The administrative position that I suggest is the Educator Evaluater and Support Provider. This position's sole purpose is to evaluate and support teachers (duh). If I were to set this position up, I would separate it into two semesters. The first semester would be spent helping teachers and supporting them, just as those support providers (through the BTSA program) helped new teachers through the first two years. The second semester would focus on evaluating the teachers using all of the information gathered from steps I through V mentioned in the previous blogs.
This new administration position would keep track of teaching practices and previous evaluations in order to make consistent and better informed decisions. The second semester would probably be the harder of the two due to the research that must be done for each teacher. One option would be to have each teacher evaluated this deeply every other year. This would cut down on the amount of admins needed and would allow more time to focus on the teachers being evaluated. The evaluation system that is currently around allows a longer break between evals. the longer you teach, but this is part of the problem. Plus the fact that the way they evaluate is so limited and based on one or two classroom visits per year for an hour at a time. Not to mention, even if you suck at that eval. if you are tenured, you keep your job and get no help for improvement.
Okay, moving on.
For those teachers who are given a poor evaluation, in order to protect their jobs, the union could allow a one-semester pass (for lack of a better word) in order for that teacher to get the support needed to improve on whatever they did poorly on. The admins would need to teach them how to improve, rather than say, "you sucked, you're fired!" This means that the admin. position would require a good amount (more than three!) of teaching experience at the grade level (elementary, middle, or high school) that they are responsible for evaluating.
I propose that almost everyday of the second semester those new admins. are in a classroom. The more time they spend there, the more they can see how the students' respond and how the teacher teaches. Otherwise, it's just a guessing game based on grades and test scores.
I hope I didn't leave anything out. If so, I will probably add it to the comments section like I have before.
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I do not necessarily disagree with your point of view but how do you propose support for teachers who work in a specialty in which only 3 other teachers in the district even do? Our district has a great program for peer observations/evaluations. I have a mentor and am required to take various classes as a first year teacher in this particular district. My mentor, although wonderful is constantly surprised at what my job requires. How can I be evaluated by teachers who have little to no knowledge of how to teach my specialty? I'm in a small town with VERY limited resources.
ReplyDeleteGreat question. The thing about the administrators is that they should be able to help regardless of the subject. Usually, teachers need more help regarding behavioral issues or teaching methods, as opposed to teaching their own content. I am curious what specialty you teach.
ReplyDeleteI teach Special Ed and although the Director is knowledgeable my direct supervisor and most of my colleagues are pretty clueless. Most people are not trained to deal with special needs students, especially students with very severe behavioral needs. I've lived in a large metropolitan area as well as the small town I am in now. It is much more pronounced in a small town. As a side note; with budget cuts I'm looking at upwards of 20 students that span 4 grade levels. Perhaps 'just for kicks' I'll send you a copy of my schedule for my students (with names changed of course). It's a fairly large spreadsheet and I think you may be surprised as to how much I have to juggle. Reform is not so cut and dry, but again, I do not deny we need it. I love my job. If you look at special ed teachers in general you will see they last an average of about half as long as a general education teacher. The paperwork is unbelievable and the burn-out high.
ReplyDeleteThis issue may be due to state standards for credential course requirements. In California, students of education must take courses that are solely focussed on Special Ed. students. This is the norm here, but it wasn't always that way. In California, those teachers who received their credentials before this was in place have had to go back to school and take these types of courses--not only special ed, but also multicultural courses, and courses for teaching exceptional students. State reform of credential course requirements may be necessary for the type of reform I am suggesting.
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