March Board of Ed: Teacher evaluation

aka dropping the student impact rating as a separate item
Chester: heard that student impact rating was not working (from both admin and from teachers)
several rounds with teachers' unions "short of divorcing student impact" would not be receptive to changes

made it clear that this is not a separate rating; gets folded into second standard into overall rating of teachers
"deeply disappointing to me that we couldn't get to a process we could get to a rating in which impact on student learning was part of the rating"
Peske (along with Ron Noble)
two ratings: summative performance rating and student impact rating
proposed changes eliminates separate student impact rating
how to best modify summative performance rating
Noble: to ensure discussion of student impact is part of discussion
"teaching all students" is second indicator; teachers are evaluated at indicator level but at standard level
in administrators it's under standard one: instructional leadership
uses evidence that have already existed: products of practice, multiple measures of student learning, other evidence (like feedback)
measures include: classroom assessments; district common assessments; statewide growth measures
promote meaningful conversations around student growth
add new definition of "expected impact" on student learning
discussion of anticipated student learning gains during development of the educator plan
evaluator's professional judgment determines length of a self-directed growth plan

Sagan: a year ago, felt like we had something that could not be implemented, now we do
Doherty: "can still read the handwriting on the wall: this motion is going to pass"
"I hope we can get beyond teacher evaluation pretty quickly...think we spend far too much time parsing and dicing teacher evaluation"
Fryer: what's expected impact?
Noble: discussion that will take place into evaluator and educator
Sagan: 'we're not defining it as a term...expecting evaluators to do so"
Fryer: "what expectations do we have that we'll have high expectations for all students"
Peske: "we're reliant on professional judgment"
Chester: what's it take in terms of growth to get to level of similar students and levels of proficiency
Sagan: "I think the point is that we want the bar to keep going up."
Fryer: "if the student has disruption at home, the expected impact can go down, I expect...trying to determine what sort of guardrails that has"
Moriarty "not entranced by the politics of this and not amused by the intransigence of this"
"don't understand how diminishing the role of student impact helps us in any way"
concerned will only see further diminishment
swayed by administrators today
going to give 'yes' vote, but it's very much against my better judgment
Stewart: context is key here
"these are the conversations that have to happen"
"concerned that there will be a shortcut to those conversations"
teacher's practice in combination with what the child learns at home and at school
rubric is built on student learning
"I'm going to support it, but I don't like it"
Chester: supporter of the original architecture
MTA supported at the time
"MTA has come 180 degrees in their stance on this"
interesting at this point in time: see it as having greater weight by being part of the second standard
"reasonable and reasoned approach to concerns both administrators and teachers had back in the spring"
Sagan: if we vote 'no' today, we leave the old model in place
there is no third way
Moriarity: if both evaluator and evaluated are dealing with a tool they really can't work with, you're just going to have something that will be made a hash of
McKenna: most important thing in a school is a teacher; "the next thing is probably an eight or a ten"
Agree with Fryer: low expectations are the enemy of poor kids
At the same time, understanding the factors of poverty is very important
most important is having some sort of professional development for these evaluators is necessary
"don't want this to be the low expectations for poor kids, don't want it just to be a number...we're left with human behavior. And that's what we've got: humans."

Motion passes. Evaluation process amended.

Meeting adjourned.