Determining Levels of Performance for Teachers and Principals

District Leader’s Guide

Determining Levels of Performance for Teachers and Principals

Districts will be required to assign effectiveness ratings to teachers and principals in one of four performance categories: Highly Effective, Effective, Partially Effective or Ineffective. Š Copyright 2012 Colorado Legacy Foundation. All rights reserved.

District Leader’s Guide

Determining Levels of Performance for Teachers and Principals Implementing Evaluation Systems: Learning from Pioneering Districts In an effort to help districts implement local educator evaluation systems in line with the requirements of SB10-191, the Colorado Legacy Foundation is providing a suite of resources to district and school leaders.

CLF worked with three Colorado districts who recently revised their evaluation process. Although these districts implemented their new systems prior to passage of SB191, the process that each district went through is informative. Highlighting these districts and the lessons they learned along the way will help other districts leverage their success and avoid re-living their most difficult challenges.

Three case studies provide the foundation for this work.

District and school leaders can read the case studies to learn how different districts have approached similar goals. A series of District Leader’s Guides build on the case studies and provide more direct and specific guidance to district leaders as they move forward with implementation.

Brighton Case Study - Brighton educators and administration agreed that their evaluation system was a “dog and pony show.” In 2009 they revised their system, with terrific buy-in from the union, to more meaningfully support teachers.

Eagle Case Study - Eagle has spent nearly a decade developing their evaluation system and aligning it to instruction, assessment, and professional development.

Harrison Case Study - In 2007, Harrison hired a new superintendent who instituted a new evaluation system along with rigorous instructional supports, interim assessments and a pay-for-performance system.

© Copyright 2012 Colorado Legacy Foundation. All rights reserved.

Who should use this Guide?

This guide has been developed from the lessons learned from Brighton, Eagle and Harrison. District leaders should use it in conjunction with the case studies to prepare the district for a new evaluation system. This guide is developed for district leaders who: 1

Have read Preparing Your District to Implement a New Educator Evaluation System, Communicating Effectively with Stakeholders and Selecting and Using Multiple Measures to Evaluate Educators.

2

Have established a district evaluation implementation team which is looking for examples, lessons learned and implementation tips from Colorado school districts.

3

Are prepared to explore, with the district implementation team, how teachers and principals will be given a final performance rating when evaluating teacher and principal effectiveness.

State Board of Education Rules and CDE Guidance The SB 191 rules approved by the State Board of Education require that four final performance evaluation ratings for principals and teachers be used statewide: ineffective, partially effective, effective, and highly effective. Final ratings will be based on a combination of scores on quality standards (50%) and student growth (50%).

There will be more guidance coming from the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) over the next several years as they pilot the state evaluation system. CDE is in the process of developing and piloting model rubrics and tools that school districts and BOCES may use in measuring each individual principal’s and teacher’s performance. During the pilot period (2011-2013), CDE will also be developing a personnel evaluation scoring matrix, a decision-making structure for assigning teachers and principals to one of the four performance levels, and a State Model System personnel evaluation framework and decision-making structure for assigning performance evaluation ratings.

© Copyright 2012 Colorado Legacy Foundation. All rights reserved.

Guiding Questions for District Leaders • Are the four performance levels adequate to meet the district’s goals for the evaluation system?

• Given the demographics of the district’s teaching force, where would the district want more differentiation in teacher effectiveness? Novice teachers? Career teachers?

• How would the district’s proposed number of performance levels be defined and discerned and measured reliably?

• If a pay-for-performance plan is put into place, how many levels of performance are needed to meet the district’s needs? How many levels can the district justify in terms of roles and responsibilities on the career continuum and measure reliably?

© Copyright 2012 Colorado Legacy Foundation. All rights reserved.

Learning from Pioneering Districts Although Brighton, Eagle and Harrison undertook reform of their evaluation systems prior to the passage of SB191, the process by which they developed the system and rolled it out district-wide yielded many lessons learned and offers implementation tips. District evaluation teams are encouraged to read the case studies and use the case study highlights to further inform their discussions.

