Next week, I have been asked to sit on a panel of educators and professionals to discuss (debate) the new teacher evaluation system chosen for Connecticut schools. I've had minimal training of the new system and immediately upon being asked I began surveying teachers and principals. My training has not been numerical or statistical (I analyze text, scribble poetry, teach writing for communicating knowledge in multiple genres to real audiences, support creativity and become enamored over questions rather than answers). I've been an ethnographer, a story teller, a reader, a thinker, a performer, and a man who has benefited from assessments, including those that have labeled me distinguished, proficient, and even moronic, at times. I've earned a Masters in Teaching, a Masters from the Kentucky Institute of Education and Sustainable Development, and almost finished a Masters with the Bread Loaf School of English before I left the classroom to earn a doctorate at Syracuse University. My training has mostly been with the power of written language and how to teach others to write effectively). Looking at numbers, to me, paints too partial a picture of who I have been as a learner and, now, who I am trying to be as a teacher, researcher, and promoter of K-12 writers in every school. They offer a stroke, but not all there is to the canvas I live upon.
During my teacher training, measurements arrived through portfolio assessment. Similar to what I experience now as an academic, I was a reflective practitioner. I collected materials throughout my career that showcased my knowledge as an expert and how I met benchmarks and objectives (in fact, sometime in my career, I even earned a title of a highly qualified educator). Portfolio assessment was what I experienced through my beginning years as a teacher, too. In addition, a phenomenal principal evaluated me every four years and provided stellar feedback with his thorough observations. He encouraged his teachers to take part in Critical Friends Groups where we held non-stop dialogue on ways to become better educators. Towards the end of my teaching, however (when Kentucky shifted towards Common Core State Standards and moved to more questionable assessments of student knowledge), I experienced a different type of observation from a newly hired administrator -- one that can only be compared to Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series. The shift departed from conversations about my teaching and moved towards data, data, and more data (what it allegedly said about my students). Conversations about effective teaching subsided; all eggs were placed in a test basket.
Upon leaving and studying to be a trainer of teachers, I used measurements of qualitative and quantitative assessment at Syracuse University - a way to measure pre-service teachers that aligned with national and state standards in the field of literacy (in fact, it was tied to accreditation for the University to maintain its School of Education). The National Council of Teachers of English, the National Writing Project, and the International Reading Association informed the standards we upheld. In addition, New York State had its own standards and student teachers were taught methodologies to reach them, as well. These, in turn, were what we used to evaluate pre-servce teachers. They were decided upon and influenced by local, state, and national organizations. They provided the foundation for discussing practices that worked, at times needed tuning, and occasionally that failed.
This appears to be the goal for Connecticut's SEED program (System for Educator Evaluation and Development). Input (read here: angst, frustration, worry, and concern) that I hear from administrators and teachers across Connecticut has brought me to a pair of assertions:
- Assertion one: Tying test scores from state examinations (exams still to be determined) as part of the equation for assessing teacher productivity is controversial, especially in a time where the Common Core State Standards are under fire nation-wide (George Hillock's pointed out, schools face the 'testing trap' - once examinations are known, teachers will, by default, be expected to teach to them). The lack of educator and national organization input on these standards and the inattentiveness of child and adolescent development are areas of tremendous concern.
- Assertion two: SEED teacher assessments will place new demands on already taxed administrators who will be required to find more time in already busy schedules to carry forth observations, provide ample feedback, and fill-out paperwork necessary to bring the evaluation to its fullest capacity.
Conversations of whether or not the SEED system in Connecticut will do as it promises is premature. I can only guess. With that said, my number one worry is that they will place even more reliability on test results. Occam's Razor leads me to believe that results from the tests (as misguided as they usually are) will be used to point out what we already know. This, in turn, will further ostracize educators in schools, especially in high-needs urban districts who serve populations of youth do not score as well as those in more affluent, and better resourced, school districts. Factors beyond the classroom contribute to student achievement, yet it will be teachers who will be blamed. I can predict more innocuous and inappropriate reports of urban educators will occur (and results will be used by money-making organizations to continue their snake oil sales).
I have spent the last week reading around the issues that surround the SEED evaluation system, drawing many reports from Connecticut's neighboring state, New York. There, administrators, parents, and teachers are calling for the Commissioner of Education to step down. I could also post links to news coverage, studies, and even books reporting on teacher evaluations and highlight what a number of critics are warning. They're easy to find...all you need is Google or access to a research data base.
Yet, as I noted already, I'm not an assessment expert when it comes to teacher evaluation. I understand professional development, best practices in literacy instruction, and what the research says in my field of study. Most of this expertise leads to the claim that a test-crazed culture is ruining education, not helping it. How students score on assessments is typically a measurement of literacy at home, economic stability in the community, opportunities for caretakers to have work, and whether or not students receive food, shelter, love, and clothing. Tests, too, can only offer slight indications of what young people know and can do. Results informed my practice, but I used them sparingly.
I'm also aware that the SEED system makes the promise to use data so administrators will be able to to provide professional development to enhance instruction at their schools. I would love to see this occur, as I hear teachers across Connecticut discussing a desire for more support in their classrooms. The reality at the time of this post, however, is professional development lacks in Connecticut.
I recently reviewed Writing Instruction That Works: Proven Methods for Middle and High School Classrooms by Arthur N. Applebee and Judith Langer. They expressed concern that too little writing instruction occurs in American schools. Implementation of best practices for literacy (that have been asserted from research) is the exception, not the norm. Their book, however, highlights classrooms and schools that have achieved success, including several in the State of Kentucky and many that are supported by the National Writing Project.
Here's the rub.
Kentucky no longer has a portfolio assessment. In addition, the federal government began limiting the funding to the National Writing Project in 2011. In Connecticut, for instance, the three sites: Storrs, CConn, and Fairfield, currently operate on a budget nearly 75% less than it was four years ago. In addition, school districts have lost major funding for professional development since the economy tanked and administrators have little means for providing support to teachers in the way the SEED system suggests. The lack of funding for professional development has the potential to be an enormous flaw with the SEED design. If our limited resources are being spent on testing so we know the skills of students and teachers as efficient or inefficient, what is to be done afterwards? Will more resources arrive to those schools who face the most obstacles? Will the State of Connecticut look to organizations like the Connecticut Writing Project to invest in teacher development and leadership?
If so, and I want to be an optimist here, then the SEED evaluation system has much promise. For it to work, the rhetoric needs to match the action. If not, then we will witness another round of politicians, educators, and community activists chasing their tails, simply restating what we've known for a long time now: Connecticut has the largest achievement gaps in the nation. What are we going to do about it?
I rarely see any issue as black or white, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate. Instead, I teeter-totter in the gray areas.
Actually, that's not true.
I prance about the tips of every crayon in the Crayola box.
Why?
American schools are more heterogeneous, diverse, and complicated than the tools we have to measure them. I am skeptical of the fads and trends that arrive in education. As my colleague, a stellar history teacher in Kentucky writes, "In the end, it is hard work that pays off." Teachers in the classroom need to continue working hard to educate their students and to find internal strength to tolerate another cycle of invasive practices that inhibit them from teaching the young people they work with. Sauron's eye in Mordor is wide awake. Prepare for the Orcs.
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