Wisconsin State Statutes Protect Underperforming Teachers

Will Wisconsin qualify for 'Race to the Top' stimulus funds? By Erin Richards of the Journal Sentinel

President Barack Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Friday unveiled proposed application guidelines for a $4.35 billion pool of school reform funds that will be awarded to states with innovative proposals for improving teaching and learning.

But Wisconsin may be ineligible for the money because of a state law that prohibits using student test scores to evaluate teacher performance.

Speaking Friday, Duncan was firm on the issue, saying states that prohibit linking data on student achievement or growth to principal and teacher evaluations would be ineligible for reform dollars until they changed their laws.

According to Chapter 118.30(2)(c) of the Wisconsin State Statutes, "the results of examinations to pupils enrolled in public schools, including charter schools, may not be used to evaluate teacher performance, to discharge, suspend or formally discipline a teacher, or as the reason for the nonrenewal of a teacher's contract."

Duncan told the Journal Sentinel on Friday that he didn't know the specifics of Wisconsin's law, but that a "sense of urgency" should compel states to make legislative changes if existing laws would hamper their chances of receiving funds.

In an earlier New York Times interview, Duncan was more direct, calling Wisconsin's law "simply ridiculous."

The new "Race to the Top Fund," which is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aims to reward states that submit proposals in key areas supported by the new administration, such as how to systematically raise academic standards, better use data to track student growth and teacher effectiveness, and weed out poor educators from good ones.

Duncan said states rendered ineligible or not chosen as recipients in the first round of funding could apply for the second round of funds.

The proposed guidelines of Race to the Top specify that applications will be accepted in late 2009 and then again in spring 2010.

By Friday afternoon, state Sen. Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) and Rep. Brett Davis (R-Oregon) had announced plans to introduce legislation that would change Chapter 118.30(2)(c) to eliminate the prohibition on using state testing in teacher evaluations.

The legislators said they hoped the change could make Wisconsin eligible for up to $612 million in Race to the Top funds.

"Wisconsin's statutory barriers between student achievement data and teachers performance is now being ridiculed across the country," Hopper said in a news release. "We must change these laws to make Wisconsin public schools competitive with other states in innovative student achievement initiatives."

Internet discussion among education reporters around the country Friday concluded that Nevada and California also had similar state laws that could render them ineligible for Race to the Top.

New York was called out by Duncan recently as a state that also had a "firewall" between linking student and teacher data.

But according to Gov. Jim Doyle's office, the Wisconsin statute is not at odds with the state's Race to the Top eligibility.

"Our reading of the current law is that it only prohibits the use of the WKCE (Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination) in evaluating teachers, and that other student assessments may be used to evaluate teachers," said Lee Sensenbrenner, a spokesman for Doyle's office.

Sensenbrenner said the governor will be putting together a comprehensive application for the Race to the Top competition that puts the state in a position to succeed.

As part of that, he said, the state would "review the existing law to see if any changes need to be made to strengthen our competitive position."

In Milwaukee Public Schools, Superintendent William Andrekopoulos agreed that the governor and Legislature needed to find a way to change the law if it's going to impede Wisconsin's chances of competing for funds.

In general, he said, too much accountability in Milwaukee and elsewhere has been focused on whether educators follow the processes set out for them and not on whether students actually succeed.

But, he said, it's important that the right tools be used for holding educators accountable.

Simply using state test scores is not good enough. Other things, such as results of more frequent classroom-level assessments, need to be used, Andrekopoulos added.

Barrett sees message Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, chairman of the newly formed MPS Improvement and Innovation Council, said Duncan was sending Wisconsin a powerful message on what it needs to do to seek the funds. One of the council's tasks is to figure out how to best position the district for Race to the Top funding.

"I want us to be placed in a position where we can compete for these funds," Barrett said. "The worst-case scenario is we're not even allowed into the starting blocks."

Because the Race to the Top guidelines are still in draft form, teachers unions are likely to fight the provisions.

Unions watchful In a news release Friday, the leader of the American Federation of Teachers said the union would withholdjudgment until the final regulations are issued, after a 30-day comment period for the public. The education department is expected to make the rules final in October.

"Will we agree to everything?" asked AFT president Randi Weingarten. "I doubt it. But hopefully we will agree that teacher evaluations must be improved the right way. We need meaningful, fair and multiple measures for supporting and evaluating teachers."

I wonder if there are other ways to measure teacher performance outside of test results of students? I don't think it is fair to a good teacher to teach in a bad school and then be judged as a bad teacher because the students in the bad school aren't exactly willing participants in the learning process.

Likewise, you can put a mediocre (or even a bad) teacher in a good school and most likely the standardized tests will show the teacher to be "good."

I prefer testing teachers for competency in their subjects instead.

I teach in Texas. This coming school year, somewhere between half and three-fourths of my students will be of the very academically successful type. 95% of them will pass the state-mandated test. I will smell like a rose if you look at my testing outcomes. [They have involved parents and/or they have that internal will to succeed, etc.]
Last year, I had “regular” students— some very bright but disinterested, some bright, some not-so-bright, some receiving special services. There were some parents who were involved— if they could handle the issue via phone or email. [Some parents give the school made up phone numbers so that you can’t contact them. Some parents have their cell phones set up to reject all incoming calls. Guess how their children are doing in school?] Some of these students had internal motivation to succeed. A significant number were angry and rebellious at being in school, at having to work. Some thought they deserved a passing grade for just showing up in class. I had 6-8 that would skip class. I had another 4-6 who lived to disrupt class. And, let me tell you, one girl was absolutely professional at disrupting loudly and repeatedly. Send her to the office with a referral, and the principal sends her back to class. While she’s gone, class behavior improves. She returns, and all learning stops.
Now I ask you— is it fair to hold me responsible for the test performance of students A) who prefer to fail everything for their own personal reasons, B) who live to create a show for their peers (but I can’t get them removed from the classroom), C) who cannot learn because of the student(s) in item B? How is it that their choices should be allowed to reflect on me as a teacher?

I have just retired from 24 years of teaching in the public schools in Missouri. Missouri also evaluates teachers performance based on the test performance of students. As a good teacher (district and state awards and 3 entries in Who's Who Among America's Teachers) I can tell you even good teachers will not always have a class that scores highly. You are so right that the makeup of a class makes all the difference in test scores. Each year my class held an abnormally high number of behaviorally challenged students because I was told I was “so good with these kinds of kids.” How can I be compared with other teachers that didn't do so well with “these kinds of kids” and didn't have the numbers of them that I did?
I feel that rewarding teachers for their student's outcome on standardized tests will only work when students and classrooms are “standardized.”

It is true that you don’t want to rank the teacher based on the crumbling foundation built by all those that came before. BUT, when you entrance then exit test the teacher’s students and calculate the delta, you have a better measure of teacher performance. Plus you can discount the likely limited achievement of those with poor entrance scores to mitigate the legacy penalty.

BUT, when you entrance then exit test the teacher’s students and calculate the delta, you have a better measure of teacher performance.

But this doesn't address the fundamental cultural problem present in many bad schools. In most inner city schools, most students simply do not want to learn and tend to have more disciplinary problems that get in the way of any actual instruction. You could have the world's best teacher trying to work in such an environment and barring some miracle, or a change in cultural mindset, there won't be an overall change in test scores.

IMO, the only solution to dealing with bad schools is to make it easier for the students who do want to learn to leave them. Or, make it easier to kick out the disruptive students who do not want to learn so that the remaining students can learn in peace.

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