Class attendance will count. A students socioeconomic status wont. Students with disabilities and gifted students will be a factor. But race and gender will not.
Thats a glimpse of the new test-based teacher evaluation formula the state is set to approve on Wednesday. As part of the requirements of the new teacher merit pay law and the mandates of the $700 million Race to the Top federal grant, the state and school districts are preparing for a major overhaul of how teachers are rated and paid.
Under the merit pay law, 50 percent of a teachers evaluation must be based on student learning gains on test scores, with the other half based on in-person evaluations by a principal, administrator or fellow teacher.
By 2014, a teachers salary will be tied to how well the teacher performs under this new formula.
Florida teachers are wary of these dramatic changes to how they have traditionally been evaluated and paid.
Everybody is concerned when there is change of this kind and change of this magnitude, said Kathy Hebda, the deputy chancellor for educator quality at the Florida Department of Education. Change is always disconcerting, and when you are a state this size it is normal and justified to be nervous about it.
The Legislature approved this year a law that makes sweeping changes in teacher salaries, eliminating multiyear contracts and requiring that pay be tied to student learning gains in test scores.
This means some teachers, such as art instructors or kindergarten teachers, will have to introduce standardized testing to their classrooms for the first time. Others will see their students FCAT scores linked to pay.
Many teachers will feel that all these many years they have been rated satisfactory and now with newer scrutiny there will be more details than anything they have ever experienced before, said David Clark, the Race to the Top coordinator for the Leon County School District. They wonder Will I still be viewed as a good teacher?
But there is some wiggle room in the law for including other factors outside a teachers control, known as value-added. This was a topic of intense legislative debate this spring, with many Democratic lawmakers, who were critical of merit pay, saying there were few details about what value-added even means.
How to determine what value-added is was so vital the state convened a committee of two dozen teachers, administrators, parents and union officials to determine how teachers should be appraised.
Lee County elementary school teacher Joseph Camputaro beat out over 200 applicants to get a seat on the committee. Camputaro said there was a lot of interest from fellow teachers who were eager to sit on the panel that bears a lot of the responsibility for determining how teachers will be rated and paid in future years.
Camputaro said the goal was to figure out how to level the playing field, so that teachers were not punished for things outside of their control, such as their students classroom attendance.
You want to make it fair for everyone, he said.
Though school districts dont have to implement merit pay until 2014, they must begin using a new evaluation system and tracking student learning gains on test scores in some classes as soon as next school year. This new formula that includes value-added is designed for courses covered by statewide assessments such as the FCAT.
The committee devoted to studying the value-added model has settled on a formula that includes the overall performance of the school, and variables such as students with disability and gifted students, English as a second language, class attendance, class size, student ages, a students movement between schools and how much variety exists in student FCAT levels within a classroom. That will be factored in along with test score data.
Camputaro referred to it as the kitchen sink model because so many outside factors were included.
Camputaro, who has been teaching for six years, said he wanted to sit on the committee to familiarize himself with how these new test-based formulas would work. I wanted to educate myself about it and I came away, after sitting in on these meetings and conference calls, feeling that this is something that could work.
The commissioner of education will choose whether to approve this formula on Wednesday. As soon as this summer, school districts will receive data based on previous years test scores and the new formula.
The law also provides some leeway for school districts to develop their own evaluation systems. Districts are required to do in-person evaluations for the other 50 percent of a teachers score.
This can include evaluations from principals or administrators or even fellow teachers.
But, the type of evaluation system districts use will have to be approved by the state.
No longer can a principal scribble complimentary remarks and some constructive criticism during a classroom review. The new systems are based on more specific and exhaustive guidelines, such as how well-prepared and engaged a teacher is, their collegiality and professionalism, and the content of what they teach.
These school district-selected evaluation systems also have to be submitted by Wednesday for state approval.
What we have seen in talking with teachers is the scariest part of it for them: the student performance data, said Lisa Grant, the director of professional development with Pinellas County public schools. Grant said by 2014, an administrator cannot mark a teacher highly effective if the student data doesnt put them in the same range.
I dont think teachers mind being held accountable, Grant added. Its just very new and different. I dont know if ever before we have tightly linked how a teacher is rated in classroom and how they are performing.
Some Florida school districts are further along than others when it comes to developing evaluation systems tied to merit pay. Miami-Dade County schools announced on Fridaya merit pay plan ready to implement in the upcoming school year that could allow some of the districts top performers to earn more than $100,000.
Teachers would also be eligible for one-time $25,000 bonuses based on FCAT scores. Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said dollars the district received from Race to the Top will be used to pay the bonuses.
The Hillsborough County School District also has gotten a jump start on merit pay programs through its grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The district is largely exempt from the new merit pay law because it is developing its own system that relies more heavily on peer evaluations from other teachers.
Everybodys evaluation is based 30 percent on principal, 30 percent on peer, 40 percent on student test results, said David Steele, the chief information and technology officer for Hillsborough County schools. This year we have 120 teachers who serve as peers to other teachers. That is their full-time job.
But Hillsborough wont change teacher pay until 2013, when it has several years of data to rely on.
When you go to a high-stakes evaluation system, you have to make sure you have consistent evaluations across the district and grade levels and everything, Steele said. We invested a lot of money and a lot of time last summer training our people to go into classrooms and observe and evaluate teachers. That will be key to every district.
