Florida’s largest teacher’s union is calling for changes to a newly implemented evaluation system that is giving many teachers a shock.
Under the state’s new evaluation system, districts aren’t just looking at things like the way teachers teach, and how well their students perform on tests, it’s is also factoring in how well it thinks students should have performed. That’s called the Value-Added Model.” And it’s proved disastrous for Margaret Goodwin, a 3rd grade teacher in St. Petersburg’s Westgate Elementary School.
“My assigned score was an 11.27. It’s only receiving 11.2 points out of 50- it was a full half-of our evaluation. My other part was in effective and highly effective. The Value Added model negated all of that, and put my overall score as 'Needs Improvement.'”
Goodwin has been teaching since 1973. The Florida Education Association is asking the state to back away from using the value added model, something that Florida Education Association President Andy Ford calls “unscientific”.
“The timing isn’t right. It doesn’t appear the formula is accurately factoring out all the things it needs to make it a fair system. We need some time to catch up. I’d rather get it right, than to just get it done,” he said.
The Department of Education’s Kathy Hebda says it has received calls from teachers, many in grades and subject areas not traditionally tracked by the state, who are trying to figure out how they can fare well on things like test scores, and not so well in the value-added portion of their evaluation. She says there’s a difference between expectations and results. And value-added, looks only at how well teachers did in meeting expectations.
“The value added results are completely independent from whatever standards are set for passing or proficiency on the state assessment," Hebda said.
In another few years, the teacher evaluations will be used to determine whether teachers keep their jobs and how much they’ll be paid. Hebda says the first year for anything is always a shock and she believes the scores will improve as teachers become more familiar with the system. The union has written letters to Governor Rick Scott and Interim Education Commissioner Pam Stewart, but the responses have been noncommittal.
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