Solid standards, controversial metrics
As a state-versus-federal showdown brews, Texas rushes to redefine teacher standards and pilot a new evaluation system
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ext school year, 72 school districts will pilot a new teacher evaluation system that Texas education officials intend to roll out statewide in 2015-16. If you’re wondering why you never heard about the bill requiring a new teacher evaluation system, it’s because the Texas Legislature never passed one. These sudden teacher appraisal changes were actually set in motion fifty years ago, and they highlight a growing power struggle between state and federal policymakers. This year, Americans have been commemorating the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson and the landmark civil rights legislation he signed into law in 1964. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of President Johnson’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the country’s first attempt to equalize education through federal funds aimed at low-income children. In 2001, another Texan occupying
summer 2014
By Jennifer M. Canaday, ATPE Governmental Relations Manager
the White House shook up education by pushing through Congress his own version of ESEA, also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The premise of President George W. Bush’s signature education reform was that schools would test all students annually and be held accountable for their performance. NCLB called for students to be 100 percent proficient in reading and math by 2014, a target the majority of schools around the country have been unable to meet. The law requires schools to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards based on students’ reading and math scores, plus graduation or attendance rates. Schools that fail AYP for two consecutive years or more face progressive sanctions (or “interventions,” depending on whom you ask) ranging from alerting parents and paying for private tutors to replacing an entire school’s staff and converting to a charter format. President Barack Obama entered
office in 2009 with his own education priorities, including expanding charter schools, promoting college and career readiness and encouraging technological innovation. Obama’s administration has been criticized for prioritizing competitive grants such as Race to the Top over formula funding and using the grants to implement controversial reforms such as Common Core. Another reform target: Teacher evaluations. Under the leadership of Secretary Arne Duncan, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has aggressively pushed states to tie educator evaluations to student growth using standardized tests. NCLB reauthorization is the obvious way to enact the president’s reform strategies, but Congress is unable to agree on how to fix NCLB’s outdated reform tactics. (Read more about the holdup on page 13.) So, the DOE found a workaround using NCLB waivers.
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