Education Week - February 6, 2013 - 19

EDUCATION WEEK

Grading
Teachers
Complicated
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

category for only the top 10 percent of teachers. (Statewide, 23
percent of teachers earned that
“highly effective” rating.)
Officials for the school district
say they worked jointly with the
local teachers’ union to agree on
how state-generated test-score
data would be interpreted, and
took pains to make the evaluation instrument clear, to help
make those finer distinctions in
performance.
“We’re still working on developing training. It’s huge, and very
important, because our goal is to
bring about the real consistency
in our schools about how we evaluate,” said Greg Adkins, the chief
negotiator for the 85,000-student
Lee County district.

Multiple Measures
The introduction of quantitative, supposedly objective data
also might help ensure a broader
range of scores.
“With value-added in particular, you are essentially ranking
results for teachers, so ... you
have some who are necessarily going to be closer to the bottom. Whereas with observations
you can have all the teachers
on the top,” said Ms. Goe, who
also advises the Great Teachers
and Leaders Center, a federally
funded technical-assistance provider housed at the American Institutes for Research.
“Value added” is a statistical
method of estimating the effect
of a teacher’s instruction on his
or her students’ test scores.
Tennessee’s data released last
summer show, for instance, that
observers gave only 0.2 percent
of teachers the lowest score, compared to quantitative measures
that put 16.5 percent of teachers
in that category.
Georgia officials are still examining the quantitative portion of
the pilot data, but preliminary
reports on “student learning
objectives”—district-determined
common growth measures—
showed more variability than did
observations.
Disparities between different
measures ought to invite more
investigation, Ms. Goe of the ets
said. It could mean that “there is
a mismatch between what we can
see the teacher doing and how
the learning is taking place,” she
said, “or that there are other factors entering into the situation.”
Tennessee has already begun
such analyses. This school year,
the state sent “coaches” to 73
schools that had high teacher
ratings and low levels of studentgrowth in 2011-12. The goal
was to help support and retrain
evaluators on how to document
teacher practice.
“We’ve committed to a process
of continuous improvement for

this evaluation system, and when
we saw this need, we acted on it,”
said Kelli Gauthier, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee education department.
Midyear data suggest that
results from those schools are
likely to be distributed more
broadly, although a majority of
teachers will still pass muster.
Georgia officials are also redoubling efforts to improve
c o n s i s t e n c y a c r o s s r a t e r s.
So far, the state has trained
about 3,400 evaluators in faceto-face or online sessions, Ms.
Todd, the associate superintendent, said. Some districts are
also creating libraries of teaching videos to help refresh evaluators’ memories of exemplary

performance at each level.
The challenges for ensuring
inter-rater reliability are somewhat greater for states that have
given more discretion to their
districts regarding training.
“I think there’s a huge incentive for the state to invest in
principal training,” said Ms. Lenhoff said of Michigan, “and make
sure every principal understands
and has practiced how to observe
teacher behavior, how to take
notes, how to give feedback to
teachers.”
Coverage of policy efforts to improve
the teaching profession is supported
by a grant from the Joyce Foundation,
at www.joycefdn.org/Programs/
Education.

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

www.edweek.org

T E A C H E R S F O R G L O B A L C L AS S R O O M S
GR A N T O P P O R T U N I T I E S FO R
S E C O N D AR Y T E AC H E R S

The Teachers for Global Classrooms Program (TGC) is a professional development
program for middle and high school teachers aimed at globalizing U.S. classrooms.
Participants are selected through a national, open competition.
TGC is a program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs (ECA) administered by IREX.

Globalize teaching and learning in your classroom!

For more information regarding this professional development opportunity
and to apply, please visit our website:
http://www.irex.org/tgc
Application deadline: March 4, 2013; 11:59PM Eastern Time
Program activities include:
• An online course designed specifically for U.S. teachers aiming to globalize their
classrooms;
• Two Global Education Symposia in Washington, DC (pre- and post-travel); and
• An international fellowship through a two-week country visit upon successful
completion of the online course. Current countries of travel include: Brazil, Ghana,
India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Morocco, and Ukraine.

IS IT GOOD FOR THE KIDS?

