The Utah State Board of Education is looking to change the way the state’s public school teachers are evaluated after an audit last year found the current system to be ineffective.
However, after much discussion Thursday, board members voted to postpone approving any changes, feeling that the proposed language for the new rule wasn’t up to par.
“I don’t feel like we’ve hit the mark on this,” board member Molly Hart said. “Even if we pass this today, first of all, I don’t think we’ve come to a place where our educators would really truly benefit. And the last thing that we can afford is a teacher evaluation system to be seen as a ‘hoop jumping’ or ‘less than.’ We have to get this right.”
Currently, teachers are evaluated with a rating on a four-point scale that describes their level of effectiveness: not effective (1), minimally effective (2), emerging effective (3) and effective (4).
“We’ve had [a] recent legislative audit and teacher feedback and feedback from principals: There’s been a lot of angst over that,” said Kami Dupree, educator development specialist for the USBE.
Angst, because according to the audit, principals were using the evaluation system as a “punitive tool” to identify poor-performing teachers and put them on performance improvement plans, rather than as a tool for teacher improvement.
“The new rule was hoping to create a space for a more growth-centered way of thinking about evaluation,” Dupree said.
The proposed rule would keep the four-point rating system but remove the effectiveness labels. Instead, the numbers would correlate with two performance indicators: student outcomes and professional growth.
Those performance indicators are identified in state code as the core purposes of evaluations, Dupree explained.
The scores would be defined like this:
Zero • The teacher did not meet performance expectations.
One • The teacher partially met performance expectations by demonstrating evidence of continued growth, but did not demonstrate evidence of academic impact.
Two • The teacher met performance expectations by demonstrating evidence of academic impact, but did not demonstrate evidence of continued growth.
Three • The teacher met performance expectations by demonstrating evidence of academic impact and continued growth.
Board members argued the proposed rule removes both the language and opportunity for teachers to “exceed expectations.”
“I do think removing the word exceeded is, I don’t know, not a good move,” board member Christina Boggess said. “Some teachers are really great here. They’re really good at what they do. They thrive. They stand out among their peers. Why take away the word ‘exceeded’ from them, as a general rule in a performance evaluation?”
Dupree said there was nothing in the rule that would prevent school districts from establishing those standards.
“We just feel that as a state, our role is to talk about whether teachers are meeting the expectations for employment and for job performance and not to get into the weeds of identifying really great teachers,” Dupree said. “That’s a local decision.”
While a new evaluation system is still being considered, the USBE did approve updates to the Utah Effective Educator Standards, which serve as the “backbone” for teacher evaluations, Dupree explained.
The updates add evaluation criteria for non-teacher roles, which previously were being evaluated under the same standards as teachers.
“What educator evaluation is centered on or linked to or aligned with is what’s in those standards,” Dupree said. “And what has been happening is, you have, say, school counselors or school social workers or school nurses, who are being evaluated based on the way the rule was written on the teaching standards. And, so, as you can imagine, effective teaching is not effective counseling.”
The new rule adds standards for speech-language pathologists, school psychologists, school social workers and other non-teacher roles. The standards refer to corresponding professional organizations. For example, a school psychologist would be evaluated on the standards already outlined by the National Association of School Psychologists.
Should any organization change its set of standards, the USBE would have to approve a rule amendment.
Utah’s Effective Educator Standards were significantly revised last year after not having been updated since 2013.
At that time there were 10 standards, such as learner development, leadership and collaboration; and professional and ethical behavior. Each standard contained different indicators, or things to look for, within the standard – a total of 54.
“That’s a lot to try to evaluate any teacher any teacher on,” Dupree said. “Part of our effort to refresh those last year was an effort to simplify and also to allow some space for some of our schools (that) are ready to move forward with personalizing and competency-based learning.”
There are now just five standards and 20 indicators.
It is not yet known when the USBE will move forward with the proposed evaluation system. While teachers will now be evaluated based on 20 indicators instead of 54, the existing four-point rating scale will not immediately change.
“It does leave us in a world where we’re still placing a judgment on teachers in terms of ‘effective,’” Dupree said. “That rating system will still stay the same.”