NEW: Worcester Public Schools Release New Teacher Evaluation Data

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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

GoLocalWorcester News Team

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released new teacher evaluation data The newly released data provide a first glimpse at the relationship between summative teacher evaluation ratings under the new system and growth in student achievement.

In November 2013, the first set of summative performance ratings under the new educator evaluation system in Massachusetts were released. In the Worcester Public Schools (WPS), 1825 educators were evaluated under the new system, representing 98.2 percent of eligible educators. The evaluations are based on reviews of employee performance during the 2012-13 school year. Of those evaluated, 6.2 percent were Exemplary, 87.7 percent were rated as Proficient, 5.6 percent were classified as Needs Improvement, and 0.4 percent were rated as Unsatisfactory.

To examine the relationship between the teacher performance educator evaluation ratings and student improvement on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test, median student growth percentiles (SGPs) for English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics were computed for each teacher of the two subjects. As shown in the Appendix to this release, teachers in the WPS with an Exemplary or Proficient summative performance rating were more likely than other teachers to have taught students that demonstrated higher levels of academic growth in both subjects as measured by the MCAS.

Results

In ELA, WPS teachers with Exemplary ratings had an average median SGP of 55.3 compared to 53.9 for teachers with Proficient ratings and 42.1 for teachers with Needs Improvement ratings. Among WPS teachers with an Exemplary rating, 38.9 percent of teachers had median SGPs in ELA demonstrating "high growth" while 61.1 percent of Exemplary-rated teachers had a median SGPs demonstrating "moderate growth." Among WPS teachers with a Proficient rating, 22.1 percent of teachers had median SGPs in ELA demonstrating "high growth," 67.5 percent had median SGPs demonstrating "moderate growth," and 10.4 percent had median SGPs demonstrating "low growth." Among WPS teachers with a Needs Improvement rating, 84.6 percent had median SGPs in ELA in the "moderate growth" category while 15.4 percent of Needs Improvement-rated teachers had median SGPs demonstrating "low growth." There were too few teachers in the Unsatisfactory performance rating category to report data.

In Mathematics, teachers with Exemplary ratings had an average median SGP of 57.6 compared to 50.0 for teachers with Proficient ratings and 41.9 for teachers with Needs Improvement ratings. Among WPS teachers with an Exemplary rating, 43.8 percent of teachers had median SGPs in mathematics demonstrating "high growth," 37.5 percent of Exemplary-rated teachers had a median SGPs demonstrating "moderate growth," and 18.8 percent had student SGPs demonstrating "low growth." Among WPS teachers with a Proficient rating, 20.0 percent of teachers had median SGPs in mathematics demonstrating "high growth," 63.0 percent had median SGPs demonstrating "moderate growth," and 17.0 percent had median SGPs demonstrating "low growth." Among WPS teachers with a Needs Improvement rating, 11.1 percent had median SGPs in mathematics demonstrating "high growth," 55.6 percent had median SGPs in the "moderate growth" category while 33.3 percent of Needs Improvement-rated teachers had median SGPs demonstrating "low growth."

“These data show that our implementation of the new evaluation system is off to a great start and that we are on the right track” said Melinda Boone, Superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools. "While there is certainly still room for improvement, these data suggest that there is alignment between evaluation ratings and measures of growth in student achievement. And that is a critical piece."

The new regulations, which were adopted by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2011, apply to teachers, principals, superintendents, and other staff holding positions that require a state-issued license. Under the new system, educators’ performance is rated as Exemplary, Proficient, Needs Improvement or Unsatisfactory. In Massachusetts, the DESE required that school districts receiving funds from the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top initiative adopt and implement the new educator evaluation system for the 2012-13 school year with at least 50 percent of educators district-wide. In 2013- 14, all school districts are required to participate. In the future, additional measures of student growth beyond MCAS ELA and Mathematics will be incorporated in the new evaluation system.

Overall performance ratings for race and gender

Also released today were the overall performance ratings disaggregated by gender and race. In the WPS, 95 percent of female educators were rated as Proficient or above compared to 90.6 percent for male educators. When examined by race/ethnicity, 95.8 percent of Hispanic or Latino teachers were rated as Proficient or above compared to 94.3 percent of White teachers, 90.9 percent of Asian teachers, and 85.7 percent of Black teachers.
 

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