ASCD’s 2013 Recommendations
for Congress
By Gene R. Carter, Executive Director, ASCD
Educators in every district and state across this great nation are continually implementing
innovative instructional practices, creating supportive learning environments, and engaging
in systemic reform as part of their ongoing commitment to promoting student success.
Unfortunately, federal education policies have not kept pace.
In fact, the badly outdated Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—
the nation’s main federal K–12 education
law meant to support the hard work of
states, districts, and schools—is more
than five years overdue for revision and
is, instead, hindering innovation and progress. This delay in reauthorization has
prompted a patchwork of temporary solutions, such as the administration’s NCLB
waivers, that are neither ideal nor lasting.
Thus, the foremost legislative priority
for ASCD and its members in 2013 is for
Congress to enact a new ESEA that fixes
the current law’s flaws; aligns with and
supports state and local education initiatives; and guide subsequent revisions
to other federal programs that support
students, such as special education and
career-technical education.
To guide the law’s improvement and
inform other federal policy efforts, a committee of ASCD members representing a
variety of professional roles gathered to
develop the association’s 2013 Legislative
Agenda, which offers three key policy
recommendations for Congress. Together,
the recommendations advance the goal of
educating students who are healthy, safe,
engaged, supported, and challenged, and
who graduate ready for the demands of
college, career, and citizenship.
• Support meaningful accountability
systems. Any comprehensive determination of student proficiency, educator
effectiveness, or school quality must take
into account student growth, differentiate among levels of performance, and use
multiple measures of evaluation beyond

standardized test scores. For example,
a comprehensive picture of student
achievement could include portfolios,
presentations, and summative assessments. Similarly, evaluations of educator
effectiveness could include students’ performance, classroom observations, and
staff feedback. And measures of overall
school quality could incorporate school
climate, advanced course taking, and
graduation rate data.
• Promote comprehensive improvement strategies. Methods to improve student achievement, educator effectiveness,
or school quality must be evidence-based;
engage all stakeholders, including families and communities; and be grounded
in a whole child approach to education
that addresses each student’s social,
emotional, physical, and academic needs.
Interventions for those not meeting
expectations need to be commensurate
with their level of underperformance and
appropriate for local circumstances. In
addition, districts and schools that consistently perform well, close achievement
gaps, succeed in cohort comparisons, or
improve educator effectiveness should
receive rewards and incentives, including
flexibility in the use of federal funds.
• Help educators support students.
The classroom teacher and school principal are the two most important in-school
factors affecting student achievement.
As a result, the foremost strategy and

funding priority must be adequate and
effective preparation and ongoing professional development for educators to
improve student outcomes. Teacher and
administrator evaluations must drive
high-quality professional development
opportunities that build district and
school capacity; include the knowledge
and skills necessary for classroom management, planning, and preparation; and
address effective instructional practices
and subject-area content consistent with
standards that prepare students for college and careers.
These goals are ambitious. But one
thing is certain: ASCD’s recommendations
are only as powerful as the educators who
advocate for them on behalf of their colleagues, schools, and students. Congress
will not act unless its constituents loudly,
repeatedly, and persuasively highlight the
consequences of further delay in reauthorization and clearly explain how the law
must be fixed. Last week, ASCD members
began this effort at the association’s Leadership Institute for Legislative Advocacy
in the nation’s capital, where they shared
their expertise and the agenda’s priorities
with their federal lawmakers. I urge you
to build on their work by sharing the recommendations with your own lawmakers
and colleagues as part of a wide-reaching
effort to ensure policymakers provide
educators with the support they need to
prepare their students for a bright future.

View ASCD’s 2013 Legislative Agenda at www.ascd.org/legislativeagenda. To stay
abreast of pending changes to NCLB and other crucial education developments,
subscribe to Capitol Connection at www.educatoradvocates.org.

1703 North Beauregard St. • Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 USA • Web: www.ascd.org
1-800-933-ASCD (2723) or 1-703-578-9600 • Fax: 1-703-575-5400 • E-mail: member@ascd.org

http://www.edweek.org http://www.irex.org/tgc http://www.irex.org/tgc http://www.joycefdn.org/Programs/Education http://www.joycefdn.org/Programs/Education http://www.ascd.org/legislativeagenda http://www.educatoradvocates.org http://www.ascd.org http://www.ascd.org

Education Week - February 6, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - February 6, 2013