Tennessee’s new teacher evaluation system has hit an unexpected snag.

With teacher tenure and job retention riding on a top score, Williamson County is banning student teachers from working in core subjects in high school and suggesting individual principals not allow them in grades 3-8. Even though they’re not under formal policies, other principals and teachers statewide who formerly volunteered to take student teachers are backing off, too.

They say they don’t have time to mess with mentoring, or they fear the process could affect students’ test scores, college of education officials at Vanderbilt and Belmontuniversities said.

“It’s nothing but the teacher evaluation system that’s got them tied up in knots,” said James Stamper, director of student teaching for Belmont University. “We all had to have somewhere to start.”

Williamson County Schools can’t risk interference for teachers when 35 percent of their evaluations are based on student learning gains on standardized tests, said spokeswoman Carol Birdsong. “It’s your classroom, and you are being evaluated based on your students’ performance.”

Tennessee is among 33 states that made changes to their teacher evaluation systems in the past two years, a recent report from the National Council on Teacher Quality showed.

At the end of this school year, principals will compile assessments on every Tennessee teacher: 35 percent from learning gains, 15 percent from other student selected data and 50 percent from classroom observations. Teachers can lose tenure if they score in the two lowest ratings two consecutive years and can gain tenure only if they score in the top two ratings two consecutive years.

The driving force was the federal Race to the Top competition, which called for new ways to evaluate teacher effectiveness and tie it to personnel decisions. Tennessee and Delaware were first to win multimillion-dollar grants for school reform.

Four months into implementation, the new evaluations have been criticized by Tennessee educators and union groups as too time consuming. Tennessee — with six observations for novice teachers — has among the most required teacher observations, National Council on Teacher Quality Vice President Sandi Jacobs said.

National media — most recently, the New York Times and Education Week — have suggested that if there are evaluation problems in Tennessee stemming from speedy implementation, other states may hold back on updating their systems.

Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman said he’s aware of the evaluation ripple effect on student teaching but doesn’t want districts to ban student teachers.

“I’ve heard that some districts were increasingly reluctant, but I haven’t heard of any districts not taking them altogether,” Huffman said. “My message ... is Tennessee has great data. We should look at the data to see whether classrooms that have student teachers are doing the same, better or worse.

“My own hypothesis is that classrooms that have student teachers do as well or better ... when appropriately managed.”

Huffman said teacher preparation programs should take that data to school districts to lobby for their help.

He said most states are only now designing teacher evaluation systems, and a recent state board change cut the number of observations back to five by merging two into one. He doesn’t foresee the state backing off its evaluations or making wholesale changes.

“We are using a system that we think is far superior to the system in place before, and far superior to a system that most states are using, so I think it’s a little silly to say we are going too quickly,” he said.

'It's a huge problem'

Middle Tennessee State University student Starla Weatherell, who will get her master’s in business education in May, is uncertain about where she’ll student teach.

“It’s a huge problem for me, when I live in Williamson County, to not be able to student teach where I want to work,” she said. “Right now, they are telling us we may have to drive two hours.”

Vanderbilt and Belmont university officials say the news about student teacher bans comes as they’re being encouraged by national groups to provide more classroom time for education majors. The requirement in Tennessee is one semester.

Belmont, which places about 32 candidates each semester into Metro, Williamson, Wilson, Sumner and Cheatham county schools, is trying to downplay its emphasis that student teachers take over full lessons and do more “team teaching” with classroom teachers to ease any fear.

Vanderbilt University places about 130 students into Metro Nashville, and Williamson, Robertson and Sumner county schools each year, with the largest share in Williamson, said Marcy Singer-Gabella, professor of the practice of education at Vanderbilt.

Needed to graduate

Student teaching is a requirement for graduation in teacher education programs. For districts, it can be an extra set of hands to help busy teachers and provide a pool of future employees to recruit.

The teaching candidates work daily in schools, starting off by observing students, moving to one-on-one student help and then, by the middle of their placement, doing co-teaching and co-planning of lessons.

“We absolutely understand the stress that teachers are feeling … we don’t feel insulted, we just want to figure out ways that we can guarantee student teachers are an asset,” Singer-Gabella said. “If we can’t place student teachers in Williamson County, we have to go elsewhere … we will look at other districts, and we will probably begin to look at charters.”

She said Vanderbilt places a few education majors in private schools, but the openings are few, and Vanderbilt’s focus is to prepare public school teachers.

Rutherford and Wilson County school officials said they have no student teacher changes this school year. June Keel, assistant superintendent for human resources for Metro Nashville Public Schools, said she’s discussed the issue, but it’s unlikely anything will change this year.

“There is so much riding on students’ progress, I can understand the concern,” Keel said. “For the teacher, it’s a question of giving up that learning to student teachers.”