District Administration - January 2011 - (Page 52)

What’s the Value in Value-Added? shown by research to improve student learning, such as collaborating to improve instruction.“We have a lot of evidence that what most improves student achievement is teachers working together,” she says. Linking Pay to Achievement Two federal grants are funding new systems to link educator pay to student achievement. The Teacher Incentive Fund has awarded 95 grants since 2006, mainly to districts. The Race to the Top competition awarded $4 billion in grants to 11 states and the District of Columbia in 2010. But the grants can also fund well-rounded, research-based teacher evaluation systems, according to Darling-Hammond. While federal programs don’t encourage that, they don’t discourage it either, she observes. So far, little research exists on the impact of pay-for-performance systems for educators. A three-year study released in September by Vanderbilt University found that bonus pay alone without other supports had no impact on student learning. Hanushek of Stanford doubts that bonus pay would motivate teachers, as “the vast majority are working as hard as they can,” but based on research on other industries, he believes it could attract new people to the teaching profession over time. Several districts that recently began to use value-added data to award bonuses or tenure say they are encouraged by the results so far. In New York City, valueadded assessments have encouraged public from the results of state tests, which cover only core subjects and not art or foreign language, and only certain grade levels. “The noncore teachers feel they’re being discriminated against,” she says. Stevens would like to see the bonus system based instead on the results of a new teacher evaluation the district is creating “A downside is that only 34 percent of teachers are eligible for the maximum bonus.” school principals to deny tenure to a larger percentage of teachers, according to Joanna Cannon, a district accountability administrator. New York first released value-added reports in 2009 and permitted their use for tenure decisions in 2010. Under pressure from the teachers’ union, the state legislature barred the use of student achievement data for teacher evaluation in 2008 but repealed the law in 2010 to make the state eligible for a Race to the Top grant. New York state won the grant in August after the teachers union agreed that students’ state and district test results would count for 40 percent of a teacher’s evaluation by 2012-2013. “Ultimately, tenure decisions will still be up to principals and won’t be based strictly on [value-added] data,” Cannon says. “But this is one valuable tool that we think schools should be using.” Teacher Retention Rises Houston Independent School District adopted a value-added model in 2007 and began awarding annual bonuses of up to $10,300 to teachers based on their most recent value-added score, schoolwide performance and other criteria. Since the program began, teacher retention has steadily increased, especially among bonus winners, according to Assistant Superintendent Carla Stevens. Within two years, the retention rate for awarded teachers rose from 84 percent to 92 percent. Meanwhile, retention of the bottom performers, who received no award, shrank from 13 percent to 2 percent. A downside to the bonus system is that only 34 percent of Houston teachers are eligible for the maximum bonus, Stevens explains. Value-added scores are calculated —Carla Stevens, assistant superintendent, Houston Independent School District using a U.S. Department of Education Teacher Incentive Fund grant, which supports performance-pay plans for teachers and principals in high-need schools. Using Houston’s current evaluation system, principals have rated only 3 percent of teachers unsatisfactory in any domain, she reports Underperformers Identified In 2007, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County (N.C.) Schools began using valueadded data provided by the state as part of its teacher evaluation system. Value-added data allows the district to check how rigorously principals evaluate teachers based on classroom observations, says Superintendent Donald Martin. If the scoring doesn’t align, then the principal and administrator can discuss the situation, Martin explains. Individual value-added ratings can fluctuate and are not always reliable, Martin acknowledges. But a score significantly below average—a “red” rating—signals a principal to look for potential problems and provide support, like in-classroom coaching. “If you have three reds in a row, we’re seeing a [negative] pattern,” he says. Of 1,600 value-added scores calculated last year, 15 percent were rated “green,” or high, 18 percent were red, and only 2 percent were red for a third consecutive year. In September, the district won an incentive fund grant, which will pay for bonuses for high value-added scores. Martin says it’s too early to know if that will lead to higher achievement. “The jury’s out, but we have three years and $20 million to test it,” he says. “We’ll see.” DA Elizabeth Duffrin is a freelance writer in Chicago. District Administration Eighth graders get individual attention from their music teacher at Mineral Springs Middle School in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County (N.C.) Schools. 52 January 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - January 2011

District Administration - January 2011
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Conversations
Crisis Response
Going Mobile
Online Edge
Professional Opinion
K12 Guide to Audio/Visual Solutions
Product Focus
What’s the Value in Value-Added?
The Politicization of Bullying
Holding On to Parent Voices
Tough New Issues Refocus Health Education
New Products
Books

District Administration - January 2011