Leadership Matters - October 2014

Elements of the state student growth default plan

then the evaluation plan shall require that at least two Type III assessments be used.  The Part 50 Rules require that a type of assessment must be "identified" by the PERA Joint Committee. ISBE has defined identified to mean two different things: 1) there are no assessments available, thus for the teacher(s) there is no assessment to identify or 2) identified = agreed upon. There may be assessments available, but the joint committee cannot come to agreement.  How will a PERA Joint Committee determine the type of assessment? The first thing the committee should do is complete an inventory by category of teacher, of what Type I, II and III assessments the district is presently using. The committee will then need to decide on what Types each category of teacher will be responsible to use. If the committee cannot agree there is a defined conflict resolution process described in the rules.  What are Student Learning Objectives (SLO's) and does every PERA Joint Committee have to require SLO's? SLO is a process for the teacher to arrive at an assessment to be used for student growth evaluation purposes. There is no requirement that the committee must choose SLO's but if there is no agreement the default model contains an SLO.  What does the SLO process specifically require? The ISBE prepared template for SLO's requires 1) a list of the student population whose achievement will be measured; 2) a description of the learning goal; 3) standards related to the learning goal; 4) a description of the assessments and scoring procedures established that measures the student understanding of the learning goal; 5) identification of growth expectations established at the beginning of the SLO; 6) identification of adjustments made to the identified growth expectations at the midpoint of the SLO process; 7) documentation of the number or percentage of students who achieved the identified growth expectations; 8) an explanation of how the qualified evaluator translates the number or percentage of students who achieved the identified growth expectations into a final student growth rating; and 9) a final growth rating assigned at the conclusion of the SLO process.  Can the growth expectation be changed at the midpoint? There is no rule prohibiting the changing of the growth expectation at the midpoint.  How does the PERA Joint Committee assess the different ability levels of students? ISBE recommends in the default model that the committee use a value

The proposed rules for the "State Performance Evaluation Model for Teachers" can be found here . These rules have passed through JCAR and are currently waiting ISBE Board approval. PERA rules require that a Joint Committee, consisting of an equal number of teachers and administrators, be formed by November 1 of the year prior to the District's PERA Implementation date. This Joint

Dr. Richard Voltz IASA Professional Development

Committee has 180 days to come to agreement on all issues related to use student growth for teacher performance-based evaluation purposes. I have copied all the changes and additions to the Part 50 Rules in this communication. I highly recommend that all administrators read these rules closely. Prior to the text of the rules I will try to summarize some of the most important new rules. Educators have generally been referring to the PERA rules that require agreement to be the State Default Rules. These are now titled the "State Performance Evaluation Model for Teachers." In general, the PERA Joint Committee needs to decide all issues related to student growth for teacher evaluation purposes. The committee will have to decide the following:  The percentage of student growth for teacher evaluation must be at least 30 percent (can be 25 percent first two years of implementation) and no more than 50 percent. The default is 50 percent.  What type of assessments should be used? The performance evaluation plan shall identify at least two types of assessments for evaluating each category of teacher (e.g., career and technical education), grade and one or more measurement models to be used to determine student growth that are specific to each assessment chosen.  The evaluation plan shall include the use of at least one Type I or Type II assessment and at least one Type III assessment.  The joint committee shall identify the specific Type I or Type II assessment to be used for each category of teacher.  The evaluation plan shall require that at least one Type III assessment be used for each category of teacher. If the joint committee determines that neither a Type I nor a Type II assessment can be "identified,"

18