Is Alabama the New, New Mexico?
In Alabama, the Grand Old Party (GOP) has put forth a draft bill to be entitled as an act and ultimately called the Rewarding Advancement in Instruction and Student Excellence (RAISE) Act of 2016. The purpose of the act will be to…wait for it…use test scores to grade and pay teachers annual bonuses (i.e., “supplements”) as per their performance. More specifically, the bill is to “provide a procedure for observing and evaluating teachers” to help make “significant differentiation[s] in pay, retention, promotion, dismissals, and other staffing decisions, including transfers, placements, and preferences in the event of reductions in force, [as] primarily [based] on evaluation results.” Related, Alabama districts may no longer use teachers’ “seniority, degrees, or credentials as a basis for determining pay or making the retention, promotion, dismissal, and staffing decisions.” Genius!
Accordingly, Larry Lee whose blog is based on the foundation that “education is everyone’s business,” sent me this bill to review, and critique, and help make everyone’s business. I attach it here for others who are interested, but I also summarize and critique it’s most relevant (but also contemptible) issues below.
For the Alabama teachers who are eligible, they are (after a staggered period of time) to be primarily evaluated (i.e., for up to 45% of a teacher’s total evaluation score) on the extent to which they purportedly cause student growth in achievement, with student growth being defined as the teachers’ purported impacts on “[t]he change in achievement for an individual student between two or more points in time.” Teachers are also to be observed at least twice per year (i.e., for up to 45% of a teacher’s total evaluation score), by their appropriate and appropriately trained evaluators/supervisors, and an unnamed and Is Alabama the New, New Mexico? | VAMboozled!: