Education Week - October 28, 2020 - 6

Yes, Teachers Are Still Being Evaluated.
Many Say It's Unfair
For many teachers, stress levels are
at an all-time high this year, as they
navigate remote lessons, socially distanced classrooms, or a combination
of the two. And there's yet another
looming stressor: teacher evaluations.
"You would think that given everything that's changing and everything
that's brand new to teachers, that they
would have figured out a way to skip
a year," said Kristin Brown, a high
school math and computer science
teacher in Wisconsin. As a teacher,
she added, you shouldn't have to "defend yourself and prove that you're an
effective educator in a pandemic."
In the spring, nearly half of states
eased evaluation requirements or issued flexibility or guidance for school
districts, and teachers' unions are arguing for more of that as the coronavirus pandemic rages on.
So far, at least 17 states have released guidance on teacher evaluations this year, according to an
analysis by the National Council
on Teacher Quality. Most states are
still requiring teacher evaluations in
some capacity, although Mississippi
has suspended the requirement for
districts to submit annual employee
performance data, and Illinois has
told districts they will not be penalized if they don't conduct summative
evaluations this year.
On Oct. 16, Tennessee Gov. Bill
Lee said teachers should not face
negative consequences for how students perform on this year's standardized tests, and he will work with
the state legislature to alleviate "any
burdens associated with educator
evaluations."
While some administrators and
other experts say evaluations and
observations are crucial to providing
valuable feedback and support, many
teachers say it's unfair to make potentially high-stakes job-performance
decisions when they're navigating
new technologies, adjusting to different methods of teaching, and trying
to reach students who might not have
reliable internet access or stability at
home. They worry that evaluations
this year, particularly those that include student growth data, won't be
reflective of teachers' abilities, since
students' lives and learning have been
so disrupted.
Shannon Holston, the director for
teacher policy at NCTQ, said she
expects more states to release guidance in the coming weeks. For those
that have already, "it seems a number of states understand that this is
not a normal year and have tried to
adjust requirements for evaluations
while still really focusing on the observation and feedback component,"
Holston said.
For example, Colorado and Ohio
will not incorporate student growth
data in teacher evaluations at all this
school year. And districts in Con-

necticut and Oregon can use social
and emotional learning or student
engagement measures in evaluations this year instead of academic
measures to show student growth.
Massachusetts has streamlined its
evaluation rubric to focus on six priorities, and Washington state has reduced the number of criteria required
for comprehensive evaluations from
eight to two. The rest of the evaluation
score will be based on the teacher's
previous score.
New Jersey and Hawaii, states
where some districts are having students learn remotely some or all days
of the school week, have offered an
alternative to in-person classroom
observations by allowing teachers
to showcase their professional practice via a portfolio. Teachers who are
teaching remotely can collect artifacts
of instruction over a predetermined
instructional period.

Student Test Scores
Many state teachers' unions have
been active in calling for increased
flexibility this year with test scores and

learning conditions at home as well
as districts' resources.
"We have some qualms about how
feasible it is for teachers to really know
where their students are right now
[when] schools closed mid-March, and
students have had a variety of different
experiences in the spring in terms of
their learning," she said.
A new law in Indiana says that
schools are no longer required to use
state test scores when evaluating
teachers. But Indiana State Teachers
Association President Keith Gambill
said he has heard some districts are
still planning to use test scores this
year-which the union is against.
Gambill said local associations will be
working with those districts to try to
eliminate test scores from evaluations.
And he called for administrators
to be understanding of the circumstances when they do observations.
For instance, some evaluation frameworks prioritize students working
together in small groups, which is difficult to do while maintaining social
distance.
"Even if you're instructing faceto-face, it isn't the same as it was last

that allows them to "provide extra
support to teachers who are struggling and reveal the heroic efforts of
teachers who are creating strategies
that work."
Even so, teachers say observing virtual classrooms should be done with
grace. Brown, the Wisconsin teacher,
said her district does not require students to turn their video cameras on
during class. The result is a very different classroom than she would have
in person.
"It's basically teaching to 25 names
on a screen and trying to engage kids
in any way we can," she said. "To then
have your administrator pop in and
see that-it brings up so much anxiety.
It's not normal."
And there's no widely accepted
list of best practices for teaching remotely, said Monise Seward, a special
education teacher in Georgia.
"Even though we had the summer
to regroup and reflect on what we
did in March, April, and May, we still
have not really had any 'official' quality training on what they expect our
online environment to look like," she
said. "You can have a list all you want

