I met with a dedicated teacher today to discuss an item related to our APPR plan. She was passionate about the inequities she sees in the process (outside our school). She was upset about the recent town hall meetings and the suspension of the meetings by Dr. King.
No matter how we look at the assessments, it still remains high stakes for ELA and Math teachers in my building. They are preparing students for tests based on content we haven't fully digested or "adapted". My teachers do not have enough resources to fully implement lessons as indicated. We barely have enough staff to do what we need to do. Books and resources are long dead casualties of our budget process. Our plan also requires the use of a third party vendor assessment for our local goals. We haven't fully digested or adapted that assessment either. I also can't imagine we will ever accept the notion of six days of high stakes testing for middle schoolers (and elementary students!). The overused image of building the plane in the air still fits.
We went back and forth about what we could control and what we could not and agreed on some major points:
1) Tying teacher evaluation scores to state assessments or BOCES/regional assessments is not fair. In the old days, Rick LaVoie defined fairness as everyone getting what he/she needed and not the same thing. This one size fits all approach to teacher evaluations (and principals) is not fair.
2) Giving a test without having any data to analyze afterwards is insane. This simply does not match anything we have been coaching teachers in our work with the TED Rubric/Teaching Standards. We gave the test. Teacher has a growth score. Student earned a number. That's about all we have right now.(Peter DeWitt captured this better than I have in his recent post.).
3) The change in teacher observation was incredible for principal and teachers alike! Teachers stretched, grew and reflected like never before last year. Frequent observations with targeted feedback make a difference!
4) No one score should represent anyone. The score and labels become more important than the process or evolution. We begin to define ourselves by that HEDI label yet that is not what matters. Students and achievement are what matters.
5) There are a million things we do right in our building that are not captured in growth scores. This process does not give us "credit" for the social emotional needs we meet on a daily basis, for increasing opportunities for students with disabilities (in fact, I would argue it makes it harder to keep high standards), or other areas.
I won't belabor the list as I know my school is in good company. My colleagues, Vicki Day and Tony Sinanis feel the same way and help keep my perspective in check. We are three principals incredibly proud to lead our schools. We work with and for great people and families. And sometimes, the bravest thing we do is get up and head right back into school to juggle the needs and initiatives that are thrown at us.
I ended the meeting explaining we needed to ride two trains at the same time. The first train is where we focus on student achievement and creating the best, well-rounded, education and environment we can for our students. The second train is the one we ride politically. We have to be brave enough to state our concerns, in a professional way, to those we report to and above. Someone needs to call "all-y, all-y in come free". It's time for a restart.
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