Professional Development: Vermont

Analysis of Vermont's policies

Vermont's Guidelines for Teacher and Leader Effectiveness require observations and formative and summative evaluations. However, a formal feedback loop is not established either by providing teachers with copies of their evaluations or postobservation conferences.  The state's new guidelines state; "A variety of stakeholders (e.g., students, parents, peers, administrators, evaluators) will provide feedback which the educator will synthesize and reflect upon to inform professional practice."  The guidelines also suggest rather than require that evaluations be used to inform professional learning opportunities, and that teachers found to be ineffective be placed on improvement plans.  However, districts are not required to adopt any of these guidelines. 

Citation

Vermont Guidelines for Teacher and Leader Effectiveness http://education.vermont.gov/documents/EDU-Guidelines_for_Teacher_and_Leader_Effectiveness.pdf

Recommendations for Vermont

Require that evaluation systems provide teachers with feedback about their performance. 
In order to increase their effectiveness in the classroom, teachers need to receive feedback on strengths and areas that need improvement identified in their evaluations. As such, Vermont should require that evaluation systems provide teachers with feedback about their classroom performance.

Ensure that professional development is aligned with findings from teachers' evaluations. 
Professional development that is not informed by evaluation results may be of little value to teachers' professional growth and the aim of increasing their effectiveness in the classroom. Vermont should ensure that districts utilize teacher evaluation results in determining professional development needs and activities.

Ensure that teachers receiving less than effective ratings are placed on a professional improvement plan.
Vermont should adopt a policy requiring that teachers who receive even one less than effective evaluation rating be placed on structured improvement plans. These plans should focus on performance areas that directly connect to student learning and should identify noted deficiencies, define specific action steps necessary to address these deficiencies and describe how and when progress will be measured.

State response to our analysis

Vermont asserted that regulatory language requires that "the school’s professional learning system shall be aligned with its staff evaluation and supervision policies, Continuous Improvement Plan, supervisory union and district goals, and shall provide new staff members with appropriate opportunities for professional learning.”

Vermont also noted that the Education Quality Reviews (EQR) will be evaluating the processes schools use to assess educator evaluation. However, these reviews are still in development with an expectation that they will be piloted during the 2015-2016 school year.