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At least Denver earns a high score
While we learned that Colorado's Race to the Top application was ranked 17 out of the 19 finalists by objective reviewers, Denver was ranked 4 out of 30 cities examined in aFordham Institute report issued yesterdayon urban district reform efforts and capacities. (Fordham probably didn't realize that the Race to the Top results announcement would dominate this week's ed news world, but hopefully this urban report will still get the attention it deserves). New Orleans, with its post-Katrina reform efforts, is ranked #1, followed by Washington, DC and New York City, then Denver. Urban districts are ranked on their human capital (Denver is 5 here), financial capital (7), charter environment (8), quality control (14), district environment (10) and municipal environment (4), for an aggregate Denver ranking of 4. As with all such ranking exercises, one can argue with the ratings themselves, the categories or some of the more subjective judgments. And, a change in superintendent, school board, or mayor can alter these perspectives pretty quickly. But, this national report does at least support the widely-shared local notion that Denver's reform efforts are near the cutting edge of national reform, a notion that was shaken by the R2T ratings for Colorado. ...read more
By Buechner Institute for Governance September 07, 2010
Two sides of teacher evaluation
Westword's Melanie Asmar wrote a fascinating article in a recent edition on teacher evaluation in DPS. While the larger frame is the toughening of teacher evaluation, the focus is on a particular teacher, Mary Pishney, at Bromwell Elementary. Pishney in many ways sounds like the epitome of a caring, hard-working, student-focused teacher. A recent negative evaluation by a new principal has sent her life and career into a downward spiral than makes for somewhat painful and poignant reading. This article can be read, or taken, in many ways. There are fascinating elements about the widely differing, and intense, parental input about whether Miss Pishney is one of the top teachers anywhere or whether she is overly focused on social/emotional issues and under-emphasizing rigorous first grade math skills. Certainly the article is skeptical about the quality of the principal's evaluation of this teacher and the resulting remediation process. Tom Boasberg and Shayne Spalten are quoted about DPS's broader need to evaluate teachers more rigorously and to work to remove those who get negative evaluations, and the Johnston bill is discussed. But, this article points out some the human elements that make it harder to evaluate fairly teacher quality than it might look to someone outside the system. by Paul Teske ...read more
By Buechner Institute for Governance August 03, 2010
The price of capricious evaluations — in D.C. and in schools
Reading the Race to the Top (RttT) reviewer comments and the recent analysis of scoring byThe New Teacher Projectis a painful thing for someone, like me, who worked hard on the application. What is clear is that our fate depended upon a group of five reviewers with radically different views on the quality of our application. According to New Teacher Project, Colorado's application had the widest differentiation in scores across all of the 16 finalists. The irony is that my anger, frustration and disappointment with the evaluation process is exactly the situation we are asking our teachers to enter with the RttT plan under consideration by the legislature. Just as Colorado's fate in the RttT competition suffered from wildly divergent and poorly defined views on what a quality application looks like, we are asking teachers to accept an evaluation system that is based on a nebulous understanding of what quality teaching looks like. And just like those of us who are frustrated with our outcome hinging on the wildly divergent views of our reviewers, teachers in the new evaluation scheme will be frustrated with evaluations, pay, and employment decisions that depend on the wildly divergent views of principals. This boils down to a question of what is fair and reasonable. Is it fair and reasonable to expect the RttT reviewers to grade proposals consistently, to expect different people to award the similar scores to a proposal? Is it fair and reasonable for a teacher to expect different supervisors to give the same evaluation ratings? The bottom line is no, it is not fair and reasonable to expect absolute consistency. As I say to my six year old daily, "Life is not fair" nor is it reasonable. The reality is we all have bosses whose evaluations of our performance (and subsequent decisions about our pay and employment) can be wildly divergent based on nebulous, poorly defined views of quality. The more important question is what is the price we pay as taxpayers for making teachers accept the frustrating and nebulous world in which many of us already live? We can see some of that price in thepublic doubtabout whether to go for round 2 of the RttT. I, and I think others, asked themselves, "Is it worth it?" when our application may be judged capriciously in Washington. We should expect teachers to make the same calculation: Is it worth it to work in schools when evaluation, pay and employment are not judged consistently? I think the end result will be teachers who are less attached and committed to working in our schools. We will see higher turnover with the largest problems at high poverty schools. And this will raise a new question for taxpayers: Will we make all of our schools places where it is worth it for teachers to come back year after year when employment security is no longer a factor? Who will own the problem of low-performing schools when less of the responsibility can (fairly or unfairly) rest on the shoulders of teachers? Ultimately, more responsibility will rest on the communities' shoulders, which raises the real question: Are we ready to carry that weight? ...read more
By Buechner Institute for Governance July 27, 2010