From MCAS to Teacher Evaluation

A recent task force report from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education proposes to overhaul the teacher evaluation system across the Commonwealth.

Described in a NPR article, the task force recommendations call for teachers to be evaluated using results from two types of student assessment, one of which must be the growth data from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Systems exam where it applies. This task force analyzed the current teacher evaluation systems and provided guidelines for improvement. This entire NPR article available online here.

This task force published the report "Building a Breakthrough Framework for Educator Evaluation in the Commonwealth". The entire report is available online and it outlined the below reasons for changing the existing system on page five:

The Task Force concludes that current educator evaluation practice in Massachusetts:

• Rarely includes student outcomes as a factor in evaluation
• Often fails to differentiate meaningfully between levels of educator effectiveness
• Fails to identify variation in effectiveness within schools and districts
• Rarely singles out excellence among educators
• Does not address issues of capacity, or “do-ability”
• Fails to calibrate ratings, allowing inconsistent practices across the state
• Fails to ensure educator input or continuous improvement
• Is often under-resourced or not taken seriously"

The task force recommends that evaluators use a wide variety of other local, district, state or commercially-available standardized exams. In addition the recommendations include student work samples can also be used and that teachers should also be judged during classroom observations on elements such as instruction, student assessment and curriculum measures.

These changes were recently described in a Boston Globe article titled, Rating Teachers on MCAS Results: Sweeping changes pushed by state education leader on April 17, 2011.

The Boston Globe article states that the new teacher evaluation system "also gives teachers who do not make the grade a year to show improvement or face termination. A fiery debate subsequently emerged over how much weight testing data should have in determining the overall effectiveness of a teacher or administrator." The entire Boston Globe article can be found online here.