California Evaluation System

Over the years unions have provided many benefits to union workers through collective bargaining. One of the biggest union forces in the United States is the teachers union. With almost close to 5 million members nationwide, the teachers union is one of the most powerful unions. Through collective bargaining, problems have been created for the public school system which takes place at local school districts; rules have been imposed to create ineffective forms of organization at schools. The rules that are currently in place by collective bargaining are also creating a big disconnection with many public schools, that being the interest of the children. The teachers union is one main role

It is essential to encourage school districts to collaborate with teachers and their unions when developing or implementing pay for performance programs. This can be achieved by incorporating these pay systems into sustainable human resource management strategies to improve teacher effectiveness. Compensating teachers via performance based system should be tied to the performance of the preK-12 students and not on the age, seniority or degree of the teacher. Another key aspect is to strengthen professional development of the preK-12 teachers through mentoring opportunities and evaluation of teachers. This will ensure that more highly qualified teachers are hired and retained at the various prek-12 school in U.S. The state laws that do not align educator performance based on student outcomes and compensation policies should be

As schools across the nation look for a uniform method to evaluate teachers’ performances, concerns about both methods are highlighted. NYC is using the Danielson Framework to evaluate teachers this year; some concerns have been brought up by administrators and the teachers union. In the piliot program it was noted by one administrator that “some of her teachers are not scoring as high on the rubric as she would expect — precisely because the rubric expects the same general characteristics in all grades” (Cromidas, 2012). This is because in the Danielson Framework the observer is looking for weather a teacher is doing the behavior or not. Check mark - there is no distinction between a new teacher and a veteran teacher. The other thing that administrators are noting that the “practicing observing teachers using Danielson had proved to be time-consuming” (Cromidas, 2012). It is recommend that they observer spends a number of informal observations lasting at least 15 minutes in the classroom before the official observation and that the report be turned around in 48 hours to the teacher.

By believing that instructors are the most important influence in a child’s education, teachers are given an unrealistic responsibility. Many policymakers believe that holding educators accountable for student success is the best way to improve public education. This asks educators to overcome these outside variables that are far outside of teachers’ control. Policymakers suggested linking teacher evaluations to student achievement, measured by standardized tests. This is not a beneficial way to hold teachers accountable because of the many outside factors that affect student achievement. A better way to hold teachers accountable is to stem out of a realistic perspective on what teachers can and should do for their students. Each part of society holds an important responsibility in increasing student achievement. Teachers should not be asked to be responsible for more than they can handle.

of the union. The reasoning behind this law is that all California State teachers benefit from the

Educational policies guide professional practice. By developing policies, agencies determine appropriate courses of action to aid individuals in applying a set of procedures in a systematic and equitable manner. My essay describes the Spotsylvania County Public School’s (SCPS) policy on Teacher Evaluation and traces its roots through the various levels of regulatory entities. In order to provide a rich context, pertinent case law and applicable literature in terms of the topic is also presented within the essay.

Standardized tests are categorizing teachers based upon how their students are performing on a standardized test. The way that teachers are trying to teach is controlled by standardized tests in order to provide the student with as much help as possible to guide the student to succeed as well as the teacher. As a result, the teachers are put upon a great amount of pressure in order to meet the needs to guide students for a standardized test so that both the teacher and students is able to be successful. For those teachers who wish to teach differently, it is more of a struggle for them to receive an exemplary label due to the fact that standardized tests judge them unfairly. Standardized tests are measuring many people in an unfair manner all over the United States. “In the United States, standardized testing is one of the primary methods used to measure the performance of educational institutions (and often teachers) and to make decisions about the distribution of funding” (Issitt). Many schools and teachers are being judged primarily as to how well their students perform on a standardized test. As a result, this can negatively impact many teachers who are able to teach really well

The success of American Students lies in the hands of teachers. Since, this is such a great responsibility, we have to make sure that we are employing the right teacher for not only the students’ growth but also our nation’s growth. Hard working teachers should be appreciated and celebrated and neglectful teachers should be fired. Unfortunately, the firing of teachers is not possible. In most states, there is no legitimate evaluation process to be met for the teaching position and after a few years, the teaching jobs becomes permanent. The most important step in reforming tenure is to have an effective and an accurate evaluation process. The No Child Left

