As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
Join the conversation
We encourage our readers to leave comments and engage in dialogue about our stories. But before you do, please check out our "rules of the road."
Recent Notebook Entries
Right Now On Notebook
By:
By:
Subscribe to catalyst-chicago.org by e-mail
Other Blogs
catalyst-chicago.org feeds
Current Issue
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
By: Lorraine Forte / June 15, 2010
It’s a common refrain among some education policymakers: The way to get high-quality teachers is by offering pay for performance or instituting turnarounds to sweep in new faculties.
Yet the first study of a promising pilot program to overhaul teacher evaluation suggests that policymakers should turn to teachers themselves to have the best shot at weeding out poor performers and helping lackluster teachers improve.
It’s a common refrain among some education policymakers: The way to get high-quality teachers is by offering pay for performance or instituting turnarounds to sweep in new faculties.
Yet the first study of a promising pilot program to overhaul teacher evaluation suggests that policymakers should turn to teachers themselves to have the best shot at weeding out poor performers and helping lackluster teachers improve.
The pilot, called the Excellence in Teaching Project, brought the well-regarded Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching to a diverse group of 44 Chicago elementary schools in 2008-09. At these schools, the Danielson framework—a rubric of effective practices that measures the quality of teachers’ lessons, classroom management and instruction—replaced the standard checklist that principals and teachers both say is virtually useless.
Of the 95 new, non-tenured teachers who were evaluated as part of the pilot, 8 percent received at least one “unsatisfactory” rating on practices that are part of the framework, according to the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which conducted the study. “Unsatisfactory” was defined as “doing harm to students” or “instruction that requires immediate intervention.”
Although not quite an apples-to-apples comparison, that 8 percent contrasts with just 0.3 percent of teachers throughout CPS who were rated “unsatisfactory” using the existing checklist system.
In the pilot, 37 percent of teachers received one of the two highest ratings, compared to 91 percent under the district’s existing system.
“One thing the pilot system does a good job of is differentiating between high and low (performers),” says Lauren Sartain, a Consortium researcher who worked on the study. “You don’t see ratings all clumped at the top. The checklist didn’t provide principals with a definition of what is excellent or superior. This system gives clear criteria for what that means.”
Having specific criteria opens the path to improving instruction, Sartain adds. “Principals and teachers can have a dialog about teaching performance that maybe they weren’t having before.”
In fact, 57 percent of principals had positive attitudes about the framework and said they saw changes in instruction as a result of using it.
Overall, principals “generally were consistent in the way they rated within schools,” Sartain says. “We didn’t see principals cherry-picking their favorite teachers.”
The researchers found no significant difference between the ratings given by principals and by veteran teachers who were also trained to use the framework, suggesting that the rubric—already in use in other districts—can be used in Chicago with reliable results.
Interestingly, though, the veteran teachers were most demanding about instruction. They were less likely than principals to give a “distinguished” rating—the highest—on instruction, a finding that bolsters the view that teachers themselves are the toughest judge when it comes to identifying high-quality instruction. The finding could add fuel to any push for peer evaluation of teachers, something that Cincinnati Public Schools has adopted along with the Danielson framework.
Under state law, half of school districts must have new evaluations in place by 2012.
In the next phase of the study, Consortium researchers will examine whether high ratings on the framework correlate with higher student test scores. That study will include 200 elementary schools and 30 high schools.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
Whoa! Let's not rush into this.
First of all, there isn't a shred of evidence that student learning is positively affected by this framework. Just that principals and other trained observers tend to rate teachers the same way.
Further, nearly half of the principals expressed mixed feelings to negative feelings about the process. When you consider that the sample of 44 pilot schools is made up of principals who were interested in the process--perhaps even familiar with Charlotte Danielson--then this is not a good sign for the rest.
Even if the process is as good as its proponents claim, it is time and resource consuming. Time and resources devoted to teacher evaluation take away from other areas.
I'm interested in seeing a lot more about this before I jump on the bandwagon.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
Jess, the devil is always in the details with these initiatives. Resources as well as the will to do something will be critical.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
My school uses the Danielson framework. There were a lot of issues revolving around how the ratings and pay were connected. Many of those issues are not resolved.
