effective instruction- This is covered in the current teacher evaluation and OF COURSE this would have already would have been fixed by our building principal if it wasn't being done & higher order questioning is in the side margins of the teacher's editions!
Domain 3- Teacher Leadership- The teachers in our building already serve on bunches of committees including (*** club), each grade level has a parent involvement evening through Title 1, there is a grade level representative on the (PTA type organization), and they do RTI. How much else should they have to do?
Domain 4- oops- You want them to be on time? Ok, well we can work on that one for the few who are late every single day. We will mention them in general at every single faculty meeting and maybe if they would shut up they might hear us!
In all honesty, we, as teachers, already fill out a form that makes us prove that we are highly qualified and it just asks if we have taken the NTE and passed or if you are a newer teacher if you have met some other criteria. This is just another bogus form that the principal will check off and say, "yes, of course, my staff does all this stuff and is highly qualified" because if they don't the superintendent will shoot them for causing issues.
It looks like a really good idea and I would love to see it not be so vague with so many generalities that can be met using a textbook or the same old methods. I would like to see it force teachers to step out of the box further, force them to change and prove that they are. Perhaps, proving you are a highly qualified teacher and that you will continue to be one by learning and doing something to improve yourself. In what way will you improve yourself as a teacher, how will you do it and how will you prove that you have done it? Now, if you want to keep your job, go do it.
Me: I Love your reply. Can I send it to the state DOE and/or publish it? I Think Tony Bennett needs to read it
Friend:
Sure- it won't make any difference though because the state won't do anything that has real teeth to it. There are ALWAYS loopholes..... The good teachers (and I bravely put myself in that category) will be the ones who worry and fret and work harder and quit teaching because we feel we aren't doing good enough and the ones who have been the same thing for the last 15-20 years will continue to find the loopholes and skate by and not really make any change (although they will gripe about how much they have been forced to suffer over these new rules) and nothing will be done.
Sorry- I do not mean to sound so cynical and bitter but I kind of am because I do work really hard and I want to do more and I want to be a better teacher for my kids (and I know there are a lot of areas where I need to improve) and yet I see people who do the least amount of work possible getting the same title "highly Qualified teacher" as me and it does make me angry and bitter.
(maybe Tony ought to see this part of my e-mail, as well)
I'd love to hear some more opinions from educators and administrators. Does the new Indiana plan look like it will make a difference? Does it or will it have "teeth"? Will this help foster real change or real red tape?
What do you think?
Please share your thoughts.
Please post your feedback so that we can collectively make Indiana education better.
Update 2/9/11: Yes, someone from the state took the time to read this.
Thanks for your visit, D.O.E.
Posts
2 comments:
Any evaluation system must be based on objective data, including teacher evaluations. Systems that use student scores as the primary data will identify a problem, but not the cause. Systems that ignore student scores may be rewarding/punishing actions without knowing their effectiveness. Classroom observations are a critical component in an entire system.
There are three types of observation data that are/can be recorded: Descriptive, Inferential, and Evaluative.
Descriptive data is a record of the duration or frequency of teaching practices and related student behaviors in the classroom.
Inferential data is a summary of the practices or behaviors based on the descriptive data. Unfortunately, many observation systems have observers check summary indicators without collecting the descriptive data to support them.
Evaluation data is a judgment of the quality of the teaching practice or student academic behaviors. Very frequently, this is the 'teacher evaluation' form used by districts and states as the record of an observation. The problem is that an evaluation must be based on summary data which is based on descriptive data - which is rarely collected. The result is an invalid and unreliable assessment, and the cause of great conflict, misdirection of corrective efforts, and a hugh waste of professional development funds.
Technology can easily provide the support needed to collect all the needed data. After 30 years in the Education profession, I wrote a software program to make the collection of all three types of observation data easy. Here's a link to a 3 minute video about it:
http://www.ecove.net/movie
Focused observations to gather objective data provide both the teacher and administrators with the knowledge they need to identify specific needs, measure change, and make those required judgments of quality. In the end, the students are the ones who benefit the most.
Peace, John@ecove.net
I think the new classroom walkthrough software is a great tool in analyzing where the pitfalls are in the classroom. Teaching styles vary and the observations will vary but as was mentioned previously, the software is to help us understand the cause of issues.
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