Talk, talk, talk! What are you saying? We’ve been waiting, and now NEA speaks out.
The National Education Association (NEA) magazine Neatoday, March-April 2011, has finally laid out its positions on evaluation and teacher’s rights. As outlined in an earlier post (1-19-11), in the early 20th century teachers were at the beck and call of their superiors. When 40 hour weeks, health benefits, vacation, due process before termination, and other conditions workers take for granted were wrested from corporations and school district boards by unions, then school teachers could stand up for their rights.
But now in their 21st century hearts, teachers are caught between fear of losing rights that assure stability and security in a profession where teachers suffered unnecessary injustices, and realization that current evaluation procedures are a joke. Don’t lay the blame on collective bargaining. Don’t focus on high-stakes decisions like the tenure bugaboo and the compensation gremlin. Those three issues sidetrack negotiations toward a successful evaluation system.
NEA’s article debunks most current efforts at evaluation plans. Particular variables are not taken into account. For example, unions dislike high-stakes testing as designed in the Elementary and Secondary Achievement Act (ESEA) known as No Child Left Behind. “This enormous, expensive, painful venture has had little or no effect on achievement.” NeaToday, March-April 2011, p. 20. We read every day how school districts, in a poor budget environment, constantly scramble to find monies to put a basic program in place, much less pay for high-stakes testing.
Scratch “value-added” measurements of test scores over time. It’s another theory proclaimed to provide an effective tool to separate strong from weak teachers. However, factors to determine those scores throw analysis into confusion. The variables complicate any attempts to determine the effectiveness of a teacher.
Have you heard of the sure-fire tool to improve student achievement? “Pay for Performance?” NEA doesn’t think so! Plenty of studies like the Scholastic Teacher Survey establish the incentives to motivate student achievement-for instance, collaboration, analysis of student success, administrative support.
The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) report, Getting Teacher Assessment Right by Patricia H. Hinchey, summarizes the valuable qualities of a teacher assessment/evaluation system that state Departments of Education would do well to read before going any further in designing a model.
The finger is pointed at critics who claim the only educational purpose of schools is to produce student academic success for which standardized tests give easily advertised scores to evaluate teachers.
Look the other way–most research laid out in the report’s detailed bibliography shows that the goal is to establish protocols for evaluation based on factors of Teacher Quality (education, experience, beliefs, capacity to learn), Teacher Performance (classroom interaction, collaboration with school community), and Teacher Effectiveness (curriculum implementation, student test scores, student motivation).
Let’s examine some of the participants in NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign. The union tries to keep an eye on the progress of schools in school districts trying to transform from failing to high-performing designation. Go to the article “In Alabama, ‘A Good Attitude is Infectious’” by Greg Johnson. There are ups and downs, but no quitters.
Those who offer a new plan proclaim its wonders. Those that fear change hate all evaluation systems. The outcome, however, depends on implementation as well as the design.
You know what that means, don’t you?
