Evaluation of Effectiveness: Maryland
Identifying Effective Teachers Policy
Analysis of Maryland's policies
Although the state requires student performance data to be a significant factor, Maryland stops short of requiring that objective evidence of student learning be the preponderant criterion of its teacher evaluations. Districts may either adopt the state model or use the state's framework to develop their own. Models developed by districts must be approved by the state.
Student growth must account for a "significant" portion of a teacher's performance evaluation and must be one of the multiple measures used. No single criterion is allowed to count for more than 35 percent of the total performance evaluation. The state's default model requires student growth to count for 50 percent of the evaluation score. Maryland also provides a "local model," which requires student growth to count for 50 percent, with test scores counting for 20 percent beginning 2015-2016. It is unclear whether this local model is mandated for state approval.
For elementary and middle school teachers providing instruction in state-assessed grades and content, student growth consists of aggregate assessment scores, student learning objectives and the schoolwide index. For all remaining teachers, student growth consists of student learning objectives and the schoolwide index.
A minimum of three rating levels must be used: highly effective, effective and ineffective.
Classroom observations are required.
Recommendations for Maryland
Require instructional effectiveness to be the preponderant criterion of any teacher evaluation.
Maryland's evaluation system falls short by failing to require that evidence of student learning be the most significant criterion. The state should either require a common evaluation instrument in which evidence of student learning is the most significant criterion, or it should specifically require that student learning be the preponderant criterion in local evaluation processes. This can be accomplished by requiring objective evidence to count for at least half of the evaluation score or through other scoring mechanisms, such as a matrix, that ensure that nothing affects the overall score more. Whether state or locally developed, a teacher should not be able to receive an effective rating if found ineffective in the classroom.
Ensure that evaluations also include classroom observations that specifically focus on and document the effectiveness of instruction.
Although Maryland requires classroom observations, the state should articulate guidelines that ensure that the observations focus on effectiveness of instruction. The primary component of a classroom observation should be the quality of instruction, as measured by student time on task, student grasp or mastery of the lesson objective and efficient use of class time.
State response to our analysis
Maryland recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis. The state added that as a highly unionized state, with each local school system having a great deal of autonomy in its practices, there is still work to be done to be able to equate one local school system with another with complete reliability or validity.
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Maryland
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
Research rationale
Value-added analysis connects student data to teacher data to measure achievement and performance.
Value-added models are an important tool for measuring student achievement and school effectiveness. These models measure individual students' learning gains, controlling for students' previous knowledge. They can also control for students' background characteristics. In the area of teacher quality, value-added models offer a fairer and potentially more meaningful way to evaluate a teacher's effectiveness than other methods schools use.
For example, at one time a school might have known only that its fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Jones, consistently had students who did not score at grade level on standardized assessments of reading. With value-added analysis, the school can learn that Mrs. Jones' students were reading on a third-grade level when they entered her class, and that they were above a fourth-grade performance level at the end of the school year. While not yet reaching appropriate grade level, Mrs. Jones' students had made more than a year's progress in her class. Because of value-added data, the school can see that she is an effective teacher.Teachers should be
judged primarily by their impact on students.
While many factors should be considered in formally
evaluating a teacher, nothing is more important than effectiveness in the
classroom.
Unfortunately, districts have used many evaluation instruments, including
some mandated by states, that are structured so that teachers can earn a
satisfactory rating without any evidence that they are sufficiently advancing
student learning in the classroom. It is often enough that teachers appear to
be trying, not that they are necessarily succeeding.
Many evaluation
instruments give as much weight, or more, to factors that lack any direct
correlation with student performance—for example, taking professional
development courses, assuming extra duties such as sponsoring a club or
mentoring and getting along well with colleagues. Some instruments hesitate to
hold teachers accountable for student progress. Teacher evaluation instruments
should include factors that combine both human judgment and objective measures
of student learning.
Evaluation of Effectiveness: Supporting Research
Reports
strongly suggest that most current teacher evaluations are largely a
meaningless process, failing to identify the strongest and weakest teachers.
The New Teacher Project's report, "Hiring, Assignment, and Transfer
in Chicago Public Schools", July 2007 at: http://www.tntp.org/files/TNTPAnalysis-Chicago.pdf, found that the CPS
teacher performance evaluation system at that time did not distinguish strong
performers and was ineffective at identifying poor performers and dismissing
them from Chicago schools. See also Lars Lefgren and Brian Jacobs, "When Principals Rate Teachers," Education Next, Volume 6, No. 2, Spring 2006, pp.59-69. Similar
findings were reported for a larger sample in The New Teacher Project's The
Widget Effect (2009) at: http://widgeteffect.org/. See also MET Project
(2010). Learning about teaching: Initial findings from the measures of effective teaching project. Seattle, WA: Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
A
Pacific Research Institute study found that in California, between 1990 and
1999, only 227 teacher dismissal cases reached the final phase of termination
hearings. The authors write: "If all these cases occurred in one year, it
would represent one-tenth of 1 percent of tenured teachers in the state. Yet,
this number was spread out over an entire decade." In Los Angeles alone,
over the same time period, only one teacher went through the dismissal process
from start to finish. See Pamela A. Riley, et al., "Contract for Failure," Pacific Research Institute (2002).
That
the vast majority of districts have no teachers deserving of an unsatisfactory
rating does not seem to correlate with our knowledge of most professions that
routinely have individuals in them who are not well suited to the job. Nor do
these teacher ratings seem to correlate with school performance, suggesting
teacher evaluations are not a meaningful measure of teacher effectiveness. For
more information on the reliability of many evaluation systems, particularly
the binary systems used by the vast majority of school districts, see S. Glazerman, D. Goldhaber, S. Loeb, S. Raudenbush, D. Staiger, and G. Whitehurst, "Evaluating Teachers: The Important Role of Value-Added." The Brookings
Brown Center Task Group on Teacher Quality, 2010.
There
is growing evidence suggesting that standards-based teacher evaluations that
include multiple measures of teacher effectiveness—both objective and
subjective measures—correlate with teacher improvement and student achievement.
For example see T. Kane, E. Taylor, J. Tyler, and A. Wooten, "Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness." Education Next, Volume 11, No. 3, Summer 2011, pp.55-60; E.
Taylor and J. Tyler, "The Effect of Evaluation on Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Student Achievement Data of Mid-Career Teachers." NBER Working Paper No. 16877, March 2011;
as well as H. Heneman III, A. Milanowski, S. Kimball, and A. Odden, "CPRE Policy Brief: Standards-based Teacher Evaluation as a Foundation for Knowledge- and Skill-based Pay," Consortium for Policy Research, March 2006.