I pay a lot of attention to what is going on in the education world.  I have three young children, two of whom are in elementary school, and I want to be involved and know what's going on not only in their classrooms, but throughout all levels of education (from preschool to college and from a single classroom to the entire nation).  There are many trends currently to increase accountability among schools.  One of the recent ones to reach our corner of the educational world requires that when the choice is made at the end of each school year about which teachers to keep and which to fire, that decision must be based on student academic growth.  This seems to me like an outstanding step forward.  A move from tenure (the teacher who has been teaching the longest keeps her job regardless of whether or not she is any good at teaching) to teachers being accountable has phenomenal potential for good.  However, as is often the case with these types of initiatives, the devil is in the details.
     First, a little background:  At the end of each school year, the school district does a projection of how many students they expect in each grade the next year.  Then, based on the desired average class size for each grade level and subject, they determine how many teacher contracts will be extended for the next year.  In a school district that is growing, staying the same size, or slowly declining, the school district generally needs at least as many teachers for the following school year.  However, in a school district that is quickly declining in student population (something that has happened in many of our schools during the recent economic turmoil), there are too many teachers for the coming school year.  Some of them cannot be given contracts.  This is when a reduction in force (RIF) occurs.
    Historically, when such a condition occurred, the teachers that were most recently hired (had the fewest number of years working for the district) lost their jobs for the coming year.  This is obviously a less-than-ideal method of choosing which teachers stay because you have no idea if you are keeping or losing the best teachers.  Legislation was passed in recent years which prohibited this practice.  In fact, it prohibited using tenure as any piece of the decision-making process.  School districts worked to develop rubrics to use in rating teachers.  These rubrics were based mainly on pre-existing evaluations conducted (and repeated every 3 years) by their principals.  Other factors include time spent helping tutor, heading a club, or coaching a sport; presence or lack of disciplinary action against the teacher; how the teacher used student achievement data to influence lesson plans and paces; and higher education and certificates beyond those required for the job.  This new process was required to be used at the end of the last school year.
     Now a new law has been passed that will go into affect in the 2012-13 school year.  It requires that reductions in force be carried out based on new teacher & principal profiles.  These profiles can include many of the above-mentioned criteria.  The difference is that 33-50% of the teacher/principal profiles must be based on student academic growth (of the children in the teacher's class for the whole school year).  This is where the new law is both extremely powerful and extremely tricky to carry out.
     The power and purpose of the law are immediately obvious.  Teachers whose students are making tremendous steps forward will receive very high ratings.  Those whose students show little growth, no growth, or actually lose ground, will be in danger of losing their jobs.  The tricky part is less obvious but daunting in its complexity.  How do you quantitatively measure students' academic growth for a PE teacher?  Or an Art or Music teacher?  Or a Special Ed teacher?  While it is certainly possible to develop rubrics and tests that encompass some parts of these subjects, the vast majority of student growth that takes place cannot be measured on a test.  And 1/3 to 1/2 of a teacher's evaluation will be based entirely on these tests.
     The difficulty does not end there.  Currently, the Dept. of Ed. is recommending that for those teachers without adequate classroom student growth data, the entire school's student growth will take the place of classroom growth data.  Under this recommendation, a PE teacher will be held responsible for the test results of the entire school - not athletic or physical fitness test results, mind you, but academic test results.  A PE teacher will be compared to other PE teachers across the district based partially (1/3-1/2) on how well the students at his school read, write, and do math!  Now, being a team player is crucial, and every teacher makes some impact on the atmosphere at his school, but how will great teachers be attracted to struggling schools if they are then penalized for being there?!
     Unfortunately, I have no solution to offer.  I desperately want us to find a way to determine which teachers are really the best and which are lagging behind so we can reward, help, and fire where appropriate.  I think the current law is a step in the right direction, but one fraught with difficulties because of the absolutes it contains.  Perhaps it would have been more judicious for our policymakers to require that teachers of testable academic subjects use a different rating system than those who teach the arts, PE, etc.  Regardless, it will be interesting to see the waves of change as they come, year after year, to the rating systems, and how they affect the level of teaching prowess at our schools.