Do states view education reform the same way feds do? Ask your child's principal.
The federal Race to the Top (RTT) program offered states millions of dollars to implement educational reforms that reflected federal priorities. Such priorities include building databases to store student performance data and implementing teacher evaluations linked to student performance on standardized tests. School administrators in 46 states are investing significant resources to overhaul their evaluation systems to increase the number of classroom observations and to put more emphasis on standardized test scores.
Although the legislative intent of RTT may be well intended, the implementation challenges and unanticipated consequences associated with the program jeopardize the realization of the education reforms that were envisioned with this legislation.
Top administrators at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) talk about the noteworthy change in accountability from a compliance-based focus to an outcomes-based focus, but school administrators haven't noticed the change. Despite the increased emphasis on student learning outcomes, the accountability relationships between local school districts, state departments of education and the federal department of education still look and feel like compliance-based accountability systems to school principals.
For many principals, it's one more reform effort they are expected to implement, another administrative burden that diverts time and resources from the classroom. "As I spend more time reviewing test scores and checking off boxes on lengthy evaluation instruments, it feels like more compliance and less on outcomes," said one of the principals with whom we spoke.
We talk with public school principals on a regular basis, and similar to Ed Koch's proverbial question "So, how am I doing?" we ask principals "So, how are you doing with RTT?" Their responses tend to focus on the implementation of the new teacher evaluation systems, one of the most controversial elements of RTT. In fact, the ED report for February 2013 cites first and foremost implementing teacher evaluation systems as the area with which RTT winners are most struggling.
Timeframe for Implementation
Public school principals report problems with the timeframe for implementing the new teacher evaluation system. The timeframe, they say, is unrealistic. Because RTT funds were part of the stimulus package, the ED had to move quickly to commit the funds. As a result, state-level administrators also had to act fast, and now must aggressively push for local-level implementation.
Many school districts are implementing teacher evaluation systems they are unfamiliar with—there has not been sufficient time to train the administrators who are responsible for conducting the evaluations, nor has there been sufficient time to inform the teachers about the changes that will take place.
One school high school principal told us: "We participated in the pilot project to test the efficacy of the Danielson teacher evaluation program, which we were eager to do. But now, we're expected to roll out this evaluation program in every school in our district by September. That's unrealistic. We haven't even had the chance to reflect on what we learned from our pilot program. What worked? What didn't? Where do modifications need to be made?"
Other school administrators told us they were "unprepared" and needed "several months to select the most appropriate evaluation tools and provide professional development to the administrative staff responsible for conducting the evaluations."
Emphasis on Standardized Test Scores and Value-Added Measures
Standardized tests are a measure of basic skills, and many argue that the emphasis placed on these tests can have adverse consequences for students and teachers. Holding teachers accountable for the results on standardized tests has the potential of not only teaching to the test, but also "dumbing down" the curriculum.
Another potential effect includes school administrators "gaming" the system because they are concerned about raising test scores and want to avoid being labeled as "underperforming" or "failing." There's an old adage that says "what gets measured, matters" and if teacher performance is measured by standardized tests scores, that's what matters.
One of RTT's four goals is to develop longitudinal data systems that track a student's growth using a value-added measure (VAM) formula. Students are tested at the start of the school year and again at the end of the school year. Each state decides on a formula and the assessment instruments to be used. VAMs have gained considerable attention by policymakers as a way of estimating a teacher's effect on student learning. Some states use the VAM for as much as 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation.
Proponents of education reform argue that many of the teacher evaluation systems prior to RTT were inadequate and antiquated. Often, these evaluations involved a short "walk-through" visit or brief and rare observation by a school administrator. Teachers will tell you that their written evaluations contained errors and provided little or no suggestions for improvement and professional development. In district after underperforming district, where less than 50 percent of the students are performing at grade level, 98 percent of the teachers often are evaluated as effective or highly effective. Clearly, better ways to evaluate teachers must be found.
School administrators, however, worry that the new evaluations are yet "another burden on the school principal … we have so many things to complete on a daily basis as it is," according to one principal. Principals tell us they are staying late and working weekends to complete reviews with more than 100 reference points. They don't expect additional teacher observations to improve student learning and teacher quality.
Another principal noted that "Fifty percent of a teacher's evaluation is now being linked to student growth, the other 50 percent to their classroom observations. Teacher quality obviously makes a difference, but how can a test measured at two points in time really capture how well a teacher is doing their job?"
The 11 states that were awarded the first round of RTT funds just released aggregate, statewide, data on the outcomes of their teacher evaluations for the 2011–2012 school year. On average, 96 percent to 98 percent of teachers were rated effective or highly effective. However, the new systems do not appear to be doing a better job of identifying the ineffective teachers.
Costs, Resources, and How They're Spent
Administrators also cite the costs to maintain the teacher evaluation process as a significant challenge. In one large, urban school district, a senior-level administrator told us: "Our district spent large sums of money to purchase an approved and packaged evaluation system, hire administrators to specifically oversee the evaluation process, and purchase data software to store the information. That's money taken away from the school for other purposes, other initiatives with a better chance of improving educational outcomes."
Other principals indicated that their districts spent more money on conducting evaluations than on providing professional development. "We can't help teachers improve without the resources."
An assistant principal at a large urban high school is frustrated by the reform efforts being forced on her school. They're in the middle of one reform effort, and before they know if it has had any impact, another major reform is put in place. She says her district has to go after federal grants to keep the school doors open; however, she longs for more autonomy in how the funds are spent.
Time Will Tell
As states continue to push forward on their commitment to Washington, there is much to learn about how to evaluate teachers in a way that is fair and objective, based on merit, and free from political and personal preferences. Many of the evaluative approaches and techniques sparked by the RTT haven't been given adequate time to determine their reliability or effectiveness.
No performance evaluation system is perfect and no performance assessment tool is purely objective. When dealing with people, politics, and personal relationships, objectivity is an illusive goal. Evaluation becomes all the more difficult when performance is linked to an outcome over which the person being evaluated does not have direct control.
Teachers certainly influence student learning, but they do not control it. External factors, such as poverty, illiteracy, family structure, and community conditions influence, the outcomes as well.
So while teacher accountability for student learning is critical, we have to be cautious in our assumptions about causality and we have to be deliberate in the selection of evaluation tools, and alternative ways to measure performance.