Abstract
Like many states, Minnesota is deep into the process of developing and implementing a mandatory teacher evaluation and professional development program. As a result of state legislation passed in 2011 and a desire to meet the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act, the state’s education community has been working diligently to meet the fall 2014 deadline when the law takes its full effect.
Minnesota has long embraced and honored its tradition of local control when it comes to all things related to schools and education. This new law, commonly referred to as the “teacher development and evaluation law,” provides the opportunity for districts to develop and ratify their own evaluation processes, use the recently developed state model, or create a mutually agreed upon hybrid using locally developed components and parts of the state model. The goal of the legislation is to improve teachers’ knowledge and skills and effect student learning.
The implementation and development of this process comes with myriad questions and concerns: What will the components of the system include? If student data are to be used, what data, and how can we guarantee that they are reflective of teaching practice rather than the plethora of other factors that impact learning? Where is the money to support implementation of this plan? How will the evaluations be used to improve teaching? Will probationary teachers be assessed differently than experienced educators? How effective and useful is the new evaluation model developed by the state’s department of education? And, most important, how will this system affect the work of music educators across the state?
Unpacking the Law
While many of those questions are likely to remain unanswered until the law takes its full effect in 2014, many groups, such as Education Minnesota (the state teachers union), the Minnesota Department of Education, local school district unions, state administrators’ organizations, the Minnesota Music Educators Association (MMEA), and several other teacher-based organizations, are taking the time to understand the law and offer advice to their constituency. The good news is that it seems that all these groups are working in tandem to help one another through the process. Many of the groups are providing regular updates and commentary that can easily be found on websites and in publications. This information is helping educate all stakeholders about the law and its components.
With a recent report suggesting that 77 percent of the state’s districts already have some sort of teacher evaluation process in place, many schools are spending their time comparing and adapting their existing model to the new legislation. And with several different pilot programs already in process across the state, feedback about issues and concerns related to the law should be provided in a timely way to decrease major difficulties in the coming school year. Again, it appears that the state’s education community is enjoying a very collaborative effort in meeting the requirements established in the statutes.
The language of the new law officially falls under Minnesota Statutes 122A.40 and 122.41, which are the guidelines that govern the employment of educators in the state. (The full text of the law can be found at http://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=122A.40, subdivision 8, and http://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=122A.41, subdivision 5.) In essence, the law requires a formal review (a summative evaluation) of every educator over a three-year cycle that includes the establishing of an individual growth and professional development plan based on the self and peer reviews of each teacher’s practice against the standards of effective teaching practice, the evaluation of student engagement, and the measurement of the achievement of student learning goals. For those interested in reading more about the law, Education Minnesota has produced a document that outlines the entire statute quite well, located at http://www.educationminnesota.org/issues/eval.aspx.
The Minnesota law also clarifies a few things that have been raised as concerns in other settings. Teachers who do not meet expectations are given the opportunity to improve through prescribed process, but those who are not making adequate process will be disciplined. And of particular interest to those in music education, the law does speak to the use of value-added data in the evaluation process. For grade levels and subject areas where value-added data (typically standardized test scores in math or reading) are not available, districts must use district-/teacher-developed measurements to determine student growth.
One aspect of the law that has garnered widespread support is the well-defined connection between the evaluative portion of the law and the importance of creating an individualized process of professional development that promotes learning and growth in a collaborative and supportive environment. That plan should include very specific goals for each teacher and list the strategies, resources, and experiences needed to meet those goals. In addition, the law provides options for the creation of mentoring and induction programs to support new educators in developing their skills more quickly. This requirement has also been hailed as a positive, and it should help to alleviate some of the common stresses of beginning teachers.
The State Evaluation Model
As is the case in other states, the evaluation portion of this law is the biggest concern for music educators and our colleagues in every other discipline. With that in mind, the Minnesota Department of Education established a Teacher Evaluation Work Group that was tasked with creating and publishing a model that complies with the state’s legislation. The group—which includes an active music educator!—has been working on various facets of the process for more than three years. The entire outline of its work and the various documents it has produced to date (including handbooks, rubrics, guiding questions, and meeting summaries) can be found at http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/Welcome/AdvBCT/TeacEvalWorkGrp/.
