Teachers are concerned that too much of their job evaluations will depend – at least this year – upon students they never even have in the classroom.
As part of Delaware Performance Appraisal System (DPAS), the student improvement component (commonly referred to as Component 5) provides 20 percent of teacher evaluations.
Thirty percent of Component 5 will depend on a schoolwide score for status and proficiency in mathematics and reading based on the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System (DCAS). Twenty percent will be a cohort score. The cohort will be, on average, a group of 25 students from the school whose performance on the DCAS will influence a teacher’s evaluation. In cases where teachers or specialists do not teach the subject or grade level that is tested, they will work with administrators to select a cohort of students who are tested.
Teachers, and their union representatives, are concerned about the influence of standardized tests on teacher evaluations. Students in kindergarten, first, second, 11th and 12th grades are not tested. Subject matter on the DCAS is limited to “critical subjects,” so teachers and specialists in arts, world languages and the like don’t feel there is an accurate measure of their impact on students.
The final 50 percent of Component 5 is based on “multiple measures,” which may include classroom tests, alignment with Delaware curriculum standards and other classroom data. Those measures, however, have not been finalized, leaving half of Component 5 up in the air.
“Part three (the multiple measures) may not be ready, so where a lot of teachers are confused and, quite frankly, many are angry, they are being held accountable and they are being assessed for the performance of students they do not directly teach,” said Debbie Stevens, Director of Instructional Advocacy for the Delaware State Education Association “This is a point of contention between DSEA and the (Delaware) Department of Education.” She said the DSEA does not support the use of DCAS scores in evaluation because, “You can’t link student output to teacher input.”
Groups of teachers and specialists are still meeting to collect multiple measures, which will account for the second half of Component 5. Those measures will include classroom tests, the alignment of classroom curriculum to Delaware standards and other internal and external facts, but the measures have not been officially settled at this point. As a result, the state applied for an extension from the U.S. Department of Education to postpone the full implementation of Component 5.
