The National Landscape of Educator Effectiveness: Leading Examples from States and Districts

1. The National Landscape of Educator Effectiveness:Leading Examples from States and Districts Lisa Lachlan-Haché, Ed.D. Senior Research and Policy Associate National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality

2. National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (the TQ Center)

3. Why examine educator effectiveness? The research and data are clear—teacher quality is the single most important variable impacting student achievement (Rivkin, Hanushek & Kain, 2005; Rockoff, 2004). “Everything else—educational standards, testing, class size, greater accountability is background…” (Gordon, Kane and Staiger, 2006).

4. Why focus on educator effectiveness? • On average, non-tenured teachers are evaluated twice a year and tenured teachers once every three to five years (Brandt et al., 2007). • 59% of teachers report that there are a few teachers in their building who “fail to do a good job and are simply going through the motions”; 18% report that there are more than a few of such teachers (Public Agenda & Learning Point Associates, 2009).

5. National Political Context • Research finds: Teachers are the most important factor in student achievement • Educator effectiveness focus codified in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) • Many states have passed legislation around teacher effectiveness

6. Examples of Leading Educator Evaluation Systems

7. Tennessee: 2011-2012

8. Tennessee Rating Scales

9. Rhode Island The Rhode Island Educator Evaluation System Standards: • establish a common understanding of expectations for educator quality within the district; • emphasize the professional growth and continuous improvement of individual educators; • Continued…

10. Rhode Island • create an organizational approach to the collective professional growth and continuous improvement of groups of educators to support district goals; • provide quality assurance for the performance of all district educators; • assure fair, accurate, and consistent evaluations; and • provide district educators a role in guiding the ongoing system development in response to systematic feedback and changing district needs.

11. Rhode Island Student Learning Objectives • Teachers measure student growth by setting student academic goals aligned to standards • Principals, during the goal setting process, will confer with teachers to establish each goal’s degree of ambition and select the appropriate assessments for measuring progress against the goals • Teacher evaluation will be based on students’ progress on the established goals, as determined by an end-of-the-year principal review of the pre-determined assessments and their results

12. Rhode Island DOE Model: Framework for Applying Multiple Measures of Student Learning The student learning rating is determined by a combination of different sources of evidence of student learning. These sources fall into three categories: Student learning rating + Professional practice rating Category 1: Student growth on state standardized tests (e.g., NECAP, PARCC) Category 2: Student growth on standardized district-wide tests (e.g., NWEA, AP exams, Stanford-10, ACCESS, etc.) Category 3: Other local school-, administrator-, or teacher-selected measures of student performance + Professional responsibilities rating Final evaluation rating

13. “‘Rhode Island Model”: Student Learning Group Guiding Principles • “Not all teachers’ impact on student learning will be measured by the same mix of assessments, and the mix of assessments used for any given teacher group may vary from year to year.” • Teacher A (5th grade) • Teacher B (11th grade English) • Teacher C (middle school art) • This teacher may use several category 3 assessments. Category 3 (e.g., review of student work over a six month span) Teacher A’s student learning rating Category 3 (e.g., joint review of critical essay portfolio) Teacher B’s student learning rating Category 1 (growth on NECAP) Category 2 (e.g., growth on NWEA) + = + Category 2 (e.g., AP English exam) + =

14. Rhode Island: Framework for Applying Multiple Measures of Student Learning Ratings: HE=Highly Effective, E=Effective, ME=Minimally Effective, IE=Ineffective

15. New Haven Assessment of Teacher Performance • “The new evaluation and development system will use multiple sources of information to assign each teacher’s evaluation ratings and determine targeted development opportunities.”

16. New Haven Assessment of Teacher Performance Component Measured By Student learning growth Growth in student learning (i.e., growth on state- and/or district-standardized assessments) and attainment of academic goals that are rigorous and aligned to standards 1 Teacher instructional practice Instructional manager judgments of observed teacher performance in the domains of Planning and Preparation, Classroom Practice, and Reflection and Use of Data 2 Teacher professional values Instructional manager judgments of observed teacher behavior that address a set of characteristics including professionalism, collegiality and high expectations for students. 3

17. New Haven Assessment of Teacher Performance At the end of each year, all teachers will be assigned a rating that indicates their level of performance for each component on the following scale:

18. New Haven Assessment of Teacher Performance * “Ratings with this degree of mismatch should be the subject of focused policy review, outside the context of the specific teacher’s evaluation, to determine why such a mismatch is occurring and what, if anything, needs to be corrected.”

19. Components of Effective Systems • Evaluation system goals • Communicator and stakeholder involvement • Evaluation format • Strength of measures • Evaluator selection and training • Alignment with professional development and standards • Data infrastructure and transparency • System evaluation

20. Integrated Effectiveness Systems

21. Resources • Tennessee: • http://www.tn.gov/firsttothetop/programs.html • Rhode Island: http://www.ride.ri.gov/EducatorQuality/EducatorEvaluation/Docs/RI_Model_Ed_Eval.pdf • New Haven: • http://www.nhps.net/node/1682 • TQ Center: www.tqsource.org

22. Lisa Lachlan-Haché, Ed.D. • P: 202-403-6214 • E-Mail: llachlan@air.org • 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street NW • Washington, DC 20007-3835 • Phone: 877-322-8700 or 202-223-6690 • Website: www.tqsource.org