Does MN's Teacher Evaluation Bill Mesh with Secretary Duncan's NCLB Reauthorization Efforts?

April 3rd Item Update:  Gov. Dayton and MDE Commissioner Cassellius share a  desire to go where research findings lead them to improve teacher effectiveness and close the achievement gap.--- Attributed to Rep. Pat Garofalo in Star Tribune's This year, may this state witness the art of compromise by Lori Sturdevant.

Original Entry of March 30:

Memo to MN Education Policy Makers: Before approving the groundbreaking new teacher evaluation bill that cleared its first hurdle in the House of Representatives, please consider U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's ongoing campaign to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act.

"I've said repeatedly our department must continue to support and encourage innovation, not force compliance," Secretary Duncan testified to the House Education and Workforce Committee on March 9.

In the currently available version of Minnesota's HF 945, Article 1, Sec. 1, Subd. 1: teacher effectiveness would be linked to student performance with this language: 

"When determining a school's effect, the data must include both statewide measures of student achievement and, to the extent annual tests are administered, indicators of achievement growth that take into account a student's prior achievement.  Indicators of achievement and prior achievement must be based on highly reliable statewide or districtwide assessments."

Sect. 5, Subd. 1 of HF 945 then constructs a teacher evaluation structure by establishing a  "mechanism for translating the performance data into a five-part teacher effectiveness rating scale."

Big Question #1: Should we take MN's "effectiveness" language to be the innovation that Secretary Duncan encourages or the compliance that he warns against?

We've often heard the phrase "hold harmless" where education policy is concerned.  On the topic of reauthorizing the now 10 year-old NCLB law, Secretary Duncan specifically holds the NCLB Act responsible for the challenges districts and states face:

"Almost everywhere I go, I hear people express concern that the curriculum has narrowed," the Secretary has said. "I think the law is too punitive, too prescriptive, and it's led to a dumbing down of standards, and a narrowing of curriculum," Secretary Duncan stated regarding a "must-make" policy change at the federal level.

Duncan asserts that 80% of the nation's schools will be labeled as failures this year, and by law, all of them will be subject to an identical set of interventions, regardless of a given school's individual student needs.  If that happens, the schools with the widest gaps in achievement are most at risk of continued failure, which worries him deeply since the whole point of the law is to ensure that the schools with students most at risk are served. Duncan also contends the current law "created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed."

In its place, Secretary Duncan does support a system of accountability based on individual student growth, one that "recognizes  success" and "holds all of us accountable for the quality of education we provide to every student in the nation." This shift in policy direction would represent a "sea change" from the current law, which simply allows every state to set an arbitrary bar for proficiency, and measures only whether students are above or below that bar.

Duncan also advocates a common sense law that is "tight on goals and loose on the means of achieving them", instead of the reverse as it is now. Towards that end, many states are are already developing robust student data systems so they can measure student growth, so the academic bar can be truly be raised.

Big Question #2: Will the passage of HF 945 properly leverage the longitudinal data systems being built in Minnesota school systems?

By mandating  and prescribing "one size fits all" solutions, Duncan says: "NCLB took away the ability of local and state educators to tailor solutions to meet the unique needs of their students, and that is fundamentally flawed.  This law is fundamentally broken, we need to fix it, and we need to fix it this year."

Secretary Duncan himself is not averse to the idea of teacher evaluations:

"At the end of the day, the best way to make  a difference is with effective, well-supported teachers.  The best way to achieve that is with stronger teacher recruiting and training programs linked to rigorous teacher & principal evaluation systems.  That work is underway all across America, and if we do our part by fixing the law, we can accelerate that progress."

Calls for meaningful teacher evaluation have been issued by everyone from Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Casellius to the Minnesota Education Association to the American Federation of Teachers to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Big Question #3: Would the teacher evaluation methodology set out in HF 945 accelerate progress toward a rigorous educator evaluation process-- or will it decelerate it?

Given the landmark nature of this teacher evaluation legislation, let's all hope & pray that any such efforts adequately address some important questions before the bill becomes a full-fledged law.
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You can listen to Duncan's entire 13-minute set of remarks to the House Education Workforce Committee (the primary source for this analysis) between the 10:40 and 23:40 points of the following C-Span video:

'First of Spring' Marks Turning Point in Legislative Session for Education

While the first day of Spring finally here, the season's first Robin sighting is not :)  But signals from the Legislature show things are growing unseasonably warm early this Legislative Session.

As evidence, Minnesota's House Education Finance Committee will conduct a marathon 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight walk through of the 2011 Omnibus Education bill (HF934) on Monday, March 21st.  Public testimony will be taken early in the day, and expert observers believe Omnibus Bills from both the House and Senate could be completed this week-- which would be record speed for the Legislature.

According to the educationally-earnest folks at Parents United for Public Schools, other bills to watch this session include these, some of which may find their way into the Omnibus bill.  Each set of companion bills is followed by a few sentences on what I gleaned from the Revisor-provided draft of the House version. (Please don't blame me for trying :)

HF1187 Greiling (DFL-Roseville) | SF902 Stumpf (DFL-Thief River Falls) Governor’s Education Finance Bill

Deals variously with all-day kindergarten revenue (still optional for districts) , a new Governor's award for educational excellence, achievement gap innovation fund, lease aid for charter schools, and state levy accounting, among other matters.