Of the 4 categories: Unsatisfactory (total failure), Basic (somewhat painful to watch), Proficient (okay), and Distinguished (amazing), most people fell into the Proficient category. It is hard to jump from "okay" to "amazing", but it isn't terribly hard to go from "painful" to "okay".
You're going to find most teachers can skirt through the Proficient ratings without too many ill effects. You don't have to be great to be Proficient, and how on earth can you fire solid, "okay" teachers because they aren't AMAZING? You can't. You'd lose droves of teachers.
There are MANY, MANY aspects of the Danielson framework that CANNOT be observed, no matter what anyone says. You simply cannot observe students and know if a teacher contacts the parents. You have to know your teachers indepth, and the better you know them, the better rated they can be. This opens the door for favorites and people who like to blow their horn to be rated higher than modest people or unpopular people.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
care to ask Dr. Danielson how she feels about the way CPS is using her rubric? Very interesting answer she has for this question.
yes, the old system needs improvement, but annually, there were still teachers who were removed using this form.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
So rational.... It hardly seems possible that it will actually be adopted.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
These clowns are living high off the hog for their piddly research. Get some serious researchers like Linda Darling-Hammond from Stanford to dissect and deconstruct the Daley and Huberman education policy debacle that the U of C Consortium supports.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
Dr. Danielson's work is thorough and thoughtful in assessing teachers. I have used it in my own work as a teacher of teachers. It provides an excellent self-assessment for teacher candidates and for teachers. However, in this post-modern reductionist society we tend to limit ourselves at times to rubrics in understanding the person. Every teacher I have met and worked with is much more than the Danielson rubric. The breadth and depth of their lives is manifest in the interactions that they have with students. I recently met a teacher who was interested in kayaking and used his interest to explain physics to his class. Another teacher who had learned to scuba dive taught his students to scuba dive in order for them to truly understand the respiratory and circulatory systems in the human body. These were both CPS school teachers.There are so many marvelous stories about good teachers that we don't hear. The results of the rubric we do hear about. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a column in one of the Chicago newspapers that dealt with the narratives of good teaching. There would be one in the paper everyday!
Dr. Eileen Quinn Knight, St. Xavier University
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
Until CCSR or anyone starts including the number of PATs that are removed/nonrenewed each year, the number of teachers getting lower scores on Danielson vs. the 'old' system is NOT accurate.
Once PATs are included, the OLD/current system does MUCH better in removing poor teachers.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
There is little doubt that Dr. Danielson's framework is valid and valuable for teachers and administrators IF it is used as designed and with fidelity. However, I have two issues. I was told two years ago by an area reading coach, "There is no such thing as a distinguished teacher in CPS." Following this logic, my evaluation is already predetermined no matter how well I perform. I aslo take issue with how the powers that be downtown and the CAOs adapt the framework for their own purposes. It is my understanding that the framework the way it was concieved, is not what is being used by CPS.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
I am a highly-qualfied and trained reading teacher with Superior -Excellent ratings and I was just laid off by cps. I also have twenty years of expereince, too young to retire. I neeed my job!!!!!!!!
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
After 25 years of dedicated service, I am laid off too; 3 certificates and 2 endorsements. Not only dedicated, lost all of my years of perfect attendance benefit days, (over 200). Crazy how the AIO went after the principal because the teachers with many fewer sick days, were taking them. You know what? Why not take them? Better than losing them all.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
Our corporation is seriously considering implementing Danielson's teacher evaluation rubric. I am concerned because much of it (especially Domain 4) seems ambiguous. Also, our corporation is notorious for incorrect implementation of nearly any "new and improved" method(s) for improving student performance.
Teacher evaluation program shows promising results
Our corporation is seriously considering implementing Danielson's teacher evaluation rubric. I am concerned because much of it (especially Domain 4) seems ambiguous. Also, our corporation is notorious for incorrect implementation of nearly any "new and improved" method(s) for improving student performance.
Add your comment