Thanks to Arne Duncan, almost every state now has an elaborate teacher evaluation plan. There is no evidence that the pans identify teachers correctly, but they are widespread because Duncan believes and he is Secretary of Education, with more certainty than any of his predecessors.

What hath Arne wrought? Here is an account I hope he reads. It shows what a mess he has made in thousands of schools.

I”ve been trying to find the right place to share what I’ve written about the ridiculous evaluation process that occurs in Palm Beach County, FL. Friends who have read it asked that I share it with you, Diane.

My teacher evaluation rant

I’m about to write out the long, stupidly involved story of the truth behind teacher evaluations, specifically at my school, but likely not too different than everywhere.

Five (or more) times in the school year my principal does classroom observations. There are three different kinds: 1 formal, forty minute lesson observation; 2 5-15 minute informal; 2 30 second-2 minute walkthroughs. She evaluates me using the Robert Marzano Menu of Design Questions There are about 60 specific behaviors within 4 different domains, each with 3-7 components, that she is looking for during those observations.

Each of the 60 behaviors is then graded on a scale of: not using, beginning, developing, applying, and innovating. The evaluator, after marking off the components then decides how to grade the behavior. Comments, if appropriate are also added (as in: All of the students were actively engaged in the lesson) At the end of each observation I get an email directing me to approve the observation.

At the end of the year, the grades for each behavior are calculated to determine if the teacher is: Highly Effective (3.2 – 4.0), Effective (2.1 – 3.1), Developing (1.2 – 2.0) or Unsatisfactory (1.0 – 1.1). Last year I was deemed Highly Effective based on my observations. I didn’t really look at the details because I was overly pleased with the results.

I should note that for my first two years teaching this was a new evaluation system. Our district decided that during the learning curve process ALL teachers would be given the same grade/evaluation level of Effective, so the observations were a tool for us to begin to look at where we could stand to improve and what we were already doing well. The fact that I was evaluated as Highly Effective had no bearing on anything, since ALL teachers were graded as Effective. Also, last year only 2 of the 4 domains were observed. This year only 3 were observed.

The added domain is for our own personal professional development. I mention this because we were instructed at the beginning of the year that ALL teachers had to have the same personal professional development goal: to improve student success through implementation of the Marzano Techniques of Teaching (see a trend?). I didn’t want this to be my goal, but I didn’t have a choice (don’t get me started). (Last year my personal goal was to improve my ELL students’ oral language assessments by 50% – I reached that goal and then some).

This year’s evaluation has come back and I am now graded as Effective with an overall score of 3.0. I was wondering how I dropped from Highly Effective to Effective, so I started looking more closely at the numbers. Here is what I saw:

I was marked as Innovating (4.0) for 12/31 behaviors
I was marked as Applying (3.0)for 19/31 behaviors.
I had no lower marks than that.

Now in my world of calculating scores, I would multiply 4 x 12 = 48 and 3 x19=57, then add them together 48 + 57 = 105, then divide by 31 which equals 3.39. 3.39 is Highly Effective, but I was graded as 3.0 – Effective. Hmm. I called my union rep and she was not sure how that could be. She also, for what it’s worth, had a similar score drop. She remembered that there was some ridiculous way to calculate the previous two years, and thought maybe they are doing the same thing this year. Regardless, neither of us knew how our scores were calculated, so we knew we would have to ask higher ups.

I asked my principal. She wasn’t sure how it is done, either. She suggested that we both call/email the woman at the district who is in charge. So I did. This is what I learned: If 50% or more of your marks are Highly Effective, then you are Highly Effective; if 50% or more are effective than you are effective, and so on.

Then I began to wonder, as has my union rep, how is it that I was more effective last year than I am this year? What am I NOT doing now that I did then? It turns out that I am, in fact doing the same things. I was marked as doing the same exact components of behaviors this year as I was for last year. The difference is, last year I was rated as innovating more times. So, for example let’s say Behavior A has 6 components. Last year when I was checked off as meeting all 6 I was deemed innovating. This year those 6 components checked off are only earning me applying. WHY? HOW? Fortunately, I am friends with a number of people who have some real answers.

The answer isn’t pretty, but it’s been corroborated by more than one source. Here we go…

The principals and assistant principals were told that they were *giving out too many innovatings and that they needed to mark innovating less often*. In other words, the evaluation that is supposed to determine our level of teaching, which in turn determines our merit pay (no, we don’t really get merit pay. we’re supposed to, but that’s a whole different – let’s lie to the people of Florida – nightmare) is being manipulated by the powers that be in an effort to…I don’t know…make it seem like teachers aren’t as good as we are. So they can pay us less and blame us more. The powers that be are doing to the teachers what the high stakes testers are doing to our students: creating a system that is skewed to failure (or mediocrity).

I am outraged. Mostly I am outraged that Principals and ASsistant principals, who know this is wrong and are being asked to downgrade their own teachers, are going along with it and not fighting back. The people who told me are in those leadership positions. They know it’s wrong. But they pooh-pooh saying things like, “Everyone knows those evaluations aren’t right, so what does it matter? *I* know who’s great and doing a great job, so the evaluation doesn’t really matter between you and me and the kids. ”

And I almost buy it. Except for this: my evaluation is public recod. Any parent can go to the district and access my evaluation score. Most parents won’t, it is true. Only parents who have a beef with a teacher would do that, as it so happens. But that’s when the difference between effective and highly effective DOES matter. I AM highly effective. I know it. My administrators know it. My students know it. But when a parent who is already certain I am picking on his/her kid or that I don’t know how to teach his/her kid goes to access my records, they see I am Effective, not Highly Effective. It’s fuel for their fodder, which I do not like.

And if I go to work in another district, all the hiring people will see is Effective. I don’t like it. NOt one little bit.

A federal judge in Florida dismissed a lawsuit against the state evaluation system, declaring that it was unfair to rate teachers based on the scores of students they never taught but not unconstitutional.

The evaluation system may be stupid; it may be irrational; it may be unfair; but it does not violate the Constitution. So says the judge.

An article in the Florida Education Association newsletter described the ruling:

“The federal lawsuit, known as Cook v. Stewart, was filed last year by the FEA, the National Education Association and seven accomplished teachers and the local education associations in Alachua, Escambia and Hernando counties. The lawsuit challenged the evaluation of teachers based on the standardized test scores of students they do not teach or from subjects they do not teach. They brought suit against the Florida commissioner of education, the State Board of Education and the school boards of those three counties, who have implemented the evaluation system to comply with 2011’s Senate Bill 736.

“On Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker dismissed FEA’s challenges to the portions of SB 736 that call for teachers to be evaluated based upon students and/or subjects the teachers do not teach, though he expressed reservations on the practice.

We are disheartened by the judge’s ruling. Judge Walker acknowledged the many problems with this evaluation system, but he ruled that they did not meet the standard to be declared unconstitutional. We are evaluating what further steps we might take in this legal process.

Judge Walker indicated his discomfort with the evaluation process in his order.

“The unfairness of the evaluation system as implemented is not lost on this Court,” he wrote. “We have a teacher evaluation system in Florida that is supposed to measure the individual effectiveness of each teacher. But as the Plaintiffs have shown, the standards for evaluation differ significantly. FCAT teachers are being evaluated using an FCAT VAM that provides an individual measurement of a teacher’s contribution to student improvement in the subjects they teach.” He noted that the FCAT VAM has been applied to teachers whose students are tested in a subject that teacher does not teach and to teachers who are measured on students they have never taught, writing that “the FCAT VAM has been applied as a school-wide composite score that is the same for every teacher in the school. It does not contain any measure of student learning growth of the … teacher’s own students.”

In his ruling, Judge Walker indicated there were other problems.

“To make matters worse, the Legislature has mandated that teacher ratings be used to make important employment decisions such as pay, promotion, assignment, and retention,” he wrote. “Ratings affect a teacher’s professional reputation as well because they are made public — they have even been printed in the newspaper. Needless to say, this Court would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would find this evaluation system fair to non-FCAT teachers, let alone be willing to submit to a similar evaluation system.”

“This case, however, is not about the fairness of the evaluation system,” Walker wrote. “The standard of review is not whether the evaluation policies are good or bad, wise or unwise; but whether the evaluation policies are rational within the meaning of the law. The legal standard for invalidating legislative acts on substantive due process and equal protection grounds looks only to whether there is a conceivable rational basis to support them,” even though this basis might be “unsupported by evidence or empirical data.”