Panel debates teacher reviews

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By Kelli Gauthier - kgauthier@timesfreepress.com  

School districts may get some say in how their teachers are evaluated as part of a new Tennessee law that requires educators to be graded partly on the success of their students.

The First to the Top legislation, enacted earlier this year to help Tennessee win federal Race to the Top money, states that 50 percent of teacher evaluations will be based on student outcomes. During a teleconference Monday, the 15-person committee appointed by Gov. Phil Bredesen to figure out details of the new plan said that while another 35 percent will come from standardized tests showing how much a student progressed in one academic year, the remaining 15 percent is up for grabs.

The Teacher Evaluation Advisory Council, made up of principals, lawmakers and education officials, discussed whether the criteria for that 15 percent should be mandated by the state or whether individual districts should be able to choose their own metrics, such as graduation and promotion rates or number of discipline referrals.

Metro Nashville Schools Director Jesse Register, former Hamilton County Schools superintendent and a member of the committee, said he thought some level of flexibility for each school district was a good idea.

“I tend more to go to (the committee) identifying a menu of options for districts to choose from rather than leaving it completely wide open... something that has some parameters on it so we don’t go in 100 different directions,” he said.

Normal Park Museum Magnet School principal Jill Levine, who also sits on the committee, said it was imperative that the new process be kept simple.

“When you have all these different measures and types of teachers, we’ve got to be really careful that we don’t create a monster with this thing,” she said. “If there’s an efficient way to decide in August how to evaluate (each individual) teacher, I’d be in support of that.”

Part of the committee’s charge will be to decide how to evaluate teachers who teach untested subjects or grades.

In discussing some potential evaluation tools other than standardized test scores, some committee members warned about judging teachers using promotion rates or decreased discipline referrals. The concern, they said, would be that teachers might promote students who didn’t earn good enough grades, or that they would stop disciplining students because they knew it would count against them.

The committee, which plans to talk again Thursday, hopes to have some form of pilot program in place by the time school starts in August.