Denver Colorado seems ot have a good system for teacher evaluation and promotion

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by 08grad

If Jose scored a 2460 on the SBAC test in 6th grade (Level 2 - Nearly Met Standard), and I get him up to a 2580 in the 7th grade (Level 3 - Met Standard), I should be compensated for this in the form of a performance bonus. Currently I'm not.

My first year teaching, I started the year off with 14 students who scored proficient/advanced on last year's state test. At the end of the year, 53 of my students scored proficient/advanced on the state test. This was only about 35% of my students scoring proficient/advanced, but under any reasonable performance-based system I would be measured as an effective teacher.

I earned $50,000 that year, while the teacher across the hall who taught the same subject as me earned $90,000, by decreasing the number of her proficient/advanced students from 28 to 25.


In addition, the new teachers who join the profession and don't have the content knowledge, pedagogy, or classroom management to handle the lowest 20% of students would be able to teach classes that aren't littered with discipline problems, and wouldn't leave the school at the end of the year.

I think you are attributing too much credit to teachers and not enough to students. A good student who wants to learn will advance because he wants to advance and is driven, good teacher or no. Jose did nto advance because of you, you did not get Jose up to a higher score, Jose did. If Jose's parents had a divorce that year, or his brother died in a gang fight, or his Dad went to jail- Jose's scores would drop dramatically. Are you willing to take the blame for that? Should the teacher across the hall take the blame if (s)he had 6 students with home issues that caused their scores to drop and you get a raise because your students happened to have no such issues? If the teacher across the hall is not teaching well that can be determined, but test scores only tell us about the student, not the teachers. Many bad schools have absolutely excellent teachers, but their scores continue to fall. Why? Because the students conditions are declining, it has nothing to do with the teachers. But you would hold all those teachers back because their students are not doing as well.

Sometimes overall test scores get impacted by events that effect all students. Some idiot schedules prom the day before or the day of testing, a popular student dies suddenly and unexpectedly the week of the test - everyone's scores go down that year. Teachers at fault? Reduce their pay? On the ohter end the school district may decide to pay for outside test taking workshops. Or a new super tutor moves into town. Suddenly test scores climb - give all the teachers a raise?

Test scores test students, not teachers.

From what I have seen, at the bad schools, no one has the tools to handle discipline problems, further they are generally not allowed to do much of anything but send the kids to the office. The discipline problems continue and disrupt the schools no matter what teachers they get. Teachers leave in droves, not because they lack experience, but because their days are horrible and because they are not accomplishing anything with kids that simply do not want to learn and will not try. Sure, if a teachers stays at one of those schools, they may eventually build a program that gets 10% or even 20% of the students proficient - maybe. It seems that the ones who succeed do so because they stay for decades. They teach students who then become parents. They can reach those parents because they know them intimately. Still they rarely accomplish much of anything. The problem in those schools is not the need for better/more experienced teachers, the problem is needing better parents. That is beyond a teacher's capabality and authority.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

I think you are attributing too much credit to teachers and not enough to students. A good student who wants to learn will advance because he wants to advance and is driven, good teacher or no. Jose did nto advance because of you, you did not get Jose up to a higher score, Jose did. If Jose's parents had a divorce that year, or his brother died in a gang fight, or his Dad went to jail- Jose's scores would drop dramatically. Are you willing to take the blame for that? Should the teacher across the hall take the blame if (s)he had 6 students with home issues that caused their scores to drop and you get a raise because your students happened to have no such issues? If the teacher across the hall is not teaching well that can be determined, but test scores only tell us about the student, not the teachers. Many bad schools have absolutely excellent teachers, but their scores continue to fall. Why? Because the students conditions are declining, it has nothing to do with the teachers. But you would hold all those teachers back because their students are not doing as well.

Sometimes overall test scores get impacted by events that effect all students. Some idiot schedules prom the day before or the day of testing, a popular student dies suddenly and unexpectedly the week of the test - everyone's scores go down that year. Teachers at fault? Reduce their pay? On the ohter end the school district may decide to pay for outside test taking workshops. Or a new super tutor moves into town. Suddenly test scores climb - give all the teachers a raise?

Test scores test students, not teachers.

From what I have seen, at the bad schools, no one has the tools to handle discipline problems, further they are generally not allowed to do much of anything but send the kids to the office. The discipline problems continue and disrupt the schools no matter what teachers they get. Teachers leave in droves, not because they lack experience, but because their days are horrible and because they are not accomplishing anything with kids that simply do not want to learn and will not try. Sure, if a teachers stays at one of those schools, they may eventually build a program that gets 10% or even 20% of the students proficient - maybe. It seems that the ones who succeed do so because they stay for decades. They teach students who then become parents. They can reach those parents because they know them intimately. Still they rarely accomplish much of anything. The problem in those schools is not the need for better/more experienced teachers, the problem is needing better parents. That is beyond a teacher's capabality and authority.

Valid points.