Misconceptions and Realities about Teacher and Principal Evaluation: An Open Letter of Concern to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard, and the Chicago School Board
March 26, 2012
Misconceptions and Realities about Teacher and Principal Evaluation
An Open Letter of Concern to
Mayor Rahm Emanuel,
Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard,
and the Chicago School Board
Regarding Chicago’s Implementation of Legislation for the Evaluation of Teachers and Principals
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) plans to implement dramatic changes in the 2012-2013 school year. As university professors and researchers who specialize in educational research, we recognize that change is an essential component of school improvement. We are very concerned, however, at a continuing pattern of changes imposed rapidly without high-quality evidentiary support.
The new evaluation system for teachers and principals centers on misconceptions about student growth, with potentially negative impact on the education of Chicago’s children. We believe it is our ethical obligation to raise awareness about how the proposed changes not only lack a sound research basis, but in some instances, have already proven to be harmful.
In this letter, we describe our concerns and relevant research as we make two recommendations for moving forward:
1. Pilot and adjust the evaluation system before implementing it on a large scale.
2. Minimize the percentage that student growth counts in teacher or principal evaluation.
We also urge consulting on the above steps with the professors and researchers among us who bring both scholarly and practical expertise on these issues.
Background
In January 2010, the Illinois State Legislature—in an effort to secure federal Race to the Top funds—approved an amendment to the Illinois School Code known as the Performance Evaluation Review Act (PERA), which requires districts to include “student growth” as a significant portion of teacher and principal evaluation. While most of the state does not have to implement a new evaluation plan for teachers until 2016, CPS was able to get written into the law an early implementation date of September 2012 for at least 300 schools.
The proposed rules associated with PERA will not be finalized until April 2012 at the earliest. Nevertheless, CPS is moving ahead with teacher and principal evaluation plans based on the proposals. The suggested rules define “significant” use of student growth as at least 25% of a principal’s or teacher’s evaluation in the first two years of implementation, and 30% after that, with the possibility of making student growth count for as much as 50%.
The PERA law mandates that multiple measures of student growth be used in teacher evaluation. The proposed rules