I sat in on the testimony for SB 191 last week. I had signed up to testify, but the list of “star witnesses” that were scheduled to testify ran so long that I, a mere parent, never made it. Not that I mind all that much, because there was a lot of good testimony for the bill – far more so than there was against the bill.
In researching the opposition to Senate Bill 191, as well as listening to the full testimony on April 22-23, the primary opposition to this bill can be summed up as:
SB 191 is somehow punitive and does not include the teachers in the front end of the process.
There is a reliance on standardized tests for teacher evaluation (CSAPS were mentioned often).
Unqualified administrators are reviewing teachers and due process is needed to protect teachers.
There will be a huge cost and unfunded mandate.
I would like to address those objections, as I believe that they are unfounded.
SB 191 is somehow punitive and does not include the teachers in the front end of the process
“We need reform to be done WITH teachers, not TO teachers.” This is one of the main talking points for the CEA. The idea the SB 191 is somehow punitive and does not include teachers in the front end of the process is simply not true. In January 2010, Governor Bill Ritter issued an executive order creating the Council for Educator Effectiveness. The Colorado Education Association (CEA) fully supports and has endorsed the Governor’s Council. Teachers are represented on the Governor’s Council. Senate Bill 191 charges that very Council to define measures of effectiveness and to make recommendations for how this reform should take place. The teachers are very much included in this process. Based upon their own proclamations of what they want – a rigorous, objective, transparent and valid system – the exact language that is in this bill – and their role on the Council in drafting the rules of implementation, the CEA should be thrilled with this bill. It is clear that teachers are a part of this process.
There is a reliance on standardized tests for teacher evaluation (CSAPS were mentioned often)
Another key talking point being brandished by opponents of this bill is that teacher evaluations should not be based soley upon standardized tests. Annual CSAPS are mentioned over and over. This is a disingenuous argument aimed at deflecting the issue of accountability. Anyone who has actually read the bill will note that CSAPS are never specifically mentioned and that multiple measures of performance are provided for. As Senator King pointed out in testimony on Thursday, the bill specifically provides that “Multiple measures shall be used to determine teacher effectiveness…” Again, teachers on the Governor’s council will be involved in making the very recommendations on how to define and measure effectiveness. The CEA talking points and sound bites that this bill would legislate teacher evaluation based soley upon CSAP’s do not stand up to a fact check of this bill.
Unqualified administrators are reviewing teachers and due process is needed to protect teachers
On the CEA’s website, one of their talking points against Senate Bill 191 is that “While principals are the key to a good evaluation system, they often do not have the training or the time to do evaluations well. This is why teachers want a new, fair, credible evaluation system.”
So teachers don’t want principals to evaluate them? Current law on the books since 1984 already requires that only a person with a principal or administrator license who has received education and training in evaluation skills approved by the Colorado Department of Education can be responsible for evaluations. This current law would not be changed by SB 191. Even the CEA acknowledges these laws on their own website. If the CEA’s claim is true, then the current law is being broken. Seen any law suits the past 26 years? Me either.
The CEA website goes on to assert that “Teaching is a high-risk profession that requires professionals to be able to work in a supportive environment without fear of reprisals or capricious decisions by principals. The bill penalizes an experienced teacher with two consecutive years of “demonstrated ineffectiveness” (based partially on student test scores), forcing the teacher back to probationary status without due process.”
This is patently absurd. To simply be removed from tenure after two years of demonstrated ineffectiveness as documented by licensed professionals who are trained in teacher evaluation according to Colorado Department of Education standards, along with the commensurate remediation plans and re-evaluations is more than enough due process. This is the same as the current law already on the books, overseen by a council that already includes teachers, which has supposedly been followed by schools since 1984! In the past 26 years, I don’t recall hearing a whole lot about reprisals and capricious decisions being made by principals and teachers being fired right & left. The only anecdotes that I hear as a parent are the ones about the handful of teachers that we all know to avoid at all costs because they have tenure and the school can’t get rid of them. In point of fact, this entire evaluation process provides far more leeway than would ever be given to a private sector employee whose work performance is substandard.
There will be a huge cost and unfunded mandate
So what are the CEA’s budget-busting concerns?
This bill would cause tenured teachers and principals to be reviewed annually instead of every three years. Annual reviews are a basic means of accountability that virtually every private sector employee faces. This is not onerous. Mrs. Ingle argues that this would be a budget-busting burden because “School districts do not have the capacity to evaluate every employee every year under their current management structure and budgets.” It is supposedly beyond the capabilities of “current management structure and budgets?” to do annual teacher reviews, just like any other employee of a firm in the private sector? I don’t think so.
