MEDIA RELEASE

The state Board of Education has unanimously approved three policies related to performance evaluation systems for teachers and principals.

These policies support systems that emphasize educator effectiveness through professional development and compensation tied to job performance.

Beginning in school year 2013-14, a major component of Hawaii’s educator evaluations will be student learning and growth.

“These policies reflect the Board’s commitment to ensure the DOE puts in place an evaluation system that is fair, consistent and accurately reflects the performance of our employees and is based upon both clear professional and educational achievement objectives. Hawaii has outstanding educators and a proper functioning evaluation system is essential to ensure the hard work and dedication of our professionals is recognized, encouraged and rewarded and that we are all working together towards clear student achievement objectives” BOE chairman Don Horner.

“Today’s Board decisions provide clear direction and fully promote our efforts to implement a method of measuring and supporting the performance of our teachers and principals to transform public education for Hawaii’s students,” said Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi. “We want to furnish our educators with timely feedback on their impact on students to improve academic learning, eliminate achievement gaps, and most importantly, ensure all of our high school graduates are ready for college or careers.”

Since its first subject meeting in February, the Board has modified the policies and considered input from the Hawaii Government Employees Association and the Hawaii State Teachers Association.

BOE Policies 2055 (Teacher and Principal Performance Evaluation), 5100 (Recruitment, Employment, Retention, and Termination), and 5200 (Compensation and Classification Policy) direct the DOE to implement evaluation systems that cultivate and nurture highly effective educators.

Both evaluation systems remain subject to due process provisions of the respective collective bargaining agreements, including the grievance procedures and other articles.

The DOE has reached a memorandum of understanding with the Hawaii Government Employees Association to develop a new evaluation system for principals effective school year 2012-13.

Currently, the DOE is piloting its teacher evaluation program in 18 schools in the Zones of School Innovation (Nanakuli-Waianae and Ka‘u-Keaau-Pahoa complex areas). It will expand the pilot next school year by adding 63 schools.

Cultivating, rewarding, and leveraging effective teaching and leading is a key component of Hawaii’s $75 million Race to the Top plan and the DOE’s Strategic Plan.

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DOE expands teacher evaluation pilot program

MEDIA RELEASE

The state Department of Education announces the expansion of its teacher evaluation pilot program for the 2012-13 school year.

The DOE is currently piloting the program in 18 schools in the Zones of School Innovation (Nanakuli-Waianae and Ka‘u-Keaau-Pahoa complex areas). The DOE is adding 63 schools that volunteered to join the pilot program, bringing the total number of schools to 81 in the next school year.

The pilot program will continue to devise – with input from teachers, principals and administrators – a new teacher evaluation system that emphasizes effectiveness. The proposed evaluation system includes four research-based tools, all geared to generate greater feedback to support teachers.

This evaluation system would use:

* A common observational process adapted from Charlotte Danielson’s well-recognized instructional model

* A student survey, which offers detailed feedback on how each teacher’s instruction is perceived by the students in their classroom

* A model that measures student academic growth relative to their peers with similar academic history (this measure is not the federal requirement of proficiency, but rather measuring where students began at the start of the year, and the growth they demonstrated over the course of the year)

* Student learning objectives, using a rigorous process where teachers set planned goals, based on the content standards, for what students will learn over a given time period. (The objectives would be driven by a thorough review of available data reflecting students’ baseline skills, and reflect collaboration and consultation with colleagues and administrators).

The state received $75 million in federal Race to the Top funding to pursue a number of ambitious education reforms in August 2010. The State’s Race to the Top application committed to expand the pilot program by an additional 40 schools in the 2012-13.

“We are pleased to announce that we have exceeded our expectations and have an additional 63 schools from five complex areas ready to join the pilot program,” Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said. “The leaders in these complex areas see this new system as a major step toward achieving the State’s goal of preparing all students for college or a career, upon graduation.”

The complex areas and schools participating in the pilot program will test the components of the new system, and provide critical feedback on how to refine and improve it prior to statewide implementation in the 2013-14 school year.

For more information about Hawaii’s new teacher evaluation pilot program, visit: hawaiidoereform.org/Teachers-and-Leaders