Focus on how students perform, not on mere process of teaching
NEARLY 20 years of successful standards-based education reform in Massachusetts has proved the wisdom of focusing on what students learn rather than on how teachers teach. Unfortunately, a report that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education received this week from the Task Force on Educator Evaluation turns this principle on its head, focusing primarily on how teachers teach and relegating student achievement to a secondary role.
Only a few task force members prioritize student achievement — broadly defined — as the primary yardstick by which an educator’s effectiveness must be measured. A large majority believe that common standards of practice — rather than student outcomes — should drive performance reviews of both teachers and administrators.
We know that student performance is a reflection and result of effective teaching, but it is the ends, not the means, that matter most.
The practice standards are entirely concerned with processes (planning, assessment, collaboration, family engagement, cultural proficiency, etc.) instead of student performance. They factor outcomes only incidentally into an evaluation system where effort trumps results and everyone gets an A for trying. Student learning, growth, and achievement are not even found among the “core indicators’’ of success (topping the list, for both teachers and administrators, is “reflective practice’’).
As task force members in the minority for whom the central objective of evaluation is to recognize, promote, and reward excellence, we believe that educator evaluations must be based predominantly on student learning and achievement, not on whether a teacher or administrator is going through the right motions. The job is to ensure (not merely “promote’’) student learning and this is what indicates effectiveness.
Basing teacher evaluation on student achievement does not mean relying only on standardized test scores, but on a variety of quantitative and qualitative criteria (“multiple measures’’), including locally developed and nationally available assessments, classroom observations, and appropriate parent and student input. In grades and subjects where statewide test scores are available, the state has developed a “growth model’’ that measures year-to-year student progress compared to academic peers and does not penalize teachers or administrators whose students have low baseline scores or demographic challenges.
The report purports to include student learning as a “significant factor’’ in evaluation, by means of things like setting personal goals that relate to student performance, but always in ways that are easily circumvented. With this approach, student results are used to “validate’’ an otherwise process-oriented evaluation system. But significance is in the eye of the beholder, and serves in this report to conceal a largely business-as-usual attitude.
Evaluation systems should ensure a highly effective teacher in every classroom. Unfortunately, the report does not propose the changes we need to do that. It merely tinkers with the current, broken “system’’ by rewriting principles and process-oriented standards. It is telling that the report’s most radical recommendation is to do evaluations on a regular and timely basis, as is already required by current statute.
Research shows that an effective teacher is the critical factor driving student achievement. That’s why we urge the commissioner and board to go beyond this report and create a mandatory statewide evaluation framework aimed at recognizing, promoting, and rewarding excellence, where excellence is defined in terms of outcomes, not behaviors.
Teacher and administrator evaluation must be based at least 50 percent on multiple measures of student achievement. Practice standards play a supporting role: to catalyze conversations between educator and supervisor and to guide professional development, all with the goal of raising student achievement. Personnel decisions such as hiring, promotion, and dismissal should then be based on evaluation results.
Massachusetts has an opportunity to build on the gains of the past two decades by creating an evaluation system that treats educators like the esteemed professionals that they are. Teachers on the task force spoke eloquently about taking responsibility for their students’ success and wanting to use data to improve their classroom practice. We need more of those teachers. Getting evaluation right will be a major step toward establishing the human resource system we need to attract, develop, and retain the best teachers for our students.
Tom Fortmann is a former member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Linda Noonan is executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. Both served as members of the Task Force on Educator Evaluation. 
