Changes Forthcoming in Educator Evaluations

Recent changes in the State’s framework for educator evaluations will have a profound impact in helping to improve the capacity of our classroom teachers, principals and other administrators across our system.

The impetus for Massachusetts’ new Educator Evaluation System was the award of the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top (RTTT) Grant which has resulted in enhanced labor-management collaborations at the state and local level, changes in State education legislation and regulations to support aligning educator evaluations with accountability.

As part of an overarching performance management system, educator evaluations serve to provide quality assurance, continuous improvement and professional learning that impacts student achievement.

It is important to note that the evidence for evaluating educators in the new framework involves multiple measures to include student outcomes on MCAS achievement and growth, observations and products of practice, and other evidence like feedback from students, parents and staff to provide a more holistic assessment of one’s performance.

The statewide standards for teachers include curriculum planning and assessment, teaching all students, family and community engagement and professional culture; for principals (and other administrators) the standards include instructional leadership, management and operations, family and community partnerships and professional culture.

Other key design features include expectations for creating aligned professional goals between individual -> teams -> school/dept -> district. The evaluation cycle in Springfield will also change from a two-step cycle to a five-step cycle that involves: self-reflection and self-assessment, initial goal setting and plan development (4 types for all educators that is differentiated), plan implementation, formative and summative evaluations.

While there is still much more work to be done, the educator evaluation changes in Massachusetts will be rolled out in a phased approach starting with the 2011-12 school year at all Level 4 schools, statewide for RTTT districts in 2012-13 and remaining districts in 2013-14.

For more information on the regulations, please see the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website: http://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/603cmr35.html.

Week provides invaluable lessons for senior team

This past week members of my senior team and I participated in the Harvard Institute for School Leadership and Large-Scale Improvement. It was an intense week of study and a great investment of time to strengthen our capacity for the work here in Springfield to transform our schools. Other participants in the institute included educators from South Africa, Australia, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware and Kentucky.

The week was filled with learning experiences to help improve instructional practice, our understanding of the instructional core (i.e., teachers, students and content) through alignment and implementation efforts for maximum impact, and ensuring equity for “All” students through an emphasis on better student outcomes. There was also dedicated time for us to work as a team on a problem of practice specific to our work in Springfield.

In addition to the readings, case studies and rich discussions with some of Harvard’s outstanding faculty, we also had the opportunity to learn new insights from high performing school districts like Baltimore, Montgomery County, MD and Bellevue, WA. The week was also affirming with respect to our plans for system-wide improvement across the district. We recognize we have a long way to go but it is reassuring to know we are on the right track.

My hope was that we would come away from this experience with a greater understanding of the right work to transform our schools and be stronger as a team. We certainly got that and so much more!