State’s teachers, principals may be graded on students’ test scores

BY ROSALIND ROSSI

Education Reporter rrossi@suntimes.com 

All Illinois teachers and principals would be evaluated for the first time in part on how their students perform on tests under new rules proposed Friday by state education officials.

The rules proposed by the Illinois State Board of Education face a 45-day public comment period before being considered for final approval.

The move mirrors a national push to link educator evaluations to how students are doing. Some 20 Illinois districts, including Evanston District 65, currently consider student performance in their teacher evaluations.

The Illinois rules would require teachers to be evaluated based on at least two measures of student “growth’’ over at least two points in time. Off-the-shelf or districtwritten tests could be the basis of one growth measure; teacher-written assessments could be the second. Teacher evaluations also must include observations and ratings of a teacher’s classroom practices by trained evaluators.

Under the Illinois Performance Evaluation Reform Act signed in 2010, only Chicago is allowed to measure student growth using the state’s Illinois Standards Achievement Tests.

The Illinois Education Association successfully lobbied to prohibit using ISAT elsewhere in Illinois as the basis for any growth calculations because “there’s universal agreement that it’s not a very good test,’’ said IEA executive director Audrey Soglin. “Our teachers don’t have faith in it.’’

Chicago Teachers Union officials say the law was negotiated under different CTU leadership and current union leaders are firmly against using ISATs for any student growth calculations.

“That’s not what the state test was developed for,’’ said CTU Quest Center coordinator Carol Caref.

Chicago Public School spokeswoman Marielle Sainvilus said what tests will be used is open to negotiation.

Under the proposed rules, the new teacher evaluation tools would be phased in, starting in September 2012 with at least 300 Chicago public schools where student growth must count for at least 25 percent of any teacher evaluation. Remaining Chicago schools would beadded the following fall. All schools in the state must use the new evaluation criteria by September 2016.

By September 2014, student growth must count for at least 30 percent of a teacher’s evaluation.

All principals would be evaluated based on the new rules starting in September 2012.

Under another new law, results of the new evaluations can be tied to teacher employment decisions, such as tenure acquisition and layoffs.

Some educators have raised questions about the fairness of using student test growth to evaluate teachers, saying some teachers don’t teach tested subjects; some team-teach or get extra help that may muddy who is responsible for growth, and growth calculations are not an exact science.

“It’s important to figure these things out,” said Robin Steans of Advance Illinois, which supported the rule change. “At the end of the day, all teachers want to be advancing their kids over the course of the year. To the extent that they don’t know if they are doing that, these [evaluations] will drive very healthy discussions.’’