Teacher and Principal Evaluation Policy
The data and analysis on this page is from 2019. View and download the most recent policy data and analysis on Measures of Student Growth in Mississippi from the State of the States 2022: Teacher and Principal Evaluation Policies report.
Impact of Student Growth: Mississippi requires student outcomes to play a role in teacher evaluations for both teachers of tested grades and subjects and teachers of nontested grades and subjects. The state is currently developing the student growth component of its teacher evaluation system and plans to implement this system in the 2018-2019 school year.
State's Role in Evaluation System: Mississippi requires all teachers to be evaluated using the state's Professional Growth System.
Require instructional effectiveness to be a determinative criterion of any teacher evaluation.
Although Mississippi will require that objective evidence of student growth be included in a teacher's evaluation rating, it is unclear whether it will play a profound role in a teacher's overall evaluation rating. Mississippi should ensure that a teacher is not able to earn an overall rating of effective if he or she is rated less-than-effective at increasing student growth.
Mississippi was helpful in providing NCTQ with the facts necessary for this analysis. The state added that its teacher evaluation system has been revised and rebranded as the Mississippi Educator and Administrator Professional Growth System. Teachers will be evaluated using three components: classroom observations, student growth, and student surveys.
7A: Measures of Student Growth
Many factors should be considered in formally evaluating a teacher; however, nothing is more important than effectiveness in the classroom. Value-added models are an important tool for measuring student achievement and school effectiveness.[1] These models have the ability to measure individual students' learning gains, controlling for students' previous knowledge and background characteristics. While some research suggests value-added models are subject to bias and statistical limitations,[2] rich data and strong controls can eliminate error and bias.[3] In the area of teacher quality, examining student growth offers a fairer and potentially more meaningful way to evaluate a teacher's effectiveness than other methods schools use.
Unfortunately, districts have used many evaluation instruments, including some mandated by states, which are structured so that teachers can earn a satisfactory rating without any evidence that they are sufficiently advancing student learning in the classroom.[4] Teacher evaluation instruments should include factors that combine both human judgment and objective measures of student learning.[5]