The New Teacher Project 2009 Teacher Evaluations and Support for Effective Instruction Florida Department of Education Whats Working Series Tampa, Florida October 6, 2010 2 The New Teacher Project 2009 The New Teacher Project (TNTP) helps school districts and states fulfill the promise of public education by ensuring that all students especially those from high-need communities get excellent teachers. National nonprofit, founded by teachers in 1997 Partners with school districts, state education agencies, and charter schools Targets acute teacher quality challenges Delivers a range of customized services and solutions on a fee-for-service basis Approx. 250 employees, most embedded in school district offices; majority are former teachers Past and present clients include: Districts: Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Memphis, New Orleans, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Washington, DC States: Alaska, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia 3 The New Teacher Project 2009 A significant achievement gap separates white and minority students. By high school, minority students are four years behind white students. Notes: *Accommodations for students with disabilities and English language learners not permitted; Trends similar for Math. Source: Original analysis of the Education Trust based on Long-Term Trends NAEP ; National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer,NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic ProgressNAEP Grade 4 Reading NAEP Reading Average Scale Score At age 17, African American and Latino students read at the same levels as 13 year- old white students. Percent of Students 4 The New Teacher Project 2009 Research has shown that effective teachers are the solution. Dallas students who start 2 nd grade at about the same level of math achievement After 3 EFFECTIVE Teachers After 3 INEFFECTIVE Teachers finish 5 th grade math at dramatically different levels depending on the quality of their teachers. Original analysis by the Education Trust. Source: Heather Jordan, Robert Mendro, and Dash Weerasinghe, The Effects of Teachers on Longitudinal Student Achievement, 5 The New Teacher Project 2009 Certification Has a One-Point Impact on Achievement Source: Gordon, Kane, Staiger, Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance on the Job, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution, April 2006. 6 The New Teacher Project 2009 Two Years of Experience Has a Four-Point Impact 7 The New Teacher Project 2009 Impact of Effective Teachers is Ten Points 8 The New Teacher Project 2009 School Leadership Recruitment Compensation In many districts, human capital plans are poorly aligned. An effective teacher in every classroom PD is not linked to individual evaluations. It is driven by what providers offer, and its effectiveness is rarely assessed. Not targeted to high- need schools or subjects. Bureaucratic dysfunction deters applicants. Screening Minimum requirements; little consideration for quality. Development Principals lack authority, accountability, tools, incentives, and capability needed to manage the performance of their teachers. Policies and practices that lead to inaccurate evaluations, making it difficult to reward high performers and understand the developmental needs of low performers. Little rigor in tenure decisions. Dollars concentrated at senior end of career, regardless of actual teacher effectiveness. Highest performing teachers often leave the classroom the soonest. Teachers are dismissed only because of the most flagrant actions. Hiring Low-rigor interviews. Archaic slotting procedures impede creation of effective teams. Evaluation Retention 9 The New Teacher Project 2009 To realize sustainable improvement, effective teaching must be the guiding concern behind all elements of a districts human capital system. Talent Pipeline Create supply of effective teachers to fill all vacancies. CORE METRIC Number and percentage of new teachers who demonstrate effectiveness above a target threshold Effectiveness Management Optimize effectiveness of teacher workforce. CORE METRICS Retention rate of top-quartile teachers : Retention rate of bottom- quartile teachers Average improvement in retained teachers effectiveness over time Recruitment Selection Training / Certification Hiring / Placement On- Boarding Evaluation / Prof. Dev. Compensation Retention / Dismissal Working Conditions School- Level Human Cap. Mgmnt. An effective teacher in every classroom Measures of student learning 10 The New Teacher Project 2009 Teacher Effectiveness in Improving Student Achievement Boost effectiveness of all teachers through effective evaluation and targeted professional development. Improve or exit persistently less effective teachers and replace with more effective teachers. Retain and leverage most effective teachers Optimize new teacher supply by hiring from preparation programs whose teachers consistently achieve better student outcomes. Prioritize effective teachers for high-need students. 3 Current teacher performance Potential teacher performance Dramatic improvements in student achievement cannot occur without a sustained and strategic focus on maximizing teacher effectiveness. 5 Goals for Optimizing Teacher Effectiveness 11 The New Teacher Project 2009 The Widget Effect When it comes to measuring instructional performance, current policies and systems overlook significant differences between teachers. There is little or no differentiation of excellent teaching from good, good from fair, or fair from poor. This is the Widget Effect: a tendency to treat all teachers as roughly interchangeable, even when their teaching is quite variable. Consequently, teachers are not developed as professionals with individual strengths and capabilities, and poor performance is rarely identified or addressed. The New Teacher Project, 2009 12 The New Teacher Project 2009 The Widget Effect in Action: When is teacher effectiveness taken into account? 13 The New Teacher Project 2009 The Widget Effect in Teacher Evaluation: Summary of Findings Treating teachers as interchangeable parts All teachers are rated good or great. Although teachers and principals report that poor performance is common, less than 1 percent of teachers are identified as unsatisfactory on performance evaluations. Excellence goes unrecognized. When excellent ratings are the norm, truly exceptional teachers cannot be formally identified. Nor can they be compensated, promoted or retained. Professional development is inadequate. Almost 3 in 4 teachers did not receive any specific feedback on improving their performance in their last evaluation. Novice teachers are neglected. Low expectations for beginning teachers translate into benign neglect in the classroom and a toothless tenure process. Poor performance goes unaddressed. Half of the 12 districts studied have not dismissed a single non- probationary teacher for poor performance in the past five years. None dismisses more than a few each year. 14 The New Teacher Project 2009 When multiple ratings are available, teachers tend to be assigned the highest ratings and are very rarely assigned poor ratings. Evaluation Ratings for Tenured Teachers in Districts with Multiple-Rating Systems 15 The New Teacher Project 2009 In districts that use binary Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory rating systems, the Unsatisfactory rating is almost never used. Evaluation Ratings for Tenured Teachers in Districts with Binary Rating Systems 16 The New Teacher Project 2009 Teachers report not enough is being done to recognize and retain top performers as measured by their impact on student learning. 