Strengthening Michigan&apos;s Teacher Force How a New Teacher Evaluation System Will Better Equip Michigan Educators to Improve Student Achievement
Author: Lenhoff, Sarah
Date: 2012-09-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Teacher Evaluation,Academic Achievement,Teacher Effectiveness,Performance Based Assessment,State Legislation,Educational Legislation,Educational Change,Feedback (Response),Accountability,State Policy

Great teachers can actually alter the life trajectory of their students. Effective teachers can help close gaps for students who come to school far behind; they can influence whether their students attend college after high school; they can even significantly impact the future salaries of their students, years before they enter the workforce. For years, though, Michigan's school systems--like their counterparts in other states--pretended that these differences didn't exist. When it came to annual performance evaluations, if they were conducted at all, virtually all teachers were told they were doing just fine. Recognizing the importance of more honest feedback as a building block for high-quality professional development, the Michigan Legislature passed laws in 2009 and 2011 designed to overhaul the schools' evaluation systems. Among other things, the 2011 laws require districts and charter schools to evaluate all teachers using four rating categories: ineffective, minimally effective, effective, and highly effective. The honest feedback for educators mandated by the 2011 law is terribly important, not just to teachers but also to the state's future. White, black, brown, more affluent, or low-income: No matter their background or race, Michigan students are falling behind leading states in core subject areas. It's hard to improve those results without an honest appraisal of where things are. That includes a school assessment and accountability system that provides parents with accurate information on the performance of their children and their children's schools. The Education Trust-Midwest has been working on this issue since its founding, and is pleased to report significant improvements in state policy, including more realistic assessments of student proficiency that hold schools to real-world standards. That much-needed honesty however, also includes an educator performance evaluation system that gives those who work in schools--including teachers--good information on what they do well and where they need to improve. In order to determine how the 2011 law requiring more meaningful educator evaluations is working out, the Education Trust-Midwest surveyed 30 of the state's largest districts and asked them to share data on how they rated teachers by evaluation category during the 2011-12 school year. The results indicate that little has changed in how teachers are evaluated and supported in Michigan. Michigan teachers continue to be treated as if they are identical, assembly-line workers and do not get the rich, individualized professional feedback and development they deserve. It seems clear from these data that Michigan's new laws have not brought about the desired change in educator evaluation practices in the state. To find out why, Education Trust-Midwest is digging into a set of local evaluation systems and will share what has been learned in a series of forth coming reports.