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.