The model established by the state of Minnesota is called “The Collaboration, Growth, and Evaluation Model.” It seeks to enhance teaching and learning within the frame of a district’s goals and objectives by examining three facets of a teacher’s work: teacher practice, student learning and achievement, and student engagement. The existing model (found at the website mentioned earlier) defines these components and their weighting and provides exemplars of rubrics and processes that can be used to determine an educator’s composite rating. The state’s model is broken down as follows:
45 percent of the rating;
Defined by the domains of planning, instruction, environment, and professionalism (with each domain having specific components and indicators;
Measured by peer/self-reflection using rubrics drawn from performance standards for teacher practice and evidence gathered from several “points of contact” (or, in other words, observations that include a summative formal observation from a trained evaluator).
20 percent of the rating;
Defined as an “organizing framework for examining a student’s commitment to and involvement in learning, which includes academic, behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions. It is influenced by the context of family, peers, community, and school. Within the classroom, a teacher can influence student engagement through relationships with students and the relevance and rigor of instruction” (p. 6);
Measured by a student survey (15 percent) and evidence gathered during the points of contact and self/peer reflections (5 percent).
35 percent of the rating;
Defined as student outcomes measured by assessments with “high levels of confidence and commonality” (p. 4);
Measured according to a teacher’s assignment through “combinations of value-added data (when available), class student learning goals, target need student learning goal results, and shared performance goal results” (p. 4).
While educators have questions about various aspects of this model (Who will do the observations? Will the observation form be based on the Danielson framework or some other model? What will the student survey include, and will it be the same for all grade levels?), the biggest concern is the component related to the measurement of student learning. In Minnesota, student achievement in nontested areas is being measured using a teacher-determined “student learning goal,” or SLG. The goals are to be ambitious yet attainable and broad enough to cover skills or learning important to the discipline yet narrow enough to be measurable. The state model outlines this in great detail and specifies the information that educators should share about their work with their students. In my opinion, the SLG process is a means to formally present what highly effective teachers are already doing in their classrooms.
Impact on Music Educators
For its part, the MMEA has been carefully monitoring and openly discussing the new system over the past several years. The MMEA established a task force of music educators and began to develop a position within a few months of the approval of the legislation. On the basis of what it has been learning, the organization is doing several things to assist and educate its membership about the latest news and its potential impact upon the profession.
The MMEA has decided to focus a large part of its 2014 state conference on the topic of measuring student learning in music and further defining SLGs as they pertain to our discipline. Special sessions, keynote speakers, and a preconference workshop are being planned as a means to further educate members and provide an opportunity for them to consider their roles in the process. In addition, the spring issue of MMEA’s Interval will focus on the topic with articles and research intended to provide a snapshot of how the law is having an impact on music educators across the state. In addition, the organization is contemplating the development of a repository of best practices that could provide additional models for music educators.
As the teacher evaluation process continues to unveil itself in Minnesota, music teachers are sharing their experiences with one another. Some are reporting that their professional learning communities and music departments have been given the time and space to develop observation forms and review student work. Some music teachers in smaller districts have offered that consortiums are being formed between schools to help facilitate the peer and administrative observation portion of the new law. And some of the professional development components are being accomplished using Skype and other technology. While that is happening in some places, other music educators report that little change in existing practices or, for that matter, very little discussion is happening on the topic at all.
For me, evaluation and assessment should always be about the opportunity for reflection and the consideration of growth and change in our teaching practice and the learning happening in our classrooms. For now, it seems like the Minnesota system supports that contention, and it is being implemented in that same spirit.
New NAfME Evaluation Publications in the NAfME Store
These three-part Workbooks offer teachers, peer evaluators, and administrators structure, guidelines, and examples for professional evaluations of music teachers. For each Workbook, an Instruction Manual describes the overall process, an eight-page summary section helps administrators and others choose the most important criteria for evaluation of music professionals, and separate worksheets on areas ranging from content knowledge to professional development offer specific rubrics that mirror the Danielson and other evaluation systems. Both current editions also offer a comparison to major evaluation structures used in the United States today. The Ensembles Workbook contains sample audition forms for groups such as band, orchestra, choir, jazz band, and show choir.
Order them from the NAfME Store by visiting nafme.org and choosing “Store” on the top banner.