Mr. Salazar of the CEA testified yesterday that the costs will be tremendous, citing the implementation of and training for evaluation systems. Let’s think this through. Fact 1: teacher evaluation systems are already in place. Fact 2: CEA President Ingle has stated publicly several times that “The teacher evaluation system in Colorado is broken.” So we have established that there is a current system in place, and that it is broken – yet at the same time the CEA simultaneously objects to this bill on the grounds that implementing better evaluation systems based upon the CEA endorsed Council’s recommendations will cost too much? Does that make sense? There is a cost of time and resources already associated with the current broken system. Re-directing those resources in an improved system is simply a prudent course of action. In fact, testimony from several school superintendents on Friday refuted that this would be a budget issue at all.
The CEA’s Mr. Salazar also expressed concern regarding the costs of newly created career opportunities, or career ladders, as expressed in the bill. In yesterday’s testimony, Senator Steadman also expressed concern on this issue. As a taxpayer in a state with tremendous budget pressures, I also share their concerns. I strongly encourage our legislature to be diligent and judicious regarding the funding of any additional career opportunities. This is not a time for hand-waving conciliatory gestures toward fiscal responsibility. I do believe that it is important to address the issue of funding these career ladder opportunities in a manner that would not increase the burdens of taxpayers or school districts. Whether this is done by making the opportunities contingent upon outside funding, making it a variable expense tied to variable income, funding from current ineffective programs could be re-allocated, or some other method, I urge fiscal responsibility in this area. It is my understanding that the committee has proposed a method to fund any additional costs for new career ladders. I think we would all agree that we want to ensure that this bill would not create any unfunded mandates.
To loosely summarize the bill, the main impacts of this legislation would be to create annual reviews for tenured teachers (just like the private sector), tie a portion of the review for all teachers and administrators to their work product (just like the private sector), provide additional pay and career opportunities for highly effective teachers (just like the private sector), allow a teacher to lose tenure after TWO years of unsuccessful execution of their job (far more generous than the private sector) and allow schools to have the right to refuse to employ a poor teacher (just like the private sector).
And on top of that, this bill as amended would not even enact all of these much needed reforms until the school year 2014-2015. I would argue that this timeline should be accelerated.
What gets lost in this debate are the many, many fine teachers who would benefit from this bill – the highly effective teachers who could see additional career path opportunities in return for their exceptional performance and collaboration. There were some outstanding teachers who testified on Friday that were professional, enthusiastic and highly competent. They desperately want an opportunity to excel in their field. THEY are the people I want teaching MY kids. Enthusiasm, excellence and success are contagious. These folks had it. They should be rewarded. They should not be saddled with the ee-yores of the world who spread their cynical doom and gloom, wallow in pity and try their best to drag anyone around them down to their “experienced” level. The best piece of advice I ever got when I started teaching was to avoid the teachers’ lounge at all costs – it would suck the life out of you. Some things haven’t changed.
The fact that a teacher should be reviewed annually is not punitive – it is a basic standard of accountability. The right of a school to deny placement to a teacher who has been ineffective despite TWO YEARS of remediation is not punitive – it is a fundamental responsibility that each school has to their students.
God bless Evie Hudak’s bleeding heart, as she came to the brink of tears trying to say that teachers shouldn’t be held accountable for their students’ level of improvement, but I don’t know of any successful enterprise that has no accountability. The fact is that the measures of accountability (that teachers on the CEA approved Governor’s Council will help draft) will utilize multiple methods and will be only half of a teacher’s evaluation. These measures only would apply to a student’s change over the course of the year. It would be a measurement of “did they improve?” I’m an actuary. I know statistics. I’m quite willing to bet that the upward bias that results from effective teaching over the sample of a teacher’s 100-180 students would clearly outweigh the impact of a handful of students who did worse on their end-of-year test than on their beginning-of-year test because they skipped breakfast or worked late the night before.
That fact is that laws have been on the books regarding teacher evaluations since 1984. The CEA has been conspicuously absent in improving this process for 26 years. Now all of a sudden they want to fix a system that’s broken? It sounds like just the idea of Senate Bill 191 is starting to bring accountability to education. Anyone who supports quality education should support Senate Bill 191.