Last updated on 2012.01.29
A key component of Governor Daugaard's education reform plan is the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching. Governor Daugaard plans to spend millions to train educators in the Danielson framework, then require school districts statewide to use that framework in evaluating teachers. That framework will also serve as a major basis for deciding which one out of five teachers in each district merit the Governor's $5,000 bonuses.
So how does Danielson feel about the use of her framework to make teacher pay decisions? She doesn't say "No way!" but she's not exactly sanguine about the prospect:
RH: In places like DC and Florida, policymakers have required the use of observational evaluations to help make decisions about job security and compensation. What's your take on such efforts? Do you have suggestions or cautions that apply?
CD: My experience with those issues is mixed. School districts have an absolute obligation to ensure quality teaching. The question is what counts as evidence, and how do you attribute evidence to the teacher. That's why the assessment of teacher practices, we'll always have to have that. Partly because it gives you diagnostic information--if things aren't going well, if kids aren't learning, then why not? But the net result is you have to have student learning.
On the question of observation and if it's productive, how high are the stakes if a rating is given? A lot of the policy types, they want a number. And this stuff doesn't lend itself to numbers. But the minute a teacher's performance rating is a high-stakes matter, people are going to do whatever they have to do to be rated highly. And the things you have to do to be rated highly are exactly the opposite of things you'd do if you wanted to learn--you wouldn't try anything new, you would be protective, you would be legalistic about the ratings, and you'd argue. None of that makes you open to improving your teaching. So my advice is to only make it high-stakes where you have to. If someone is on the edge of needing remediation, then that is high-stakes and you should use it. But if your main purpose is to say these 80 percent of our teachers are performing pretty well, so let's use this process to get better, that's a very different way of thinking [emphasis mine; Rick Hess, interview with Charlotte Danielson, Education Week: Straight Up, 2011.06.23].
If I am reading Danielson correctly, she thinks high-stakes evaluations turn her framework into a counter-productive game. She would rather see her framework used to make all teachers even better. And that's what we all want, right?
Update 2012.01.29 20:45 MST: Danielson also offers this caution about merit pay in her notes to a 2008 presentation:
This is the fundamental question: is it worth it? I don't mean to suggest, by asking this question, that educators should not try to implement performance-based compensation systems. But my reading of the literature suggests that the jury is still out. Therefore, if you are contemplating a move to a performance-based pay system, with individual awards, I would urge you to enter into it with your eyes wide open, with attention to the assessment as well as the political issues involved.
I don't want to leave the wrong impression; I am not opposed to the concept of performance-based pay; it has considerable common-sense appeal. However, I have not yet seen a well-designed system, one which avoids the pitfalls and dangers. And since many places considering a move in this direction think they might use the framework for teaching, I have found myself pulled into these discussions [Charlotte Danielson, notes, "Designing a System of Performance-Based Pay," presentation via Morning Bell, updated 2008, posted 2009.03.05].
"She would rather see her framework used to make all teachers even better. And that’s what we all want, right?"
Better at what Cory...the international based Common Core Standards? Then that is not what I want, and that is the goal of the governor's so-called free-market merit plan.
She and I are in agreement. Excessive reliance on objective standards (hard measurables) is not ideal. The best pay for performance is highly subjective.
Unfortunately, the educations establishments reaction saying the system will be "unfair" or "arbitrary" forces and educations inherent reliance on objective measures (ie. testing) requires the Governor's first salvo to be highly objective.
This said, I agree with the Governor beyond the above. The institution of pay for performance in a culture where it has not been used MUST begin with objective measures to get "buy-in" within the organization. After awhile, the criteria will naturally drift to the ideal (heavy reliance on subjective criteria).
Before you get all hot and bothered in favor of subjective evaluations, you might want to read this.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/dec/22/how-dispel-your-illusions/
Group rewards work. If the building's or district's scores improve or reach some pre-determined target all teachers get rewarded or all don't. That works, we have been doing it for 6 years. Merit pay on an individual basis doesn't work in education. Years ago I attended a session put on by Allen Odden from the University of Wisconsin. He told the Gov Janklow that performance pay in SD won't work until you get the base pay up.
You are absolutely right, John. Until we raise the overall level of pay for all of education, we will never get out of first gear.
Everyone needs to up their game. A wise man once told me that we can all give 10% more. We can innovate. We can challenge. We can do better. We can care.
