When Governor John Kasich released his proposed budget bill (House Bill 64), it generated immediate buzz in the Ohio education arena. Most of the conversation focused on charter reform and the proposed funding formula. What’s gotten less attention are the policy proposals related to teachers. Here’s a quick look at the most impactful provisions.
Easing requirements for consistently high-performing teachers
HB 64 mandates that by July 2016, the state board must not only define the term “consistently high-performing teacher,” but must also adopt rules to exempt said teachers from completing additional coursework for renewal of their licenses. The provision goes on to also exempt these teachers from any requirements prescribed by professional development committees—committees in local districts that are responsible for determining if coursework and professional development meet state requirements for renewing teacher licenses. This seems like a decent idea for rewarding our best teachers for their talent and hard work, particularly since professional development has a bad reputation and the coursework in education programs is equally questionable. That being said, an inadequate definition from the state board of a consistently high-performing teacher could make this provision troublesome.
Changes to the Ohio Resident Educator Program
As defined by the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Resident Educator Program is a four-year induction program that provides ongoing support to Ohio’s newest teachers. The program includes professional development, mentoring, and a performance-based assessment (called RESA) that requires teachers to submit online a portfolio of evidence and completed tasks that demonstrate their ability to design and deliver instruction.
In HB 64, Governor Kasich proposes streamlining aspects of the residency program to ease the burden for teachers and districts. For example, the bill removes the current requirement that a residency participant’s mentor have a lead professional educator license. Instead, the law would only require that residency participants be given a mentor for the first two years of the program—leaving it up to districts to determine the requirements for mentors. In addition, instead of mandating that residency participants are provided with “counseling to ensure that [they] receive needed professional development,” the bill would require that counseling be administered only if the school district or school deems it necessary. Both of these proposals align with a larger current trend in Ohio toward deregulation.
Interestingly, the final part of Kasich’s changes to the program goes in the opposite direction of deregulation. The bill proposes that the performance-based assessment be given to resident educators in their third year of the program. Current law doesn’t specify when the assessment is given. Although taking the assessment in the third year is assumed, districts and schools are given the final say as to when their teachers must complete the assessment. If enacted, HB 64 seems to require that all residents take the assessment in their third year of the program. Though this seems counterintuitive in a bill that largely emphasizes giving control and freedom back to districts, it’s worth noting that this provision doesn’t really impose much on districts. The assessment is taken by most educators in their third year of residency anyway, and teachers are permitted to re-take any failed portion of the assessment.
Changes to evaluation requirements
Speaking of RESA, in an effort to lessen the burden of teacher evaluations, the governor has proposed that school boards may opt not to evaluate educators during the year that they take the performance-based assessment for the first time. There are a lot of positive effects here: Because RESA is a performance-based assessment, the tasks and evidence that teachers are required to perform and submit are similar to (perhaps even better than) the observations conducted as part of an evaluation. RESA is scored by trained assessors on a rubric that is aligned to the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession. Since RESA is a required prerequisite to earning the next step in licensure (the five-year professional educator license) it is in the best interest of both the teacher and the assessor to complete and score high-quality submissions. The only downside to this (depending on who you ask) is that without an evaluation, these teachers technically forego a year of having student achievement results tied to their performance.
Since we’re on the subject, it’s worth noting that HB 64 fiddles with student achievement accountability in other ways that will impact teachers. For starters, some background: A change in law during the summer of 2014 permitted less frequent observations for teachers who received the two highest ratings of Accomplished or Skilled as long as the teacher’s student academic growth measure for the most recent school year was average or higher. In other words, teachers with the two highest ratings are exempt from evaluations only if their student’s academic growth continues to be average or higher in the years they are exempt.
Kasich’s proposed budget, however, would change the law (via the deletion of a provision) so that teachers given the highest rating—Accomplished—would not have to maintain an average or higher student academic growth measure. (This provision, however, remains intact for teachers given the second-highest rating of Skilled.) The argument here is most likely that teachers who earn the highest ratings are not going to have drastic drops in student achievement for the three-year period in which they are exempt from evaluations; yearly variations aside, a good teacher typically stays a good teacher, achievement results and all. Still, this provision could cause teacher evaluation proponents some heartburn. Interestingly, this isn’t the only benefit HB 64 gives highest-rated teachers; a separate provision also removes the requirement that they receive at least one observation in the years they are not formally evaluated.
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Overall, Kasich’s budget bill seems to make a good-faith effort to reward high performing teachers and decrease the burden of evaluations. While there’s still much debate ahead before this bill (in any form) becomes law, and that debate may bring to light unforeseen consequences and needed revisions, the governor should be applauded for his efforts to give control back to local districts and reward (and thus hopefully retain) high-performing teachers.
