education reformers clash over charter school teacher evauluations

8/11/2019 Education Reformers Clash Over Charter School Teacher Evauluations

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Education Reformers Clash over Charter-

School Teacher Evaluations

BY:Dylan Scott| June 7, 2013

Very quietly, a civil war is brewing within the education reform movement over a single issue:Evaluations for teachers at charter schools.

Some point to the release of a paper calledThe Hangoverin September 2012, sponsored by theAmerican Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that advocates for broad reform, as one ofthe first signs of this growing dispute going public. The paper showed that following the releaseof a 2009 report called The Widget Effect, which concluded that the current teacherevaluations were ineffective because they graded 99 percent of teachers as satisfactory, there wassignificant pressure to make teacher reviews more stringent.

That became official federal policy when the Obama administration called for statewide teacherevaluation guidelines, based in part on student performance, while soliciting for Race To TheTop in 2009 and then No Child Left Behind waiver applications in 2011.

A number of states, such as Delaware and South Carolina, used that impetus to create statewideteacher evaluation systems, bringing all schoolsincluding charter schoolsunder one uniformsystem. Thats where the problem lies, according to AEI and those who advocate for morecharter schools. Here is the key passage from The Hangover:

Charter schools are independent public schools of choice that, in many states, are grantedbroad flexibility from regulatory requirements in exchange for accountability, the authorswrote. New state teacher evaluation policies, by mandating teacher evaluations that meet

certain parameters, could infringe on charters historical freedom in personnel matters.

Some experts saw the papers angle as an attempt to walk back the push for more aggressiveteacher evaluations once reformers realize they could impede the progress of charter schools.

Reformers are really caught in the uncomfortable position of arguing for new teacher evaluation

approaches, says Preston Green, an education law professor at Penn State University, but thentrying to distinguish charters from public schools. Its become one of the unintended

consequences of reform.
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Put simply, a mandated teacher evaluation system upends the entire notion of charter schoolautonomy. Charter schools are supposed to have complete authority within their wallsauthorityto hire, fire and otherwise evaluate teachers as they see fit without outside requirementsinexchange for being held accountable for their students success. If a charter school cant provesuccess, it can be closed much more easily than a traditional public school.

Thats the deal, says Michael Petrilli, executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham

Institute, a conservative education think tank and former official with the U.S. Department ofEducation during the George W. Bush administration. The idea of top-down teacher evaluationmandates violates the terms of that deal.

This attempt to micromanage teacher evaluations from the state level really cuts against thatautonomy. Having this one-size-fits-all approach is really a bad way to go, Petrilli says. Itstaken a little while for the charter school movement to wake up to this threat. This shows youthat the school reform is not monolithic.

But theyre waking up now, and the fight between advocates for teacher evaluations and charterschools is moving from the theoretical think tank world to the realm of actual policymaking. Oneof the best examples is the dispute between the state of New York and the Northeastern PublicCharter School Network, which represents many of the state's charter schools, over the states

Race To The Top application.

As part of its application, which brought $700 million in federal funds into the state, New Yorkpromised the Obama administration that it would collect teacher ratings (i.e. evaluations) fromall of its public schools, including charter schools. Charter schools were allowed to use their ownevaluation system, but they had to provide the results to the state education department. Charterscould also decide whether they wanted to participate in the program or notthough if they

didnt, they wouldnt be able to access the Race To The Top money. Two-thirds of New Yorkcharter schools elected not to participate.

But then at the end of last year, state officials tried to go after the non-participating charterschools teacher ratings as well, according to aninternal memo.Charter school advocates made astrong push for schools to ignore the states demands. There are a lot of New York-specificintricacies to the debatenamely, the state's Race To The Top application didn't change theexisting charter school law regarding teacher evaluations and the state's education departmentauthorizes many of the state's charter schoolsbut it is a microcosm of the larger debate.

It crystallizes on one specific issue: Some New York charter schools have teacher evaluationsystems that are incompatible with the state system. If they were to provide the state with teacherevaluation data, they would either have to manufacture data or change their system entirely toalign with the state's. That would undermine their independence as charter schools, says BillPhillips, president of the Northeastern Charter School Network.

This is about whether or not the state can force their system on the charters, Phillips says. "It'sreally important to remember the charter model is: We give you more autonomy for greater
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accountability, so therefore we're just not going to take their instruction. That's totally foreign toour accountability process."

The charter association and state officials have exchanged numerous memos over the issue, withlittle sign of reconciliation. Phillips expects the state might try to force the issue when charter

schools authorized by the education department are up for renewal, requiring them to adopt thestate's teacher evaluation system. That, Phillips says, "would invite litigation. I think that's goingto be difficult for them."

In a few states, the issue has been resolved more peacefullyPennsylvania, for example, simplyexempts charter schools from its new teacher evaluation programbut the debate is expected tocontinue. The newly unveiled U.S. Senate bill to replace NCLB contains similar language onteacher evaluations as the Obama administrations NCLB waiver program, which means morestates could move to state-mandated teacher evaluation standards.

So expect continued conversations about whether charter schools should be exempted from

evaluation standards placed on traditional schools, experts say. It is quickly becoming one of thedefining issues of the education reform movement. How the debate shakes out could have long-lasting consequences for both charter schools and teacher evaluations.

This article was printed from: http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/gov-reformers-clash-over-teacher-

evaluations-and-charter-schools.html

education reformers clash over charter school teacher evauluations

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