On Tuesday, January 11, 2011, members of the VIVA Project of New York Task Force presented their report, Opening Doors to Professional Communication and Collaboration, during a meeting with New York Senior Deputy Commissioner of Education, Dr. John King Jr.
Executive Summary
Placing evaluations in a Professional Learning Community context can be a cost-saving measure for New York.
We could significantly decrease consulting costs if existing staff played a larger role in working with data and setting goals.
Student portfolios are excellent measures of teacher effectiveness but given the time cost, and the dramatic increase in data that multiple measures will reap, we elected not to include this measure in our recommendations.
The state can achieve significant savings by adapting an existing teacher evaluation rubric rather than creating one from scratch. Adaptations should take place statewide and then leave room for further refinement at the district or charter school level.
Student population and community-specific measures should be the focus of adaptations both statewide and locally
Recommendations included in this report
Data-gathering for evaluations must start with team-driven goal setting in each school building.
In addition to state mandated tests, six measures should be used for all teacher evaluations and weighted in a standard manner
- Administrator evaluations 20%
- Peer Observations 15%
- Student Progress Assessments 10%
- Student Surveys 10%
- Teacher Evaluation 5%
When making high-stakes decisions such as tenure or compensation, weighting of multiple measures should be adjusted.
New York has a real leadership opportunity if we use non-tested subjects as an opportunity to push the science of assessing student progress further rather than jumping directly to creating tests for subjects such as music, art, or physical education. We should take it.
When evaluating teachers of students with special needs or English language learners, New York must have data demonstrating that the teacher’s differentiated teaching is consistent with the student’s IEP and that his implementation reinforces the expectations that every student will achieve goals set.
New York should adopt an existing rubric and allow for adaptation based on local conditions