The Education Gadfly Weekly

For as long as anyone can remember, in Ohio as in the rest of America, a public-school teacher’s effectiveness and performance in the classroom have had little to no impact on decisions about whether she is retained by her district or laid off, how she is compensated or assigned to a district’s schools, or how her professional development is crafted.

Instead, all of these critical decisions are made on the basis of quality-blind state policies, like the notorious “last-in, first-out” mandate governing lay-offs, and tenure rules that allow teachers to have job protection for life and “bump” less senior teachers when jockeying for positions. Effective teachers are forced to go simply because they have not taught as long as others, regardless of how successful (or not) other teachers might be, students are left with whichever instructors have been in the system the longest, and teachers receive professional development that is not tied at all to their individual improvement needs.

To their credit, Governor Kasich and the Ohio House have been trying to transform the system by which the state handles these crucial teacher HR decisions. The biennial budget bill passed by the House assigns classroom effectiveness a key role in determining how teachers are assigned to schools, whether their contracts are renewed, and – when budgets make it unavoidable – how they are laid off. It would put in place a teacher evaluation system that incorporates student academic growth and several other key job-related performance factors and would rate teachers according to four tiers. Basic personnel decisions around tenure, placement, dismissal, and professional development would be tied directly to the evaluation results.

The evaluation model in this bill resembles those developed in bi-partisan fashion in other states. Recently, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Arizona, and Oklahoma have all passed laws that prohibit teacher layoffs based solely on seniority. These states all now require teacher performance ratings and/or evaluations to be considered in making such decisions. What’s more, rigorous performance evaluations in these states are not just in place to help determine which teachers to let go. They will also help identify and reward highly effective teachers and tailor professional development in ways that help all teachers improve instruction. Ohio should do the same, and the teacher evaluation language presented to the Senate achieved just that.

	Rigorous performance evaluations in these states are not just in place to help determine which teachers to let go. They will also help identify and reward highly effective teachers and tailor professional development in ways that help all teachers improve instruction.

Unfortunately, however, the Senate has dropped all of these provisions from its version of the budget, preferring instead to maintain Ohio’s status as a laggard state with archaic laws that force school districts to consider only seniority when making teacher layoff decisions.

Some claim that the budget doesn’t need to address teacher quality issues because Senate Bill 5 – the much-debated contentious collective bargaining measure signed by Governor Kasich in March – deals with these matters, too. (It is, of course, expected to be on the November ballot for voter consideration.) But they’re wrong. The House budget bill’s provisions are very different—and much better. While SB 5 does indeed remove the sanctity of seniority, it largely defines teacher effectiveness through antiquated input-based measures such as degrees earned and other paper credentials. Indeed, the teacher HR provisions of SB 5 are essentially unworkable, even if that law survives Election Day. They will be far harder on districts to implement than the budget language and will not get Ohio where it needs to go in boosting student achievement.

The House version of the budget would. It connects measures of pupil academic growth to teachers, and further connects teachers’ effectiveness to key personnel decisions. This is the direction other states are moving fast because they know teacher effectiveness is key to improving their schools.

The House budget version will also help Ohio to fulfill the promises it made in its successful $400 million Race to the Top application. The state’s Education Department and participating districts are already at work creating teacher-evaluation systems that incorporate student data. This is in keeping with Ohio’s pledge to the feds to create a “comprehensive evaluation system that will provide constructive and timely feedback to teachers and principals, serve as a guide to professional development, and influence decisions regarding advanced licensure, continuing contracts, and removal of ineffective teachers and principals.” Further, Ohio agreed to place “effective teachers and principals in their high-poverty and high-minority school through removing seniority barriers.”

Moving toward a fairer and more modern system of gauging teacher effectiveness and using that information to inform personnel decisions will give districts the flexibility their leaders crave—and need even more when budgets are shrinking. It will help them retain their very best instructors while providing all teachers with the support and professional development they need to get better.

A version of this editorial originally appeared in the Columbus Dispatch.  For additional coverage on the current teacher evaluation debate in Ohio, see the Akron Beacon, Columbus Dispatch, and the Dayton Daily News .

Even prior to this particular legislative battle, the myths and fears expressed by educators and policymakers alike when it comes to teacher evaluations have been rampant. For example, opponents of overhauling teacher evaluation systems argue they’re inherently unfair, arbitrary, prone to bias, focused too much on test scores, ruin collaboration, and create undo competition. We wondered if any of these realities were true in places where teachers are evaluated in rigorous ways. So we reached out to DC Public Schools, where the DC IMPACT evaluation system has been in place for two years, and went into the field to ask teachers who are already participating in rigorous evaluation systems what they think about these matters.

So what did they have to say? The teachers we interviewed – which include science teachers, an elementary math coach, a fourth-grade teacher (of all subjects), a special ed middle school teacher, an art teacher, and a master educator (who conducts the observations on behalf of DCPS) shared what it’s like to be evaluated via five observations each year and have part of their performance linked to student test scores.  Overwhelmingly, even despite some concerns expressed by several of the teachers, common themes emerged. A binary rating systems (“satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory”) is neither informative about which teachers are effective and which are not, nor does it help teachers improve their practice. Even teachers with significant concerns expressed that IMPACT correctly identifies the worst performers and the top-flyers. And several teachers who have not yet earned the distinction of “highly effective” said that IMPACT motivates them daily to improve their practice.

