|
|
Credit: Fort Worth Independent School District
Education Dive
Report: States 'retreat' from including student test results in principal, teacher evaluations
Linda Jacobson
Oct. 8, 2019
Dive Brief:
Since the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), several
states have backed away from including student performance in principal
evaluations and from conducting those evaluations every year, according
to a new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).
Calling it a "hasty retreat," the NCTQ report also details how 10
states and the District of Columbia have removed requirements that
teacher evaluations include student testing results. Another four
states allow more flexibility for districts to decide which assessment
results to factor into evaluations instead of requiring they include
state standardized test results.
The report notes since 2015, two states — Alabama and Texas — have
started including student testing data in evaluations, bringing the
total number of states still requiring such evidence to 34, down from
43 before ESSA.
Dive Insight:
Following No Child Left Behind’s strict requirements for education
accountability systems, ESSA returned much of the control to the
states. In addition to legal challenges over linking test scores to
teacher evaluation results, education researchers also raised questions
about the validity of such systems, according to a report last year
from the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at Arizona State
University.
For principals specifically, the NCTQ report shows nine states and the
District of Columbia (DC) dropped the requirement that evaluations
include “an objective measure of student growth,” while Texas added
such a requirement. Six states and DC have stopped requiring annual
evaluations of principals, while Massachusetts moved to an annual model.
Site visit or observation requirements were more mixed, with five
states removing the requirement that evaluations include those results
and six states adding such a rule. Five states and D.C. also dropped
the requirement that principal evaluations include teacher or community
surveys, while five added that component. Finally, principals found to
be ineffective will no longer be automatically identified for targeted
support or put on an improvement plan in four states, while such a
requirement has been added in one state, Nebraska, the report says.
The NEPC report notes when states allow various types of teacher
evaluation systems, there are concerns about administrators and other
evaluators being adequately trained. The same likely applies to
supervisors evaluating principals and other administrators.
Removing such state-level regulations, however, doesn’t mean districts
are backing off on oversight of principals. Several have worked with
outside experts to revamp the way district-level administrators work
with the principals under their supervision, with a more concentrated
focus on instruction.
|
|
|
|