And you know I think that's an empty trope, Michael. We do not all have infinite capacity to always give 10% more effort.
Too bad teachers aren't rallying to be involved in this discussion. Haven't heard a word from sdea. Haven't see teachers out in force at cracker barrels.
No doubt, John! Teachers definitely need to hit the crackerbarrels in force I've got to pick my wife up at the airport today, but I'll be crackerbarreling next weekend!
SDEA did issue a statement opposing the governor's plan right away.
The focus of the education discussion is all wrong. The teachers are a mere 180 day snap shot of impact and effect on a single student. The focus must be on school boards, superintendents, and principals who are responsible for setting the conditions, providing the resources, providing direction, and monitoring the processes, methods, and results of teachers and students. Cory began showing through his discussion of Finland's successes that their results are borne through institutional systemic processes and procedures that are begin and are set far from the classroom. Virtually no superintendents or principals in South Dakota are held accountable for their teachers or students performance. Virtually none. Hold the superintendents and principals responsible (and the school boards), and only then will we experience reversals of the 40 year academic stagnation.
Good point, John: not a word has been said about offering the top 20% of administrators bonuses, or somehow recognizing and incentivizing excellence in policymaking by school boards.
Troy, I get nervous about any policy justification that depends on "natural drift" toward the right solution.
Cory, you can't tell me that everyone is operating at peak efficiency. The goal in life is to strive forward and not settle for the mediocre. Every teacher can do a better job just the same as everyone else. I think a 10% improvement is very little to ask for. That 10% might mean raising test scores or raising graduation rates for students. It might mean not giving up on students. It might mean coming to work with a better attitude.
All I hear on this blog is how we need to raise salaries and everything will be fine. Unfortunately that totally ignores the thing that could improve schools the quickest: an adjustment on the teachers that are doing a bad job.
And you can't tell me everyone isn't. Your trope is empty.
And no, Mike, everything won't be fine if we just raise salaries. But getting all South Dakota teachers a decent competitive wage would do some economic justice and help us recruit and keep good teachers.
The person that doesn't strive to grow and do better in their job should be fired. I don't care if you are a teacher or governor.
...but the issue here is not Mike's tropes, but the fact that the author of the framework Governor Daugaard wants to use to evaluate teachers finds merit bonuses and similar high-stakes evaluations problematic and perhaps counterproductive to the goals of the framework. We can use the framework to help all teachers improve. It is possible some teachers are putting their best effort into less-than-effective strategies. But do you really think all teachers are simply holding back their full effort?
The issue here is that the governor is going to waste taxpayers' money on merit pay, testing and evaluations that could be much better spent on raising all teacher's salaries.
There is a very vocal group that considers the teaching profession as a whole an otiose expense rather than a necessary investment. You can read the comments section of big newspapers to see their extreme viewpoints. Some are quite scary.
Douglas's link on subjective judgment includes a fascinating story about a British statistician in WW2 finding no correlation between experience and the chances of bomber crew survival. One officer recommended getting rid of the guns on bombers so the planes could fly higher and faster to avoid German flak:
"The demonstration that experience had no effect on losses should have given powerful support to Cochrane’s idea of ripping out the gun turrets. But nothing of the kind happened. As Kahneman found out later, the illusion of validity does not disappear just because facts prove it to be false. Everyone at Bomber Command, from the commander in chief to the flying crews, continued to believe in the illusion. The crews continued to die, experienced and inexperienced alike, until Germany was overrun and the war finally ended."
Uff da: extrapolating, even when we show the evidence that merit pay doesn't work, we can expect Governor Daugaard and others to cling to their intuitive belief in it. I wonder what we can do to strip out the state mandates that weigh down schools and let teachers fly higher and faster.
Having worked on the SDDOE Teacher Standards work group, I confess to being very frustrated with the Gov. and Sec. Schopp's perversion of Danielson's Framework and its use to determine merit pay. Nowhere in the discussions was there any talk or mention of using the framework and standardized test scores to award monetary bonuses to a select number of teachers. This is indeed a counterproductive use of a very valid model for teachers to use when looking to refine and enhance their practice.
Wait, Sue, are you saying that Gov. Daugaard didn't really respect and listen to educators the way he said he would before deciding what actions to dictate to school districts? How can that be?