"
iStock/Getty Images Plus

By Madeline Will

evaluations. Last year, every state received a waiver to skip federally mandated standardized tests, but U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has told
states they should not count on getting
the same waivers this school year.
New Jersey had to tweak its student
growth percentile formula because
there were no statewide assessments
last year from which to collect data.
Instead, teachers and administrators this year are responsible for setting goals for students and assessing
whether they've met those goals by
the end of the year. This objective will
make up 15 percent of teachers' evaluation ratings, while the observations
or the portfolio of practice will make
up the remaining 85 percent.
Elisabeth Yucis, the associate
director of professional development
and instructional issues at the New
Jersey Education Association, said
she is concerned about the validity
of using student growth measures to
determine a teacher's effectiveness,
given the wide variability of students'

6 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 28, 2020 | www.edweek.org

February when we were very much
about engagement and students
moving about the classroom and
'pair and share' and all of those
techniques that we know help enrich
the work we're doing," Gambill
said. "Those all have to be thought
through differently now."
Meanwhile, the Illinois Education
Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers issued a joint statement along with state administrators'
associations warning that, "teachers
are not primarily trained to provide remote instruction and qualified evaluators are not trained to evaluate remote
instruction." Districts should focus
evaluations on "formative feedback
and support" instead of summative
ratings, the groups said.
Carmen Ayala, the Illinois state
superintendent of education, then
wrote in a letter to districts that they
will have the flexibility this year to not
conduct summative teacher evaluations. But administrators should still
observe teachers, she wrote, because

This is all new
to everyone-
everyone's a firstyear teacher again
in a lot of ways.
RANDY SQUIER
Superintendent
Coxsackie-Athens Central district
New York

of things to check off, but if I look at a
list, I might do it this way, and someone else might do it another way."
Seward has been teaching remotely
all semester. Her district is planning
to start bringing students back one
day a week early next month, but she
expects her observations will be done
during remote classes.
"We're working against bad internet, outdated devices. We're trying to
serve kids whose parents might be at
work, or kids who-let's just be honest-don't want to do this," Seward
said.
Her own internet can be unreliable,
and she's using her school-issued laptop, which has its problems. Seward
said some teachers have bought two
monitors, ring lights, and microphones to make remote teaching
easier-but she can't afford a set-up
like that.
Teachers are limited with how they
can react to unexpected challenges
during remote classes, said Gambill,
of the Indiana state teachers' union.

"If technology freezes or there's
an issue with connectivity, that's not
something you can course-correct for
in the same way you could if everyone
is in person," he said.
Yet administrators say that, if done
with empathy and compassion, evaluations this year can be an opportunity
for feedback and support.
"This is all new for everyone-everyone's a first-year teacher again in
a lot of ways," said Randy Squier, the
superintendent of Coxsackie-Athens
Central school district, located along
the Hudson River of New York.
The district is open for in-person
instruction, which 80 percent of
students are doing, but it's still not a
normal school year. Middle and high
school teachers are simultaneously
teaching the students in front of them
and the students watching from home
via livestream. One teacher in each elementary grade is teaching a remoteonly class. And even though most
students are back in person, teachers
still have to adjust their instructional
practices to ensure social distancing.

Focus on Feedback
Squier said he will make the evaluation process, which is required by the
state, "as painless as we can make it,
but at the same time useful" by taking
the opportunity to do some coaching.
Principals will ask teachers what they
want to work on, conduct a preliminary observation, provide targeted
feedback on the instructional practice
in question, and then conduct a second observation to see if the teacher
improved. Principals won't be looking
at the full observation rubric this year,
Squier said.
"It's really about, 'What do you
want feedback on?' Especially with
everything [being] new, that's the
approach I'd like to take," he said.
"I think it's more important that we
ease the anxiety that our teachers may
have. They have enough going on."
One way to put less pressure on
teachers is conducting shorter, more
frequent, and informal observations,
NCTQ's Holston said. Research
shows that those "shorter bites of
feedback" can be more helpful in improving teachers' practice, she said.
"If we're not observing and having
these conversations, then we don't
know as much as we possibly can
to support those teachers," Holston
said, adding that it's still important to
evaluate remote teaching because "although we hope this to be a short-lived
experience, ... we really don't know."
Teachers say they welcome coaching
and feedback. Seward said she'd find it
more helpful to have another teacher
observe her class, so she can get feedback from someone who's currently in
the trenches with remote instruction.
Mostly, Brown said, teachers want to
be afforded professional trust that
they're doing their best possible work
under challenging circumstances.
"The sentiment out there is that
teachers are drowning, and day to day
we might have our heads above water
for a little bit of time, but the next minute we're gasping for air," she said.
"Once we're in this for a while, we'll
get a routine going. Just let us get our
feet under us before jumping in."

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Education Week - October 28, 2020

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