EdVocate West Blog
Effective Teachers
The single most important school-based factor in improving student academic performance is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Effective teachers and school leaders not only raise achievement, but they also have the potential to close long-standing achievement gaps for the Latino and African-American students who are nearly 60 percent of our state’s student population. Research makes this clear: students who have a series of strong teachers will soar academically, while those who have weak teachers simply fall further and further behind. However, without a robust evaluation system that emphasizes the impact of a teacher in improving student performance, it is impossible to ensure our highest-need students have access to effective teachers. It is also impossible to identify those teachers who are ineffective at their job.
California needs to strengthen its policies regarding teacher evaluation and ensure school districts use the results of evaluations when making high-stakes staffing decisions, with a focus on ensuring that the highestneed students have access to the best teachers.
Our Recommendations:
1. Overhaul the Teacher and School Leader Evaluation Process. Current evaluation systems do a poor job of measuring teacher and principal quality, making it difficult to spot top performers or identify those who are struggling and in need of support. School districts must develop and implement robust teacher and principal evaluation systems to assess performance. These systems should use multiple measures to evaluate effectiveness, with at least 50 percent based on student academic performance.
Click here for The Education Trust-West's detailed policy recommendations regarding teacher evaluation.
2. Make Staffing Decisions Based on Effectivenes, Not Seniority. School districts must have the flexibility to assign, reassign, layoff, and transfer teachers and administrators based on their effectiveness, school need, and subject-matter needs - without regard to years of service. This recommendation includes repealing “last-hired, first-fired” laws. California is just one of 12 states that requires school districts to use seniority as the primary criterion when making teacher layoff decisions. It is time for California to repeal this dated, bureaucratic, and harmful state mandate, replacing it with a broader law that ensures that other factors, including employee performance, are used when making tough staffing decisions.
3. Protect High-Poverty Schools from the Disproportionate Impact of Layoffs. Until all layoff decisions can be made on the basis of teacher quality (as measured by evaluations that include student performance data), school districts must be given the explicit flexibility to deviate from the process of seniority-based layoffs. Our research has shown that the state’s reduction in force process and the resulting staff churn can result in a disproportionate impact on high-poverty schools. To mitigate potential negative impacts, schools must also be allowed to use existing evaluation data when making layoff decisions. And principals and school communities must also be provided with additional authority to protect their students and instructional programs from involuntary transfers.
4. Extend the Reduction in force Deadline. District leaders must currently make reduction in force decisions early in the year, before accurate financial and budgetary data is available. As a result, many more notices are issued than are necessary. California should extend the March 15 notice date so that district leaders can make more accurate layoff estimates and avoid the damage caused by over-noticing.
5. Collect and Report Teacher Layoff Data. The state should collect and share data on teacher dismissals, by school and by district, so that policymakers and local communities have accurate data to monitor and address reduction in force patterns.
alifornia has a critical problem: Too many low-income and minority students are stuck in low-performing schools where they are denied equal access to the educational opportunities they need to succeed in college and a career.