59% of teachers report their district is not doing enough to identify, recognize, compensate, promote and retain the most effective teachers as measured by their impact on student learning. All the good quality teachers leave the district after just a few years. They need more incentive to stay. Some sort of recognition or praise would be nice. Those doing a good or great job are never told so. If you pay the shining stars the same as the slackers, you will dim the shining stars and reinforce the sloth of the slackers. I, and others, work hard because we have a conscience, but I don't think [the district] sees us as any different than the lower performing teachers. Teachers who work hard receive very little praise or notice. TNTP survey of 7,318 teachers across four sites conducted May 2008 to April 2009 17 The New Teacher Project 2009 Percent of teachers who had development areas identified on their most recent evaluation. Tenured/non- probationary teachers Probationary teachers Most likely (Denver) 32%55% Average 22%37% Least likely (Springdale) 2%4% Source 1 : TNTP survey of 15,176 teachers across 12 sites conducted May 2008 to April 2009 Source 2 : TNTP survey of 1,863 Denver Public School teachers conducted November to December 2008 Weak evaluation practices and systems mean that many teachers receive little meaningful feedback. of Denver teachers who had a development area identified on their most recent evaluation do not know which performance standard they failed to meet. 39% 18 The New Teacher Project 2009 Teachers and principals agree that poor instruction is pervasive. Source: TNTP survey of 7,318 teachers across 4 sites conducted February to April 2009 Are there tenured/non-probationary teachers in your school who deliver poor instruction? (Percent responding Yes) 0%0.4%n/a0% Percent of All Ratings that Indicated Unsatisfactory Performance 19 The New Teacher Project 2009 Yet dismissal for poor instructional performance virtually never occurs. Frequency of Teacher Dismissals for Performance (Non-Probationary Teachers) Note : During the time period through , Toledo Public Schools had five informal dismissals of tenured teachers (i.e., tenured teachers who were recommended for dismissal but elected to resign or retire instead). Data on informal dismissals were not available for all districts studied. 20 The New Teacher Project 2009 RECOMMENDATIONS Our recommendations are a call to action for school districts to move beyond treating teachers like widgets. ADOPT a comprehensive performance evaluation system that fairly, accurately and credibly differentiates teachers based on their effectiveness in promoting student achievement and provides targeted professional development to help them improve. TRAIN administrators and other evaluators in the teacher performance evaluation system and hold them accountable for using it effectively. INTEGRATE the performance evaluation system with critical human capital policies and functions such as teacher assignment, professional development, compensation, retention and dismissal. ADDRESS consistently ineffective teaching through dismissal policies that provide lower-stakes options for ineffective teachers to exit the district and a system of due process that is fair but efficient Education reform will go nowhere until the states are forced to revamp corrupt teacher evaluation systems that rate a vast majority of teachers as excellent, even in schools where children learn nothing. Editorial ( ) 21 The New Teacher Project 2009 TNTP proposes a new evaluation framework designed to provide credible data on teacher effectiveness. Set performance standards in areas that are most closely tied to student learning. Measure teacher effectiveness and trajectory against performance standards. Benchmark teacher effectiveness and trajectory ratings against minimum expectations for the teachers experience level. Use combined evaluation ratings, benchmarked against years of experience, to determine evaluation outcomes. 22 The New Teacher Project 2009 DCPS new evaluation framework (IMPACT) places significant weight on student growth data. TLF 40% CSC 5% SVA 5% NVA 10% CSC 5% SVA 5% Evaluation Weights (Tested Grades and Subject Areas) Evaluation Weights (Non-tested Grades and Subject Areas) IVA Individual value add NVA Non-value-added student achievement growth TLF - Teaching and Learning Framework CSC - Commitment to the school community SVA - School value add 23 The New Teacher Project 2009 A teachers total IMPACT score is used to determine his/her final rating. INEFFECTIVE MINIMALLY EFFECTIVE HIGHLY EFFECTIVE 100 points 175 points 250 points 350 points 400 points 24 The New Teacher Project 2009 May Self- assessment and develop professional focus areas Beginning of year goal- setting conference Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings and feedback sessions Development Evaluation Targeted development activities (i.e., coaching, co-teaching, etc.) Note: Additional evaluation and development activities for non-tenured teachers, developing teachers, and/or teachers in need of improvement (such as mentoring from coaches, progress check-ins with instructional managers, additional conferences, etc) are proposed in greater frequency but do not appear in the timeline above. End of year summative evaluation conference Self- assessment and discuss next years professional focus areas Mid-year check-in conference, informed by all available data Self- assessment and revisit professional focus areas AugSep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Instructional Rounds and/or full-period classroom observations Situational feedback conversations; student data reviews and data team meetings New Haven Evaluation and Development Timeline 24 25 The New Teacher Project 2009 New Haven Summative Ratings 25 The ratings for the three evaluation components will be synthesized into a final summative rating at the end of each year. Student growth outcomes will play a preponderant role in the synthesis. *Note: Instructional Practices will make up 80 percent of the combined Instructional Practices and Professional Values rating. Professional Value will account for 20 percent. While the end-of-year summative rating is the official rating on record, all teachers should be aware of what that summative rating will be, based on ongoing situational feedback, as well as feedback received at each evaluation and development conference throughout the year. 26 The New Teacher Project 2009 For more information: