Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Panels debate the merits of using surveys to judge teachers

  • by Jacqueline Rabe Thomas
  • June 13, 2012
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

Students and their parents will soon begin taking surveys in several districts across the state to evaluate their teachers.

These surveys — which can account for up to 15 percent of a teacher’s grade in the state’s new evaluation system — has drawn the ire of teachers and their unions and the praise of other education officials.

“I think we have wimped out all these years by not using this feedback,” said Garth Harries, assistant superintendent of New Haven public schools and a member of a state panel helping to create evaluation guidelines. Harries made his comment during a meeting Tuesday in Hartford of the Performance Evaluation Advisory Council’s teacher evaluation committee.

But teachers and union leaders have fundamental concerns with the potential high stakes of the survey results. State legislators earlier this year passed a law linking these teacher evaluations to tenure and dismissal decisions.

“I am worried about the accuracy and fairness,” said Tiffany Haley, a middle school science teacher in Middletown and an evaluation committee member.

Haley told panel members that students and parents who may have vendettas because of a bad grade should not determine her fate.

The surveys will begin rolling out in many of the 16 pilot evaluation districts — which have 5,000 teachers — for the 2012-13 school year. While 10 percent of the state’s teachers will be included in this pilot, every district will need to implement the state model the following year.

teacher eval

The state model requires 10 percent of a teacher’s evaluation score to come from parent or peer surveys, or both. Another 5 percent will come from student surveys or from schoolwide performance achievement.

“This is all experimental,” Mary Loftus Levine, executive director of the state’s largest teachers’ union, told members of the state panel, shaking her head in disapproval. Loftus Levine spoke at a Wednesday meeting of the full Performance Evaluation Council.

Nationwide, six states include surveys in evaluations of its teachers. The National Council for Teacher Quality reports that Arizona, Colorado and New York make surveys an option, but not a requirement. Media reports also indicate that North Carolina, Hawaii and Rhode Island are also moving toward using surveys. New Haven, whose teacher evaluations have been called a national model by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, does not use surveys in teacher evaluations, though Harries hopes to change that.

“These surveys really could generate some improvement” of teachers, John Luczak, the state’s consultant for evaluations from Education First, said when proposing draft guidelines for the surveys during Wednesday’s meeting.

He pointed to a recent report from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching Project, that calls surveys “value-added measures [that] do seem to convey information about a teacher’s impact.”

Possible proposed guidelines that the State Board of Education is to vote on by the end of the month include allowing survey responses to be anonymous, and giving every parent the opportunity to provide feedback. Likewise, for districts that decide to use student surveys, then every student — possibly from kindergarten through grade 12 — would be given an age-appropriate survey.

Union leaders said they oppose the use of the survey responses to lower a teacher’s rating. Linette Branham, a Connecticut Education Association official, said teachers should get the full 15 percent credit if the teacher is engaged with and available to work with interested students and parents.

The decision of whether surveys will account for 10 percent or 15 percent of a teacher’s score, and several other evaluation components, will be left up to local school boards and superintendents. Nearly half the evaluation, and what goes into it, will depend on “mutual agreement” between the teacher and principal. This includes setting annual goals and determining how much weight standardized tests will have.

During Wednesday’s meeting, the group appeared to reach consensus on language that tries to ensure that standardized test results don’t overly influence a teacher’s grade. Last week, the panel agreed upon the extent to which standardized test results could count. Under the agreement, standardized tests can count for up to nearly half of a teacher’s grade in an extreme case, if both the teacher and principal agreed. The proposed revised guidelines would require “a balance in the weighing” of tests and nonstandardized assessments.

“The goal is to avoid the over-reliance on standardized test data,” Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor said.

How to handle evaluations where there is no mutual agreement has not yet been determined. The group appeared to reach consensus on the need for a judgment panel to be created, but what that would look like and who would pay for it is unclear.

The burden of conducting and analyzing these surveys was also raised by several panel members.

Diane Ullman, a State Department of Education official who will be leading the pilot districts, said she is confident “it can easily be compiled… It doesn’t have to be complicated” or expensive.

This panel is scheduled to meet next Thursday to approve guidelines to recommend to the State Board of Education, which is slated to vote on them June 27.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jacqueline Rabe Thomas

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Health issues carried weight on the campaign trail.
by Victoria Knight | Kaiser Health News

Even with the Democrats’ newfound Senate majority, differences in health policy between the party’s moderate and progressive wings will persist.

Trump’s pardons included health care execs behind massive fraud
by Fred Schulte | Kaiser Health News

At the last minute, President Donald Trump granted pardons to several individuals convicted in huge Medicare swindles that prosecutors alleged often harmed or endangered elderly and infirm patients while fleecing taxpayers. “These aren’t just technical financial crimes. These were major, major crimes,” said Louis Saccoccio, chief executive officer of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, […]

‘It’s a nightmare:’ A growing number of seniors are unable to book vaccine appointments as problems mount
by Dave Altimari and Jenna Carlesso

The state acknowledged Friday in an email to local health workers that some residents are waiting days for a callback.

Panel recommends small, inflationary pay hike for state officials
by Keith M. Phaneuf

Connecticut's part-time legislature hasn't received a pay hike since 2001. The annual base-pay for senators and representatives is $28,000.

Police task force seeks wider applicant pool for watchdog role
by Kelan Lyons

The task force sent four recommendations — and two that didn't get unanimous approval— to lawmakers for the 2021 session.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion Miguel Cardona, who are you?
by Ann Policelli Cronin

When I ask Connecticut teachers about Miguel Cardona, those who know him or have worked with him say that he is really nice guy who knows what the challenges in our classrooms are, knows how to help teachers to improve their teaching, and respects public schools. All good. But what is his vision for teaching and learning that he will bring to the U.S. Department of Education?

Opinion Connecticut needs a strong two-party system, this Democrat says
by Edward Marcus

J.R. Romano’s recent resignation as the state’s Republican Party chair has brought into focus the need for a viable opposition party in Connecticut. It is not healthy politics when everything is totally controlled by one party:  the legislature, the governorship, and most of the major municipalities in our state.

Opinion Connecticut’s $100 million college shell game
by Stephen Adair

The plan to consolidate the 12 community colleges in Connecticut into one college with 12 campuses is called “Students First,” which is ironic because it does not fund students first.  It funds a new administration in a new, statewide bureaucracy. The Board of Regents (BOR) and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system office […]

Opinion Inconsistent television captioning is a barrier to equal access
by Jeffrey Bravin and Barbara Cassin

Our world long ago entered the age of the 24-hour news cycle, and a full understanding of the “who, what, when, where and why” of the news is critical for deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing citizens. Yet, Connecticut’s inconsistent quality of television captioning locks our community out of the complete sense of what is happening.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO