DENVER—Colorado is creating new statewide grades for teachers—but the crafters of the looming performance standards are struggling to figure out how to do it.
The state Board of Education started work Wednesday on a draft of new evaluation standards to be in place by 2013. The proposed rules set a four-tier grading system for teachers. The grades are “highly effective,” “effective,” “partially effective” and “ineffective.”
Teachers rated “ineffective” for two consecutive years would lose tenure, or what the state calls “nonprobationary status.” New teachers would need two subsequent years of “effective” ratings to make tenure.
Under the proposed rules, teachers without tenure would have to be observed twice a year and receive at least once written evaluation report. Teachers with tenure would get an annual written evaluation.
Half of a teacher’s rating would be based on student growth, as measured by tests, as required by a law overhauling the tenure system that the Legislature passed after much debate last year.
The drawn-out battle pitted Democratic lawmakers against a traditional ally, the state’s largest teachers’ union. Lawmakers argued over whether it’s fair to judge teachers according to student performance, especially when class sizes are growing because of budget cuts, and when parents aren’t involved in their child’s education. They left the details about how exactly to judge teachers to a task force.
Board members and department officials acknowledged Wednesday that there’s much more work to be done before the evaluation standards can be used.
To start, the new evaluation guidelines address classroom teachers and principals, but not other certified professions in a school, such as media specialists or counselors. The guidelines say underperforming teachers “shall be considered as being in need of additional support” but then give only limited direction about what “additional support” means.
“I’m glad we have a few months to keep thinking about this,” said board member Jane Goff.
One tricky area for state educators to navigate will be how to ensure the state’s 178 school districts are grading teachers the same—without trampling on local control of schools or trashing pre-existing evaluation standards already in place. Educators want to make sure that a teacher deemed “highly effective” in one county would be “highly effective” in another, but aren’t sure how to do that while allowing school systems to write their own guidelines.
Michelle Murphy of the Colorado Association of School Boards said school districts consider the teacher evaluation guidelines an “excellent framework” but want to preserve the ability to write their own.
“We’re not a one-size-fits-all state,” Murphy told the board.
Lawmakers who passed the evaluations bill envisioned a performance review system that would allow local pay-for-performance compensation. The proposed guidelines are silent on how schools should reward “highly effective” teachers.
“That is an issue that is totally up to the districts,” said board member Marcia Neal.
Teachers and parents will get plenty of opportunity to weigh in on the proposed standards before they take effect. The state planned a webinar description of the proposal Friday, with five public hearings planned later this summer and fall. The board plans to settle on evaluation standards by November, with the state Legislature required to OK the evaluation standards next year. The Department of Education plans to pilot the evaluation standards in selected districts starting in the fall of 2012.
———
Follow Kristen Wyatt at
———
Online:
Draft evaluation standards:
Friday webinar on the standards:
