Kathleen deLaski, (foreground), of StudentsFirst, testifies before the Senate Education Committee on the need for a statewide teacher evaluation system.

All were in agreement: the need for an effective teacher evaluation system is a priority issue for Pennsylvania’s schools.

That message was hammered home again and again by legislators and those who testified at a Senate Education Committee hearing to gather feedback on a teacher evaluation system. A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pilot initiative grant, which is being administered by Team Pennsylvania Foundation, is designed to inform statewide evaluation policy, tools and processes.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, told PDE officials that a teacher evaluation system is long overdue and charged the department with developing a model that will ensure Pennsylvania has the best teachers in the nation.

“Move forward, make our standards rigorous and put Pennsylvania at the top,” Piccola said to education department officials.

Team PA submitted testimony to the committee, which was entered as part of the official record. The Foundation has been at the forefront of the teacher evaluation system initiative, which promises to revolutionize how teachers and principals are evaluated and enhance the learning process for all school students in Pennsylvania.

Matt Zieger, Team PA’s President & CEO, wrote that the Foundation has been involved in the teacher/principal evaluation system initiative over the past year because its private sector companies believe it is in the best interest of all Pennsylvanians.

“Great teachers and education leaders are critical to advancing student learning. All children deserve to be educated by outstanding teachers and good schools require exceptional leaders,” Zieger said. “To achieve this goal schools must build a more performance-based culture. This includes a quality evaluation system to recognize outstanding teacher performance while helping those who need to improve.”

Zieger said the push for the initiative is reflective of national data demonstrating the importance of having quality teachers in the classroom.

“Research has shown the number one indicator of student success is the teacher in the classroom,” Zieger said. “Pennsylvania owes it to our students, their parents, taxpayers and business owners to develop an evaluation system that fairly and honestly reviews teacher performance. Such a system will help ensure our children are prepared to either continue their education beyond graduation or enter the workforce.”

Zieger pointed out that the best teachers approach their work like business executives.

“A quality evaluation system, like in every business, can be instrumental in making a full range of district human capital decisions,” Zieger said. “These can directly improve and support teacher effectiveness, and thereby a student’s achievement and success. Such a system can provide a foundation that enables districts to better attract and retain the best candidates.”

Two other organizations, StudentsFirst, of Washington, D.C., and Teach For America of Philadelphia, also called for a teacher evaluation system for the commonwealth.

Kathleen deLaski, National Engagement Director, StudentsFirst, said teacher quality is the most important lever for school reform, noting that students with highly effective teachers learn three times as much as those with ineffective teachers.

“Research tells us that teachers are the most powerful school-based influence on student achievement in our classrooms, and most of us would be hard pressed to imagine where our own lives would be without their influence,” deLaski said. “Identifying and retaining highly effective teachers must be the primary objective of a school system seeking to educate the children of Pennsylvania, and teacher evaluation systems based primarily on objective student achievement data allow states and districts to do just that.”

deLaski said students who receive as little as one or two years of ineffective teaching makes it nearly impossible for them to keep up academically with their peers.

As part of her testimony, deLaski made numerous recommendations to the committee to raise teacher accountability and reward success.

“Pennsylvania requires districts use a state-provided, uniform rating form to evaluate teachers and we support that requirement,” deLaski said. “However, the state does not require that any objective evidence of student learning be included, severely limiting the effectiveness of this evaluation system.”

deLaski noted PA schools are “taking a positive step” and noted that a number of states are passing teacher evaluation laws and PA has an opportunity to join these states to  be on the leading edge of ensuring all students have an effective teacher at the front of the classroom.

“As you well know, the nuts and bolts of this are not sexy, yet families are actively and vocally digging into the most difficult problems in education that are causing the U.S. to fall from the top third among developed countries to the bottom third,” DeLaski said. “We are finally waking up and saying,’ we cannot ignore this. We cannot mortgage our children’s futures because we are being asked to protect a broken status quo’.”

Mike Wang, Vice President, Growth Strategy & Execution, Teach For America, said studies repeatedly show that effective teaching is the key determinant in student outcomes – especially for those students who defy the socio-economic odds.

“The evidence is clear that teaching is one of the most important factors in student achievement, and that improving teacher effectiveness can raise overall student achievement levels,” Wang said.

Carolyn Dumaresq, (center), PA Department of Education, highlights PDE's proposed teacher and principal evaluation system for members of the Senate Education Committee.

Carolyn Dumaresq, Deputy Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, PDE, said the department just released data for the 2009-10 school year showing that 99.2 percent of all rated teachers and principals received a “satisfactory” rating.

Only 0.6 and 0.7 percent of rated teachers and principals respectively, were categorized as “Unsatisfactory” in these evaluations.

“We believe that these results show the need to have a broad, multi-measure evaluation system to measure performance and effectiveness,” Dumaresq said. “We will be better able to gauge our educators’ levels of performance and also allow them opportunities for development or guidance with an effective evaluation system in place.”

Dumaresq said there are two main strands department officials are concentrating on as part of a teacher evaluation system in PA.

The first strand has involved the development of new evaluation models focused on practices of teachers and principals that are proven to increase student achievement. The second strand involves the correlation of these practices to value-added models to determine what practices most closely align to high achievement of their students.

Dumaresq said the department has set four elements for its evaluation system: planning and preparation; classroom environment; teacher instruction; and professional responsibilities. She added the department plans to have results back from the four pilot school districts by this fall and a roll out statewide as early as the 2012-13 school year. The program would have multiple measures, including student test scores, count for 50 percent of a teacher and principal’s evaluation.