Their responses are pretty powerful, and begin to peel back the myths and fears we’ve heard here in the Buckeye State. Do evaluation systems like DC IMPACT water down the art of teaching to one set of test scores on one day? No. Frequent and unannounced observations spread out over the year, along with several other metrics – like commitment to school community and professionalism, and student test scores – actually capture the measures of effective teaching far better than previous evaluation systems. Teachers in non-tested subjects, like art and science, explained how IMPACT evaluates them fairly even though their scores are somewhat different from those of teachers in tested grades and subject areas. And every single teacher we interviewed could point to specific areas of instruction that improved as a result of the feedback cycle and relationships with master educators (who conduct the observations). In short, while IMPACT isn’t perfect – and neither is any evaluation system out there – it’s certainly far better than what Ohio has in place and should compel us to institute a more meaningful system in the Buckeye State.

While IMPACT isn’t perfect – and neither is any evaluation system out there, it’s certainly far better than what Ohio has in place and should compel us to institute a more meaningful system in the Buckeye State.

As Ohio and other states struggle to reach agreement on how (or if, depending on who you ask) to make teacher policies focused on effectiveness and performance, and more conducive to attracting the best and brightest, these are conversations that absolutely must happen. We hope that lawmakers, policy makers, and teachers alike realize that any efforts to improve teacher effectiveness across the state rest on our ability to evaluate teachers and use this data to make key decisions that are in the best interests of students.

A version of this article originally appeared on Fordham’s blog, Flypaper.

For as long as anyone can remember, in Ohio as in the rest of America, a public-school teacher’s effectiveness and performance in the classroom have had little to no impact on decisions about whether she is retained by her district or laid off, how she is compensated or assigned to a district’s schools, or how her professional development is crafted.

Instead, all of these critical decisions are made on the basis of quality-blind state policies, like the notorious “last-in, first-out” mandate governing lay-offs, and tenure rules that allow teachers to have job protection for life and “bump” less senior teachers when jockeying for positions. Effective teachers are forced to go simply because they have not taught as long as others, regardless of how successful (or not) other teachers might be, students are left with whichever instructors have been in the system the longest, and teachers receive professional development that is not tied at all to their individual improvement needs.

To their credit, Governor Kasich and the Ohio House have been trying to transform the system by which the state handles these crucial teacher HR decisions. The biennial budget bill passed by the House assigns classroom effectiveness a key role in determining how teachers are assigned to schools, whether their contracts are renewed, and – when budgets make it unavoidable – how they are laid off. It would put in place a teacher evaluation system that incorporates student academic growth and several other key job-related performance factors and would rate teachers according to four tiers. Basic personnel decisions around tenure, placement, dismissal, and professional development would be tied directly to the evaluation results.

The evaluation model in this bill resembles those developed in bi-partisan fashion in other states. Recently, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Arizona, and Oklahoma have all passed laws that prohibit teacher layoffs based solely on seniority. These states all now require teacher performance ratings and/or evaluations to be considered in making such decisions. What’s more, rigorous performance evaluations in these states are not just in place to help determine which teachers to let go. They will also help identify and reward highly effective teachers and tailor professional development in ways that help all teachers improve instruction. Ohio should do the same, and the teacher evaluation language presented to the Senate achieved just that.

	Rigorous performance evaluations in these states are not just in place to help determine which teachers to let go. They will also help identify and reward highly effective teachers and tailor professional development in ways that help all teachers improve instruction.

Unfortunately, however, the Senate has dropped all of these provisions from its version of the budget, preferring instead to maintain Ohio’s status as a laggard state with archaic laws that force school districts to consider only seniority when making teacher layoff decisions.

Some claim that the budget doesn’t need to address teacher quality issues because Senate Bill 5 – the much-debated contentious collective bargaining measure signed by Governor Kasich in March – deals with these matters, too. (It is, of course, expected to be on the November ballot for voter consideration.) But they’re wrong. The House budget bill’s provisions are very different—and much better. While SB 5 does indeed remove the sanctity of seniority, it largely defines teacher effectiveness through antiquated input-based measures such as degrees earned and other paper credentials. Indeed, the teacher HR provisions of SB 5 are essentially unworkable, even if that law survives Election Day. They will be far harder on districts to implement than the budget language and will not get Ohio where it needs to go in boosting student achievement.

The House version of the budget would. It connects measures of pupil academic growth to teachers, and further connects teachers’ effectiveness to key personnel decisions. This is the direction other states are moving fast because they know teacher effectiveness is key to improving their schools.

The House budget version will also help Ohio to fulfill the promises it made in its successful $400 million Race to the Top application. The state’s Education Department and participating districts are already at work creating teacher-evaluation systems that incorporate student data. This is in keeping with Ohio’s pledge to the feds to create a “comprehensive evaluation system that will provide constructive and timely feedback to teachers and principals, serve as a guide to professional development, and influence decisions regarding advanced licensure, continuing contracts, and removal of ineffective teachers and principals.” Further, Ohio agreed to place “effective teachers and principals in their high-poverty and high-minority school through removing seniority barriers.”

Moving toward a fairer and more modern system of gauging teacher effectiveness and using that information to inform personnel decisions will give districts the flexibility their leaders crave—and need even more when budgets are shrinking. It will help them retain their very best instructors while providing all teachers with the support and professional development they need to get better.

A version of this editorial originally appeared in the Columbus Dispatch.  For additional coverage on the current teacher evaluation debate in Ohio, see the Akron Beacon, Columbus Dispatch, and the Dayton Daily News .