Recommendations of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness: Implications for
Music Teacher Evaluation Ryan Shaw The state of Michigan is in the midst of revis- ing its teacher evaluation system. Public Act (PA) 102, signed into law in 2011 by Governor Snyder, mandated reforms to teacher evalua- tion for all educators. The law also required the formation of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness (MCEE) to make final recom- mendations to the legislature. This commission was led by the Dean of the University of Michi- gan School of Education, Dr. Deborah Ball and released its final recommendations on July 24, 2013. In this article, I will examine some major provisions of the MCEE’s report and discuss what the impact could be for music educators in Michigan if the recommendations are adopted. I will also give some relevant context on how these recommendations match up with what is happening around the country and how the rec- ommendations align with current educational research.
be a significant (or the most significant) factor in teacher evaluations. However, a number of states, including New York, use student growth to account for 35-49 percent of effectiveness ratings, and others such as Maine limit it to 25% (NCTQ, 2013). Little research exists that directly discusses the most valid formula for as- signing effectiveness ratings, though education expert Linda Darling-Hammond encourages flexibility and local control over percentages (Darling-Hammond, 2013).
Recommendation 2: Use of value-added measures
Recommendation 1: Derive effectiveness rat- ing from practice/student growth
The MCEE has recommended that teach- ers receive a cumulative rating each year that combines evidence of their professional prac- tice (50% of the overall rating) and evidence of student growth (50% of the overall rating). The practice component is mostly comprised of data from observation of teaching, though other lo- cal measures such as a portfolio of teacher work samples or surveys from parents and students may be used for up to 20% of the practice com- ponent (or 10% of the overall rating).
Although other states also consider student aca- demic growth in a portion of teachers’ evalu- ations, it is important to note that Michigan is at the high end of the scale at 50%. As the National Council on Teacher Quality (2013) re- ported, 35 states now require student growth to
Many tools are available to measure student growth. The MCEE explains the various kinds of assessments available to local education agencies (LEAs) including state tests, vendor- created tests, local measures, and student learning objectives (SLOs). When educational stakeholders use statistical techniques to at- tempt to isolate an individual teacher’s effect on growth, they are utilizing value-added models (VAMs). These value-added models are popu- lar because they are purported to account for a host of outside variables in order to provide an accurate measure of the “value added” by a particular educator. The MCEE supports the use of value-added models but makes a number of careful provisions regarding their application.
Use of VAMs is controversial for a number of reasons. First, experts note that while VAMs have provided useful information on the ef- fectiveness of large-scale curriculum and school projects, many problems arise when they are used with individual teachers (Dar- ling-Hammond, 2013). As the MCEE report acknowledges, VAMs have been shown to be fraught with reliability and validity issues (see Darling-Hammond, Amrein-Beardsley, Haertel,
10
Research
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48