"Partially Ineffective" and "Ineffective" Are NOT the Same Teacher Rating
So the first "report" came out about New Jersey's new teacher evaluation system, aka Operation Hindenburg. And guess who was on the TV talking about it?
Thanks to Briana Vannozzi for including me in her piece. There's much more to say, but I want to highlight one thing Vannozzi pointed to that several reporters have glossed over; here's a graph from the report:
- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/06/partially-ineffective-and-ineffective.htmlThanks to Briana Vannozzi for including me in her piece. There's much more to say, but I want to highlight one thing Vannozzi pointed to that several reporters have glossed over; here's a graph from the report:
The report itself (and most of the media reporting that has followed) talks about the approximately 3 percent of teachers who are Ineffective or Partially Ineffective. It then compares this number to the 0.8 percent of teachers found "not acceptable" under the previous system.
First of all: I have no idea where the state got this 0.8 percent figure. There is no documentation or data source cited in the report for this figure. The state does collect this information through its data systems, but I am unaware of any auditing that occurred to determine the validity and reliability of this figure.
Let's, however, assume it's correct; there is still no evidence that "not acceptable" in the old system is equivalent to "Ineffective or Partially Effective" in the new system.
And that's a problem.
Think about the term "Partially Effective"; yes, you are only doing things right some of the time, but not all of the time. If you were a total screw up, you'd be "Ineffective," and your administrators would either be applying a very intensive intervention or, more likely, showing you the door.
One of the myths that has been perpetuated by people who don't know how schools work is that teacher evaluations before "reform" were simple fine/not fine ratings with no differentiation. But that's simply not true: good principals in well-run districts always gave their teachers more feedback than a simple binary rating. Evaluation systems always