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Evaluation system to balance educator practice and student outcomes
Posted: 11/8/2011 10:07:15 AM
Framework for Educator Effectiveness is first step in model evaluation system
From the Department of Public Instruction
Teachers and principals will be evaluated on their professional practice and student achievement in
an educator evaluation system outlined in a preliminary report issued by the Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness
Design Team. State Superintendent Tony Evers appointed the group last December.
As described in the Wisconsin Framework for Educator Effectiveness, student outcomes and educator
practice will be weighted equally to create an educator effectiveness performance rating. Outcomes for students will
come from multiple measures. Those include value-added data from state assessments, district assessment data,
student learning objectives, school-wide reading at the elementary level and graduation at the high school level, and
district choice data based on improvement strategies.
Educator practice, which also will account for 50 percent of the evaluation rating, will be based on
standards such as instructional strategies, classroom organization, content knowledge, school culture, and
collaboration with faculty and the community. The standards come from the nationally recognized 2011 Interstate
Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards and the 2008 Interstate
School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Educational Leadership Policy Standards.
“Centered on student learning, fair, valid, and reliable — these are core principles for our educator
effectiveness framework,” said State Superintendent Tony Evers. “Our performance-based evaluation system
will support teachers and principals in their job of educating students and help our educators improve throughout
their careers.”
In the framework, an effective educator is defined as consistently using educational practices that foster the
intellectual, social, and emotional growth of children. That growth, documented in meaningful ways, will be part of
the evaluations conducted by a teacher’s or a principal’s immediate supervisor. The evaluation system will include
multiple forms of evidence and will serve both formative and summative evaluation needs. Evaluations will include
observations, a review of documents, surveys, data, and discussions with the educator. Evaluations will result in an educator effectiveness framework
performance rating at one of three levels: developing, effective, and exemplary. For all ratings, the evaluation will
identify areas of strength and areas for improvement to be addressed through professional development.
New educators, who are in the first three years in a district, and educators whose performance rating is at
the developing level, will be evaluated annually. Veteran, non-struggling educators will have a summative
evaluation every three years, though these educators could be evaluated on a subset of performance dimensions each
year, with the entire set covered over a three-year period. Formative evaluation will be ongoing for all educators.
When fully developed and implemented, the system will support a full range of human resource decisions.
Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, and Bryan Kennedy, president of the
American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, commended the efforts of other members who worked with them on
the design team.
“Through consensus building, Wisconsin will be using an educator evaluation system that will
improve teaching and student learning,” Bell said. “We have taken solid steps in the development of an evaluation
system that constructively uses student outcome data and professional practice,” Kennedy added.
As work continues on developing the model evaluation system, the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years will
involve piloting the model, evaluator and educator training, evaluating and revising the model as well as identifying
a statewide implementation strategy. Full implementation of the model in the 2014-15 school year depends on
funding to identify or develop rubrics for educator practice, training for educators and evaluators, continuing efforts
on the state’s data system to link student achievement data with an individual educator, establishing reliable
calculations for value-added student outcomes, and increasing the capacity of local districts to collect and use
student outcome data.
“The Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness Framework provides a good foundation for a statewide model
evaluation system,” said John Ashley, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
“Additionally, the framework recognizes that many districts have evaluation systems in place and allows districts
flexibility to create or continue using their own rubrics of educator practice.”
Julie Underwood, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, praised the
framework for its comprehensiveness. “The educator effectiveness design team’s work gives us the opportunity to
align our system from pre-service education, to professional development, and evaluation,” she said.
Miles Turner, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators, and Jim
Lynch, executive director of the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators, also were active on the design
team. “This is exciting work. We are developing resources that will move Wisconsin ahead with a performance-based evaluation system that respects the collaborative nature of successful schools,” Turner said. “We have a
tremendous opportunity to take the work of the design team and develop a well thought-out model evaluation
system. It will take our continued best efforts, at the state and local level, to seize this opportunity,” Lynch added.
The work group and design team, made up of leaders from a broad range of education stakeholders,
developed the Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness Framework. Representatives came from: the American Federation
of Teachers (AFT), Association of Wisconsin School Administrators (AWSA), Office of the Governor, Professional
Standards Council, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, Wisconsin Association of Colleges of
Teacher Education (WACTE), Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (WAICU),
Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB), Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators
(WASDA), and Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC).
Critical to the process was technical assistance
provided by researchers from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), Great Lakes West Regional
Comprehensive Center (GLW), and Research Educational Laboratories (REL) Midwest. National work by the State
Consortium on Educator Effectiveness, led by the Council of Chief State School Officers, guided the state design
team and work group efforts. The design team developed a timeline for moving the framework into a statewide
model that will ensure the process is not rushed.
As a next step, the state superintendent will convene a state coordinating committee, representing diverse
stakeholders who will provide guidance and feedback to the Department of Public Instruction throughout the
development, pilot, and initial implementation phases. That committee will work through 2014-15 when the
evaluation system will be implemented statewide.
“I am happy to accept the recommendations in the Wisconsin Framework for Educator Effectiveness,” Evers
said. “We need to move ahead to ensure the effectiveness of educators in our schools and classrooms. The timeline in
the framework gives us the opportunity to do this right so we improve academic achievement for all students.”
Additional information, including a copy of the Wisconsin Framework for Educator Effectiveness Preliminary Report
and Recommendations, is available on the Department of Public Instruction Educator Effectiveness website at http://dpi.wi.gov/tepdl/edueff.html.