(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/10/2023) Public school teacher evaluations would no longer need to be based on classroom standardized test scores, under legislation debated this afternoon in the Senate Education Committee.
The current standard created during the Gov. Rick Snyder years has 40% of a teacher’s evaluation based on student growth, which Senate Education Committee Chair Dayna Polehanki (D-Livonia) said is wrought with problems.
For one, student scores will only grow to a certain point before they plateau out. Outside of that, each batch of students is not like the prior class. Sometimes a class has more gifted over achievers. Sometimes a class does not. Comparing one class to another isn’t fair.
Polehanki also said the state’s standardized test, MSTEP, isn’t a great yardstick for teachers because often the test doesn’t mean anything to the student. Since their final grade doesn’t depend on their performance, students can take the test as seriously as they want, which isn’t fair to the teacher.
And then what happens if a teacher is reassigned to a different subject area or grade?
If a teacher is assigned to teach different subjects each school year, that prevents them from developing effective skills or strategies in that subject, and a student’s testing environment can dictate their achievement on a standardized test, said Jason Posey, executive vice president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), testifying in support of the bills.
“Teachers should not be held accountable for the growth of students that are not consistently present to participate in their learning,” Posey said, referring to chronic absenteeism.
No votes were taken on SB 395 and SB 396, but various stakeholders told the Senate Education Committee they were four-square on board.
Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) said she was on board with the education accountability package 10 years ago, but after watching academic outcomes spiral downward, she said she realized “We’re not doing this in a way that is helpful.”
“It’s important that we get back to the building blocks and think about how we can rate teachers and have an evaluation system that supports teachers and allows them to grow,” she said.
The bills also:
- Reduce the number of rating categories from four to three. The “highly effective” rating would disappear. Instead, teachers are “effective,” “developing” or “needs support.”
- All teachers who have been rated effective three years in a row would be allowed to skip an evaluation two out of three years going forward.
- Creates a due process avenue for those teachers who object to their rating.
It was on this point that the bill received pushback from the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators. If the bills’ goal is to streamline the evaluation process, allowing teachers to seek remediation for a “needs support” rating does the opposite, said MASA’s Matt Schueller, who opposed the bill.
“We believe this provision, intentionally or not, will not be a productive use of time for anyone involved,” Schueller said, stipulating that the association’s members want to work with the bill sponsors.
Sen. John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs) said these bills would make it hard to fire a bad teacher and asked what should be done to address the teachers who aren’t as good as other teachers.
“If I had an employee who wasn’t performing up to par, I didn’t have to jump through hoops to replace that employee,” Damoose said.
Bob Kefgen, of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, supported the bills, as did Tammy Daenzer of the Michigan Education Association.
Attorney Jeffrey Donahue of White Schneider asked for a definition of “misconduct” that wasn’t so expansive that school administrators could apply it to numerous innoxious cases.