HF273 (Woodard-R-Belle Plaine) | SF388 Nienow (R-Cambridge) Students at low-performing schools enrollment options established

Allows students of families at 175% of poverty or lower whose school does not meet certain performance criteria to enroll at nonpublic schools, and carry per pupil and transportation funding with them.  Effectively Minnesota's "school voucher" bill (Would take effect for the 2011-12 school year).

HF945 (Petersen-R-Andover) | SF636 Olson (R-Minnetrista) Teacher licensure, evaluations, and tenure modified

Article I: Teacher Evaluation & Professional Development- a 10-section article concerning:

Select Sections:
1. Commissioner reporting of school & student growth based on highly reliable statewide or districtwide assessments. (Not mentioned, but possibly applicable,  is the Common Core Assessments push being made at the national level.) (Would apply in 2012-13.)
2-5. Directs school boards to develop a professional development model, mentoring, & peer review for both probationary and continuing contract teachers for improving teaching & learning. (Applicable 2013-14.)
6. Proposes  a teacher evaluation structure including:

    A. teacher appraisal framework that identifies performance measures for determining teacher effectiveness
    B.  a mechanism for translating the performance data into a five-part teacher effectiveness rating scale
    C.  a four-tier status designation that identifies teachers as standard, advanced, distinguished, or exemplary based on a teacher's effectiveness rating over time.
(Section would be applicable the day following enactment.)

7. Requires  school boards to establish staff development advisory committees & site professional development teams-- the majority of whom must be teachers representing various grade levels, subject areas, and special education. The advisory committee must also include nonteaching staff, parents, and administrators.  (Section would take effect in 2013-14 school year.)

9. A school board and the school administrators in a district must collaboratively establish a professional development model for school administrators designed to:
provide professional development to effectively evaluate teachers and  identify systemic strengths and weaknesses within a school, among other things. (Section effective 7/1/2012)

Article II: Teacher Employment

Select Sections:
1. Requires annual school performance report card that includes teacher effectiveness ratings established in Article I. (Would be effective July 1, 2014)
2.  Annual contracts and evaluation plan for probationary teachers (under 3 yrs. service)
3-4. Concerns 5-year contracts awarded at end of probationary term & each successive 5 year period based on growth plans and teacher effectiveness system. (Effective 2014-15 and beyond.)
12. Teacher effectiveness based bonuses: Teachers with "distinguished" rating would receive annual bonus equal to 10% of base salary and those with "exemplary" rating could receive bonus equal to 20% of base salary. (Section w/b effective July 1, 2019.)
16. Establishes Advisory Task Force for implementing teacher evaluation structure. (Would be effective the day following enactment.)

HF947 (Erickson-R-Princeton) Alternative teacher pay system modified

Refines alternative teacher pay systems (like Q Comp) that  reform the traditional "steps and lanes" salary schedules.
For those with existing plans, requires reapplication by June 1, 2013.

HF329 (Bills-R-Rosemount) | SF577 (Thompson-R-Lakeville) Public school employees prohibited from using public funds and resources to advocate to pass, elect, or defeat a political candidate, ballot question, or pending legislation. 

No additional comments necessary.

HF638 (Myhra-R-Burnsville) School grading system created, school recognition program created, school report cards modified, rulemaking authorized, and report required.

Seeks to establish an "A to F" school and district grading system for identifying schools and districts where students are achieving low, medium, or high growth on statewide assessments.
Under this plan:

• 50% of a school's grade is based on disaggregated student data for those achieving proficiency in reading and mathematics the previous year
• 25% of the grade is based on whether students achieved low, medium or high growth on the previous year's reading and mathematics assessments
• 15% of the grade is based on students who did not achieve proficiency in the previous year's reading assessments
• 10% of the school's grade is based on students who did not achieve proficiency in the previous year's math assessments

(For HF 638, data could be collected on 2011-12 for rewards to be distributed in 2012-13.)
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It is common for legislators to say they often hear more from constituents on stadium bills than on education matters.  For those who think their input will be insignificant: 

Rep. Margaret Anderson Kelliher (D) and Rep. Paul Kohls (R) reinforced the value of constituent-initiated communication during a Midday with Gary Eichten discussion last December:

"The most powerful thing that a legislator receives today is a handwritten note from anyone," explained Kelliher, who shared the distinction with Kohls of being an outgoing legislator who had recently run for Governor. "The personal story ... the invitation to come out and visit, those sorts of things, do change legislators minds, even if you disagree with that person," Kelliher added.

In "broad bipartisan agreement," Rep. Kohls said constituent input clearly impacted "how he thought about the issues" before stating: "It's a pretty rare event for legislators to get more than a handful of comments on any one particular issue .... If I got 10 emails on any particular subject, that was a lot of noise made by my constituents ... so I hope people know that."