Assessment has drawn much attention, especially since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESES). It is not that assessment is new to education but that the stakes of assessment has risen to a new level. It is apparent that testing is now viewed in a much different way by the public, schools and all stakeholders of schools than in the past. Over time, testing has developed roles of providing a grade to mark student progress, diagnose students’ strengths and weaknesses so that instruction can be planned for student improvement and indicate teacher effectiveness (Popham, 2014). In recent years, it has become common practice for the general public to use testing to form judgement of the effectiveness of schools. Tests are now included in teacher performance evaluations, and used to improve the teaching process.

The margin of error in the value-added method (VAM) used to analyze teacher effectiveness is much too high when analyzing such a small population sample. The results vary wildly from year to year with different groups of students. Teachers contribute about fifteen percent to student test scores. This has led research organizations, such as The National Research Council’s Board on Testing and Assessment, to advise strongly against using VAM scores to make operational decisions. I believe this is contributing to teacher shortages throughout the country. Teachers are leaving the profession because of the high demands on test

Teachers being evaluated are similar to schools being evaluated. If a school as a whole test poorly there is a risk that they could lose students. Since there is a risk of consequences at schools, there is a pressure to save themselves at the expense of their students. Schools feel pressured by the public to perform well, often what they do is try and transfer the struggling students to other schools to try and take them out of the equation. There are programs that are put into place to help schools keep up with the standard testing curriculum, like The No Child Left Behind Act. The No Child Left Behind Act tests that judge the schools ' performance has the power to close schools, fire staff or turn the school, private if the school continues to struggle with overall testing scores. Schools try to save themselves so that they unforced into something that they do not want to do, for example shutting down their school. Standardized testing isn 't cheap. "Forty-four states and the District of Columbia currently spend over $1.7 billion dollars for these tests." (Tager 1) Title 1 schools are schools where a majority of students are low income, so the state helps pay for these schools so they can stay caught up academically. Schools pay extensive amounts of money for these tests, and 58% of public schools are Title 1 schools. Since over half of the public schools in America are Title 1, a majority of students are not able to transfer from low performing schools, leaving them

Another problem seen today with standardized testing is teachers being evaluated based on how their students score. When looking at student test scores, if scores are not up to par, the district will occasionally make cuts in the mindset that the educator did not prepare their students enough for the standardized test, but it has been found that "student test scores alone are not sufficiently reliable and valid indicators of teacher effectiveness to be used in high-stakes personnel decisions" (Baker 2010). This has been decided because the standardized test scores are going to fluctuate from year to year, an educator that could be at the top of the effective educator list one year could be at the bottom of the list the following year. It has

Ongoing self-assessment is vital to an effective management style (Benton, 2018b). The agency current implements evaluations and staff evaluations for their teachers. The agency feels that performance evaluations are vital to determine whether staff are meeting standards, as well as continually growing in their positions. Teacher evaluations were described as rigid and that meetings with teachers were accompanied with expectations. The evaluation process included a 3rd party assessment and a self-assessment. The person in charge of the 3rd party assessment is the is Educational Director, who works on a day to day basis with all teachers at the agency. The Educational Director will also complete a self-assessment form on the teacher, and then they will compare what they have put down. The self-assessment will ask questions regarding characters and process. Self-evaluation can be used to empower self, assess personal strengths and deficits, distinguish limits of competence, as well as an opportunity to learn and grown (Benton, 2018d). Performance evaluations allows managers a chance to recognize employees for their performance but allows managers to speak to employees about possible changes the employee might need to make.

Increased student achievement has been the focus of many school districts across the country in recent years, looking at the level of student achievement, what is necessary to see an increase, and how to afford it. The retention of high quality teachers is an extremely important part of the puzzle. Teacher retention includes not only keeping the teachers who are difficult or impossible to replace, but also weeding out the teachers who need to be replaced. This process of evaluation and incentives must work together to attract and keep the best possible teachers in our classrooms so students can get the best possible education to be successful in the world to come.

Teacher evaluations have four different parts, 50% comes from student’s growth on standardized testing and the other 50% has subsets