Connecticut Approves Teacher Evaluation Reform Tied to Student Achievement

Connecticut Friday became the 14th state to adopt an evaluation system for teachers and principals tied to student achievement, a milestone that will lay the foundation for a waiver from No Child Left Behind mandates and advance a major educational reform agenda.

Teachers, principals, boards of education and advocates for change came to an agreement on the standards in late January after an intense push by the new commissioner of education, Stefan Pryor.

The state Board of Education adopted them officially at its meeting Friday.

Evaluations for teachers will include: 45 percent tied to student advancement with one-half of that based on results of standardized tests; 40 percent reflecting observations of performance and practice; 10 percent to peer or parent feedback surveys and 5 percent to student feedback or the whole-school achievement.

Principals’ evaluations also will use the 45 percent standard tied to student achievement with one-half reflecting standardized tests and the other half determined locally; 40 percent to observations of performance; 5 percent to teacher effectiveness outcomes and the rest to staff, community, and/or student feedback surveys.

Specific guidelines on evaluations will now be developed for a 4-level rating system: exemplary, proficient, developing and below standard and the system is expected to be in place by July 2013.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has introduced a far-reaching education reform package for legislators to consider over the next three months with funds for additional alternative schools, upgraded teacher preparation programs and most of the $128 million in funding targeted at the 30 lowest performing school districts. These local systems educate 41 percent of the students in the state and have 37 percent of the teachers.

Connecticut has the highest achievement gap between its low-income and minority students with their mainly suburban counterparts.

The teacher and principal evaluations are tied to the accountability required by No Child Left Behind and competition for federal Race to the Top funds, which Connecticut has failed to land in three attempts.

Malloy has proposed $2.5 million for teacher and principal evaluations and $5 million for outside professional guidance and training for leaders within the system to become future principals.

Andrea Johnson, president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers, which has 2,400 teachers, addressed the state Board of Education at its meeting Friday to criticize the evaluation proposal as not taking into account one important factor: poverty.

She said the achievement gap begins before poor students come to school and leaving out the socio-economic factors that hurt them is a major gap.In 2011, the National Center for Teacher Quality gave Connecticut a C- for delivering well-prepared teachers; C+ for expanding the pool of teachers; D for retaining effective teachers and D+ for helping ineffective teachers..

The most controversial portion of Malloy’s agenda is a change in tenure that will need legislative approval. In his state of the state message this week he said tenure now is “too easy to get and too hard to take away.”

Under his plan, teachers could get tenure in 2.5 years with two exemplary evaluations or in four years with three exemplary reviews. They would have five years total to get tenure or find another profession. Teachers now can obtain tenure in four years, but the criticism has been a lack of rigorous evaluation.

“I think most teachers can expect good evaluations because most teachers are good,” Malloy said in an interview with the New Haven Register on his reform package.

He said the new evaluation system builds in assistance for struggling teachers to come up to par.

“You will get all the help you need to turn around your performance, but if you are unable to do that, then you get separated,” Malloy said earlier this week.

The governor is also looking to raise the standards of students entering the teaching profession by offering financial incentives for top performers and upgrading the minimum qualification to a B+ average in course work, rather than the current B- requirement.

“We think teachers should be counseled out of teaching early in their collegiate careers if they are not the right candidates for it. We are going to put a lot of pressure on our state university system to do just that,” Malloy said.

He estimated the new system for evaluation and tenure will take two years to build out.