Teacher evaluation system raises concerns

Teacher evaluations from a new statewide system of educator ratings were released Monday, but the data collected by the Indiana Department of Education has raised questions of viability.

New teacher evaluations link educators’ performance to test scores. More than 87 percent of teachers were graded as being highly effective or effective, while 1 percent of teachers were graded as ineffective.

Implemented in the 2012-13 school year, these scores are collected from local school corporations and distributed by the Indiana Department of Education.

“I am encouraged by these numbers,” Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz said in an IDOE press release. “For the most part, they confirm what we already knew, that public schools throughout Indiana are filled with effective and highly effective teachers.”

Many have criticized the evaluation process because the numbers of ineffective teachers seemed impossibly low. Only 0.39 percent of teachers were given an “ineffective” rating. Ten percent of educators were listed as “not applicable / not evaluated.”

Teresa Meredith, president of the Indiana State Teacher’s Association, said this was probably because truly ineffective teachers were being let go or asked to resign.

“If a teacher’s counted as ineffective, do you want them to stay in the classroom all year long?” Meredith said. “They’re just not evaluated.”

Meredith said she did not think it was worthwhile to include these people in the evaluations.

The 2012-13 school year was the first time the new evaluation model was in effect.

Teachers were placed into one of four categories: highly effective, effective, improvement necessary and ineffective. Administrators and all certified school employees were also included in the evaluations.

Legislation enacted by the 2011 General Assembly required school districts to adapt their methods of evaluation. A press release from the Indiana State Teacher’s Association said administrators were being required to spend more time evaluating each individual teacher on an annual basis rather than leading educational programming.

Meredith said the scores are based on individual teacher evaluations conducted on the local level. Before the law was passed, there was not a requirement to conduct annual evaluations.

“Before, schools might not have done an actual, physical evaluation in the classroom, but now they have to,” Meredith said.

ISTEP test scores also contributed to the rating teachers received. Overall test scores of teachers’ pupils could affect the grade the educator is given.

Meredith pointed out issues with this process, particularly that teachers could be working in a low-performing school but could still be performing to the best of their ability.

“You could be a really good teacher, but if the school has a lot of challenges you could be harmed by that,” Meredith said. “If you’re in an impoverished community, your score might be harmed, but you could be doing an outstanding job.”

The teacher evaluations are not strictly for data collection purposes. The data could be used to deny teachers pay raises, Meredith said. If teachers do not meet a certain standard, they are ineligible for a pay raise, regardless of whether or not funds are available.

“They’re prohibited by law to get a pay increase if they’re not graded as effective or highly effective,” Meredith said. “It can affect a teacher’s compensation.”

Meredith also said for teachers who are employed in higher-performing areas, the evaluations may not be representative of their performance. If there is less room to grow, Meredith said, then the evaluations may not reflect a teacher’s improvement.

“I’m just not sure it’s a smart thing,” Meredith said. “So much hinges on the person who’s evaluating you.”

The evaluation program is flexible at the local level. School corporations are given the choice of who will conduct individual teacher evaluations. Some corporations opted to bring in private evaluators who then sent the data to the IDOE.

Evaluations were all-inclusive. They covered administrators, school counselors and any other certified employees. However, only 51 school corporations’ “central office” data was displayed on the spreadsheet distributed by the IDOE. About 80 percent of school corporations displayed “less than 10 educators reported” for their administrative office section.

Meredith said this was a precaution to protect educators’ privacy. If too few employees are working in a corporation’s central office, the IDOE will not list the data in order to prevent poor scores from becoming obviously linked to a single person.

“They’re really trying to protect identities,” Meredith said. “This isn’t a witch hunt.”

The same was true for individual schools. If there were fewer than 10 educators for a specific school, the IDOE did not release the data. Data was therefore not accessible for 328 out of the 1,756 schools listed in Indiana.

Some school corporations did not report to the IDOE at all. The Monroe County Community School Corporation was one of six school corporations that did not have any reports for any teachers.

Meredith said if the school corporation’s contracts already had included an evaluation instrument, those teachers would not be required to undergo evaluations under the law until new contracts were drawn.

Beverly Smith, director of school and community services for MCCSC, confirmed that this was the case for MCCSC.

Meredith said she felt that establishing a program such as this on the state level was a good step toward keeping Indiana teachers from becoming complacent, despite issues in the first year with implementation.

“I think an evaluation instrument is important, and I think it’s important that it’s flexible locally,” Meredith said. “I think teachers by and large want feedback to know how we’re doing.”