As I noted in some earlier reporting on the machinations of the LD 1799 stakeholder group, that newly-minted panel is under the gun to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the state's Attorney General that "the State does not have any legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers at the State level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation." If it can't demonstrate this to A.G. Mills, she will not sign off on Maine's Race to the Top application, and Maine will thereby be ineligible to compete for an RTT grant.
Unfortunately, there is a legal and statutory barrier, LD 1799 (now Public Law, Chapter 646), which, as enacted, prohibits districts from using student achievement data in teacher evaluations, unless said evaluation systems are first approved by the stakeholder group created by the bill.
The stakeholder group met earlier this week, and spent some time investigating the evaluation model favored by the state Department of Education, which is the Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP. TAP is a highly-regarded and comprehensive teacher evaluation system that integrates teacher evaluations, targeted teacher training, a "career ladder" professional advancement system, and a performance-based compensation component.
One thing it does not do, though, is, as LD 1799 puts it, "include student assessments as part of teacher evaluations."
The stakeholder group will learn more about this when representatives from TAP come to Monday's stakeholder group meeting, but in a conversation this morning with a member of the TAP staff, I learned that while actual student performance is used as part of the TAP program's performance-based pay component and is used to inform the program's teacher training and professional development system, it is not used as a part of the teacher evaluation system.
Instead, teachers are evaluated under TAP much as they are under the evaluation systems used across Maine and the nation today. Under TAP, teachers are observed multiple times a year by multiple trained evaluators and are rated against TAP's "Teaching Skills, Knowledge and Responsibilities Performance Standards," which TAP describes as "research-based standards based on twenty-six indicators and operationalized against a five-point scale rubric." These standards, I am told, are based on many of the same teaching standards used in teacher evaluations today, including the Danielson framework, which is widely used in Maine already.
TAP's evaluation program is almost certainly far more thorough than the evaluation systems used in most schools today, and TAP has research demonstrating that teachers who score highly on its rubric tend to be highly effective in terms of student outcomes. But TAP's teacher evaluation system DOES NOT use student achievement as a evaluative component, and would therefore be allowed under LD 1799 even without the approval of the stakeholder group. There is nothing in state law today - even with the passage of LD 1799 - that would prohibit a school system from adopting TAP right now. (Since it would make no use of state assessment data, it would have been legal to use here in Maine prior to the passage of LD 1799 as well.)
This is good news for Maine's schools, of course, as TAP has been shown to be highly successful where it has been implemented.
It is bad news - very bad news - for the stakeholder group's effort to satisfy A.G. Mills that no barriers exist "at the State level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation." TAP does not use "student achievement or student growth" "for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation," so its approval by the stakeholder group would be meaningless. Even if districts were permitted by the stakeholder group to use TAP (which they could do now anyway), they would STILL be prohibited from using student data in teacher evaluation, something TAP doesn't do. A legal and statutory barrier to using student achievement data in this way (LD 1799) would thereby STILL EXIST.
SO, I hope the good folks at the Department of Education don't have any weekend plans. TAP is a great program - one Maine's school districts would do well to adopt - but it is not a model that uses student achievement growth for the purpose of teacher evaluation (Danielson isn't either, which is why the Department dropped it as a model to bring to the stakeholder group.) The Department will have to come up with yet another model, and quickly. May 14, the date by which a model is to be reported out, is only two weeks away, and if we don't have a model approved by then, you can forget the Race to the Top.
Unfortunately, there is a legal and statutory barrier, LD 1799 (now Public Law, Chapter 646), which, as enacted, prohibits districts from using student achievement data in teacher evaluations, unless said evaluation systems are first approved by the stakeholder group created by the bill.
The stakeholder group met earlier this week, and spent some time investigating the evaluation model favored by the state Department of Education, which is the Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP. TAP is a highly-regarded and comprehensive teacher evaluation system that integrates teacher evaluations, targeted teacher training, a "career ladder" professional advancement system, and a performance-based compensation component.
One thing it does not do, though, is, as LD 1799 puts it, "include student assessments as part of teacher evaluations."
The stakeholder group will learn more about this when representatives from TAP come to Monday's stakeholder group meeting, but in a conversation this morning with a member of the TAP staff, I learned that while actual student performance is used as part of the TAP program's performance-based pay component and is used to inform the program's teacher training and professional development system, it is not used as a part of the teacher evaluation system.
Instead, teachers are evaluated under TAP much as they are under the evaluation systems used across Maine and the nation today. Under TAP, teachers are observed multiple times a year by multiple trained evaluators and are rated against TAP's "Teaching Skills, Knowledge and Responsibilities Performance Standards," which TAP describes as "research-based standards based on twenty-six indicators and operationalized against a five-point scale rubric." These standards, I am told, are based on many of the same teaching standards used in teacher evaluations today, including the Danielson framework, which is widely used in Maine already.
TAP's evaluation program is almost certainly far more thorough than the evaluation systems used in most schools today, and TAP has research demonstrating that teachers who score highly on its rubric tend to be highly effective in terms of student outcomes. But TAP's teacher evaluation system DOES NOT use student achievement as a evaluative component, and would therefore be allowed under LD 1799 even without the approval of the stakeholder group. There is nothing in state law today - even with the passage of LD 1799 - that would prohibit a school system from adopting TAP right now. (Since it would make no use of state assessment data, it would have been legal to use here in Maine prior to the passage of LD 1799 as well.)
This is good news for Maine's schools, of course, as TAP has been shown to be highly successful where it has been implemented.
It is bad news - very bad news - for the stakeholder group's effort to satisfy A.G. Mills that no barriers exist "at the State level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation." TAP does not use "student achievement or student growth" "for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation," so its approval by the stakeholder group would be meaningless. Even if districts were permitted by the stakeholder group to use TAP (which they could do now anyway), they would STILL be prohibited from using student data in teacher evaluation, something TAP doesn't do. A legal and statutory barrier to using student achievement data in this way (LD 1799) would thereby STILL EXIST.
SO, I hope the good folks at the Department of Education don't have any weekend plans. TAP is a great program - one Maine's school districts would do well to adopt - but it is not a model that uses student achievement growth for the purpose of teacher evaluation (Danielson isn't either, which is why the Department dropped it as a model to bring to the stakeholder group.) The Department will have to come up with yet another model, and quickly. May 14, the date by which a model is to be reported out, is only two weeks away, and if we don't have a model approved by then, you can forget the Race to the Top.
