Reform to support Common Core

If the Common Core initiative is to have a chance to take off, a new strategy of professional development, coupled with thoughtful evaluation is necessary. This is according to Peter Youngs, writing under the auspices of the Center for American Progress. This new strategy requires reform of the current system of teacher evaluation and needs the buy-in of principals and other school leaders. In the introduction to the report, Youngs provides the following background:

The Common Core State Standards Initiative, in its aim to align diverse state curricula and improve educational outcomes, calls for K-12 teachers in the United States to engage all students in mathematical problem solving along with reading and writing complex text through the use of rigorous academic content. Until recently, most teacher evaluation systems in this country did not measure or promote the ability of teachers to practice in these ways.

This report discusses efforts to develop and implement Common Core standards and assessments in the 45 states and the District of Columbia that are initiative members, and outlines how past attempts to enact standards-based reform have been impeded by limitations in teacher evaluation. It also draws on the notion of “standard of care,” from the field of medicine, to note that advances in our understanding of subject matter, pedagogy, how students learn, and technology call for teachers to continually acquire new knowledge and to refine their instructional practices by participating in comprehensive professional development on a regular basis.

Youngs then proceeds to recommend the following as concrete changes that could be made to help implement the reform needed to help bring about a successful Common Core model:

• Utilize school-based instructional coaches in English language and mathematics to provide ongoing professional learning opportunities to teachers related to the Common Core standards and assessments. In addition, districts can support principals’ efforts to connect teachers to relevant external professional development based on classroom observation and student survey ratings.

• Ensure the validity and reliability of classroom observation protocols by implementing a standardized approach to training principals and other evaluators, and monitoring their ratings. In addition, districts can train principals to provide timely, meaningful feedback to teachers based on observational data.

• Provide training to principals to ensure that student surveys are administered in a uniform way across schools and classrooms, and work out specific procedures for administering them to young children and students with disabilities. To address teachers’ resistance to the use of student surveys, districts can educate them about the value of student survey data. Further, districts can train principals to provide timely, meaningful feedback to teachers based on student survey data.

• Use multiple years of value-added model data in evaluating individual teachers. High-stakes decisions such as dismissal, career ladder promotion, or merit pay should focus only on those teachers who consistently receive bottom-quartile or top-quartile value-added model scores over multiple years.

• Combine aspects—or scaled-down versions—of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and edTPA assessments with one or more of the other approaches discussed in this report.

For access to the full report, please see:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2013/02/05/51410/using-teacher-evaluation-reform-and-professional-development-to-support-common-core-assessments/