New Directions in Teacher Evaluation and Compensation

1
New Directions in Teacher Evaluation and
Compensation

• Third Annual CPRE National Conference
• Chicago, Illinois
• November 21-22, 2002
• Sponsored in part by
• Atlantic Philanthropic Services
• and
• the Carnegie Corporation.

2

• Based on
• Paying Teachers for What They Know and Do
• by Allan Odden and Carolyn Kelley
• Corwin Press, 2002, Second Edition
• CPRE Research State/Local Policies
• Further information, research and cases
• www.wcer.wisc.edu/cpre

3
Roots of Our Efforts

• December 1992 conference
• Presentation by Jim Kelly, President of the
  National Board create high standards for
  teaching practice and then assess teacher
  practice and provide National Board Certification
• Claims that was inputs-based, and inconsistent
  with an output oriented system
• Al Shanker said it was pay for knowledge and
  skills, what private sector organizations were
  doing when they restructured
• Two years of seminars of key AFT, NEA, and
  National Board leaders around pay innovations

4
Three New Big Ideas

• Knowledge and Skills Based Pay (KSBP) replacing
  or augmenting pay for Years of Experience and
  Education Units/Degrees
• School Based Performance Awards (SBPA) when
  school qualifies, all faculty/support staff
  receive a bonus
• Salary incentives for teachers in shortage areas,
  in low performing/hard to staff schools, or for
  engaging in teacher leader roles

5
Fits the History of Teacher Compensation Change

• From late 19th to early 21st centuries teacher
  compensation structures lagged those developed
  and tried in the private sector
• That is what is now happening, as KSBP, group
  bonuses based on organizational performance, and
  salary incentives for workers in hot labor
  markets appeared in private sector beginning late
  1970s and early 1980s

6
Early Pay Initiatives in Education

• National Board Certification KSBP
• Kentucky and Charlotte-Mecklenburg School-Based
  Performance Award Programs (SBPA)
• Douglas County, Colorado KSBP
• Robbinsdale, Minnesota KSBP
• Vaughn Charter School KSBP and SBPA
• Cincinnati SBPA and KSBP
• Charlottes Framework ? Performance-Based
  Evaluation and an infrastructure for KSBP

7
Related Changes

• Performance-based teacher licensure system
  PRAXIS III, INTASC, Connecticut BEST system
• Latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s
• Numerous districts Philadelphia, Steamboat
  Springs, Minneapolis, LaCrescent (MN), Manitowoc
  (WI), Menomonee Falls (WI), Greendale (WI)
• States KSBP in Iowa, efforts in Illinois,
  Florida, Wisconsin, Washington, Kentucky 25
  states with SBPAs
• Milken TAP Program
• Denver merit pay experiment
• Framework evaluation Washoe, Newport News, etc.
• HLM value-added work Sanders, North Carolina,
  Dallas

8
Comments on Pay and Evaluation Innovations

• Extensive scope is broad and deep
• Greater variety than at any time in history
• Emerging in wealthy/poor, large/small, urban/
  rural, and public as well as private and church
  affiliated schools
• Reflect viable approaches to performance pay and
  evaluation in education, and usually help to
  boost salaries
• Are expanding and remaining on the policy and
  practice agenda they have legs

9
Why These Changes?

• Some education systems just jump on the
  bandwagon but that does not produce lasting
  change
• Most are making these changes for strategic
  reasons

10
Broad Reasons for Why .

• Want to improve student achievement
• Want to broaden and deepen teachers
  instructional expertise
• Want to raise teacher salary levels

11
Strategic Understanding of Evaluation
Compensation Changes

• As strategies to accomplish the goals of
  standards-based education reform -- greater
  student learning
• Prime factor linked to improved learning is
  better instruction
• So change evaluation and professional development
  systems to reinforce continued acquisition and
  deployment of standards-based instructional
  practices
• Alter pay system to provide pay increases when
  teachers instructional practices improve to
  higher standards

12
Strategic rationales, continued .

• As a strategy to enhance teaching as a profession
• Adopt clear and specific standards for teachers
• Align professional development to those standards
• Evaluate teachers for developing and teaching to
  the standards
• Develops accountability for teachers to
  professional standards of practice
• As a strategy to increase teacher salary levels
• Link pay increases to improvements in teacher
  performance
• Increase teacher pay levels to recruit and retain
  good teachers

13
What is Needed for Knowledge and Skills-Based Pay

• Identification of what good teaching is, the
  knowledge and skills needed to do it, or teaching
  standards linked to student standards and teacher
  career stages
• A professional development strategy to help
  teachers acquire and deploy that instruction
• Assessments of knowledge and skills -- how to
  assess and who should do it
• Linkage to a salary schedule

14
What is Needed for School-Based Performance Awards

• Measures of student performance
• Calculations of change in performance
• Stretch but reachable change targets
• Enabling conditions, including KSBP
• Valued rewards bonus levels in the 1000-3000
  per teacher range
• Predictable funding

15
Measurable Levels of Performance

• 1. Beginning teacher -- entry level
• 2. Novice effective teaching and classroom
  management
• 3. Developing Professional beginning content
  specific
• teaching level for professional license
• 4. Professional solid array of professional
  expertise
• including mastery of content specific
  teaching
• 5. Advanced assessment instructional design
• A national example National Board Certified