Implementing the Effectiveness & Results (E&R) Plan In Harrison School District In October, 2009 the Harrison School Board approved a plan to change the teacher salary schedule to a compensation system based on teacher performance and student academic outcomes. At the end of five years, the Superintendent, School Board, and teacher committee will assess whether the E&R initiative should be dropped or continued.

The E&R plan has nine levels or grades for teachers: THE E&R SCALE District Review

Principal Review Novice

Progressing

Proficient

Exemplary

I

II

I

II

III

I

II

35

38

40/44

48

54

60

70

80

Master

90

in thousands of dollars Figure 1: The nine Harrison District Two pay grades and related annual salary.

Teachers move to the next grade (or level) if they meet the criteria for performance and student achievement results. Each succeeding level requires a higher degree of mastery and demonstrated results.

For example, a first year novice teacher need only receive a satisfactory evaluation to advance to the next grade (Progressing I). On average, teachers have earned a $3,977 increase under the E&R plan.

Advancement to all other grades requires the teacher’s students to achieve at a certain level. These achievement results become more rigorous as the teacher attains proficiency and then mastery over the art of teaching. Teachers in non-core subjects must also achieve progress monitoring targets or other performance measurements.

Compensation is significantly higher at each succeeding grade. Years of service play no role in the E&R compensation system. College or continuing education credits play only a small role. They are considered as evidence of “life-long learning,” which is part of the criteria for becoming a “Proficient II” or higher-grade teacher.

Base salaries for each grade may be adjusted for inflation by the board of education. Not counting first year teachers (who advance automatically), about 25% of teachers move to the next effectiveness level each year.

There are no stipends for additional duties. As a teacher moves up the pay scale, more is expected of them as part of their compensation. (These savings are invested in the pay-for-performance system.) © Copyright 2012 Colorado Legacy Foundation. All rights reserved.

Implementation Tips and Lessons Learned

Pioneering districts suggested the following implementation tips: • Create roles for highly rated teachers to mentor or lead professional learning activities for other teachers. This can be a separate role as a mentor teacher or in a distributed leadership role leading professional learning communities.

• Weight measures differently as to their importance in improving student achievement. Harrison Two weighted quality standards between a one and a three with leadership and the instructional program given the highest weights.

• Ensure there is a reasonable correlation between teachers’ ratings on performance standards and their students’ student achievement growth. Presumably the performance standards are measures of instructional practices and teacher skills that are known to improve student achievement.

• Ensure credibility and transparency of data. Teachers need to understand how growth scores are calculated and then used in their individual scores tied to performance pay. Measures must have technical rigor.

• The more frequent data collection on measures, the more feedback for principals, teachers and district office staff could be analyzed and used. Pioneering districts undertook many teacher observations and administered student achievement tests to assess progress and make improvements.

• Consider paying teachers for their skills and outcomes. Pay-for-performance systems do just this.

© Copyright 2012 Colorado Legacy Foundation. All rights reserved.

Conclusion

In summary, districts will be required to assign effectiveness ratings to teachers and principals in one of four performance categories based on a combination of scores on quality standards (50%) and student growth (50%).

There is more guidance forthcoming from CDE on how levels of performance can be determined at the district level. In the meantime, districts can consider the guiding questions, lessons learned, and example from Harrison School District to begin thinking about the district’s priorities and approach.

Acknowledgements Author: Jane Armstrong, JM Armstrong and Associates Research Support and Editing: Heather Chikoore, Colorado Legacy Foundation Research Support for the Case Studies: Ulcca Hansen, Colorado Legacy Foundation and Kristen Davidson, University of Colorado at Boulder Central office staff, school board members, principals, teachers, parents and community members participated in interviews that informed the development of this guide. Brighton, Eagle and Harrison School Districts opened their doors to researchers to describe what they were doing, how they were doing it, the challenges they faced and lessons they learned. Interviewees were both gracious and candid in their interviews. Without them, this knowledge could not be captured and shared. ¹ Harrison School District Two: Calling All Heroes. (Advertisement) Washington, DC: Education Week. June 11, 2011.

© Copyright 2012 Colorado Legacy Foundation. All rights reserved.