BALTIMORE (WJZ) — The governor has appointed a council to change the way teachers in Maryland are evaluated and the council says it’s ready to put their new system to work. Political reporter Pat Warren explains the State Board of Education will give the plan a test run in the fall.
Nothing says school like a report and some teachers are worried about how they’ll be graded. The Maryland Department of Education’s place in the race to the top for federal funding depends on reform. Maryland teachers are about to be schooled on a new system that evaluates their performance largely on the performances of their students.
“It’s not a gotcha instrument. It’s supposed to be an instrument to improve the craft of teaching and hopefully improve learning,” said Elizabeth Weller.
The evaluations are evenly split between teacher practices, such as lesson plans and classroom environment—which will be determined by the school principal—and student performance. Thirty percent will be judged by the state and 20% by the school district. Teachers will be rated as ineffective, effective or highly effective.
It sounds like the same procedure but a different name. Obama can call it what he wants, it is still NCLB.
ReplyDelete2:05 - Not sure what Obama has to do with an attempt by MD Board of Ed to try to improve teaching quality. I'm sure though the system will continue to remove teachers based on seniority rather than quality. That's the government way.
ReplyDeleteYou will all say stop complaining but here it goes: I always agree to take the most challenging behavior and learning groups (translation - bad kids and much slower then average kids) I work hard and genuinely like those kids. Now that their performance will likely take food from my children's table - I am not likely to volunteer for this challenging and fulfilling position. I believe accountablilty is a great idea but children are not "widgets" or commodities. Will anyone be held accountable along with the teachers - say parents, administrators, neighbors, ministers and friends. Remember when neighbors told you parents if they saw a child cutting school? Not happening today!
ReplyDelete230 I don't think the Maryland BOE is just doing this because they care. They are bound by the new Race to the Top (obama's education baby). If MD wants that extra money, they will bend over and take it anyway they can. They are still grading teachers on the kids performance, etc. It is still based on test scores, and we all know that test scores don't mean squat! The teachers will still teach the test and not sway. Schools will con't to receive funding if they are failing or have a high rate of poor kids in the school.
ReplyDeleteSorry I don't buy any of it. They can say they are reforming, but until I see results here in the county, I won't believe it.
So the teachers that get the cake schedules with Honors and AP kids will get raises, and the teachers that get the tough schedules with Special Ed kids and behavior problems will be in danger of getting fired. Makes perfect sense - NOT! Now principals have a perfect way of getting rid of teachers they don't like by giving them crappy schedules. Problem solved. Just another way that MD is driving good teachers out of the profession.
ReplyDeleteThink of it this way in business terms - guarantee me the quality of the raw materials, I'll guarantee you the quality of the final product.
Exactly! If the principal doesn't like a teacher,the principal can easily discard them now. Also, some of the most effective teachers who give their heart and soul to teaching the most challenging students may very well not receive raises!
ReplyDeleteMaybe if the principals did their job correctly and removed the ineffective teachers who sail through the years with minimal investment, Maryland would not need to change their evaluation system.
4:53, I don't think that such an outcome as you describe would be the case. A benchmark for each teacher would probably be established, and then student performance would be measured against that benchmark. I should think that teachers with less-than-desirable students would be rewarded if they could get those kids to improve their test scores. The same would go for Special Ed. As a retired teacher, I do have problems with tying pay raises to subjective evaluations; as has been noted, a principal can reward an undeserving teacher or punish an effective one. One improvement I see is basing evaluations on both objective (measurable) as well as subjective means.
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