16
Two Major Approaches to KSBP Plans

• Redesign the entire salary schedule to include
  knowledge and skills as a core element that
  triggers major salary increases
• Keep current steps and lanes structure and add
  knowledge and skill elements

17
An Add-On Approach
18
Another Add-On Approach
19
Full KSBP Model
20
A Dual Approach Full KSBP Leadership Model
Performance Standard Performance Level Leadership Track
National Board Board Certified School-wide Coach, Mentor
Advanced Advanced Team Leader
Career Proficient Proficient
Professional License Beginning Professional Beginning Professional
Apprentice Basic Basic
Novice Beginning Beginning
21
Salary Benchmarking Needed

• Both approaches need salary benchmarking public
  sector and the top paying suburbs to identify
  salary levels needed especially in urban
  districts to compete for talent in the labor
  market
• Both structure of teacher pay knowledge and
  skills, with a school-based performance bonus
  and level of pay must change to recruit and
  retain high-quality teachers

22
Additional Knowledge and Skills

• For permanent pay increases
• License in a second subject
• License in a shortage area -- mathematics,
  science, technology, high poverty school
• Masters in area of license, or just content area
• Expertise for a comprehensive school design
• For one time payments, e.g.
• computer software, district provided pd classes
• For leadership roles
• lead teacher, curriculum council chair, peer
  assessor, school mentor/coach/instructional
  facilitator

23
Are these systems working?

• Emerging research results from
• Studies of operation and impact of knowledge and
  skills-based performance evaluation systems
  without links to pay Reno, Newport News, Anoka
  Hennepin
• Analyses of plans in Iowa and Philadelphia
• Studies of operation and impact of knowledge and
  skills-based evaluation systems with links to pay
  Cincinnati, Vaughn, LaCrescent

24
Overall Finding

• The vision of instruction, the new evaluation
  system, the professional development systems are
  all HUGE improvements from past practice
• There are several important, positive impacts,
  including early HLM analysis showing linkages
  between evaluation scores and valued-added
  learning
• But, there are glitches in design and
  implementation, which second generation programs
  should overcome

25
Key Impacts

• Evidence in two places Cincinnati, Vaughn of
  positive correlations between evaluation scores
  and value added student learning growth so
  systems are valid a major finding
• Acceptance of the standards by nearly all
  teachers and belief that the standards reflect
  what teachers do and that they are fair
• Stronger acceptance by new teachers gives them
  some help on basic instructional and classroom
  management strategies and they more inclined to
  mold themselves to the district vision of
  instruction

26
Impacts, continued .

• Other instructional impacts
• More reflection on instructional practice,
  especially to focus on individual student needs
• More attention to student content standards
• More work to develop standards-based lesson
  plans
• More attention to classroom management

27
Alignment of HR system

• Not yet done comprehensively or well in most
  places will get to it
• Because of operational complexities,
  conversations about improving instruction not as
  extensive as hoped can that really happen in a
  meaningful way if the principal is the major
  assessor and s/he not licensed at same grade
  level and content area as the teacher?
• Need to make evaluations look more like
  professional development so structure
  assessment around an instructional unit and score
  like Connecticut does using videos rather than
  observations

28
Promises Pitfalls of Efforts So Far

• KSBP is designed around a state, district or
  school definition of good instruction, which is a
  big Plus
• This is right but not easy
• Not that much common understanding of what good
  instruction is or what it looks like
• Too little content specific focus on instruction
  in the systems that are operating

29
Promises and Pitfalls, contd .

• Professional development and evaluation still not
  very connected, and when they are, they look too
  different
• Core professional development is about teaching
  standards-based curriculum units
• A core way to evaluate teachers is around a
  curriculum-unit-based portfolio
• When done this way, the pd/evaluation link is
  strategic, clear and efficient evaluation then
  is not an extra burden

30
Promises and Pitfalls, contd .

• Pay more attention to implementation
  implementation glitches are what leads to
  problems
• The Cincinnati system was psychometrically valid
  and reliable, yet voted down
• Implementation glitches overcame technical
  soundness
• Funding shortfalls are beginning to create
  cynicism Iowa, California, etc.

31
Promises and Pitfalls, contd .

• Add-on plans are more popular and easier to
  implement but less strategic than plans that
  fundamentally restructure
• Teacher salary levels matter NYC when we hike
  pay, we reduce teacher shortages
• Growing realization that new ways to pay teachers
  and higher teacher salary levels need to be woven
  into definitions of school finance adequacy for
  example, Washington LARGE upside potential for
  higher salaries if this link can be made

32
Bottom Lines

• Performance-based teacher pay and evaluation are
  ideas whose time has come
• Multiple efforts all over the country growing
  and expanding with some considerable success
• We know how to design these systems
• The Big caution focus more on communication,
  roll out, implementation
• Keep plugging the many possible upside gains
  should continue to propel the movement despite
  some errors and oversights made by the early
  movers

33
Just a Few Conference Rules

• Conference open to all types of teacher salary
  and evaluation innovations, presence on the
  agenda isnt CPRE endorsement
• Everyone is encouraged to and is allowed to
  disseminate their organizations literature
• Were hear to listen and learn, not to take issue
  with what presenters have designed and are
  operating