In May 2010, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed a bill that establishes a new set of requirements for evaluating teachers and principals.The Colorado State Board of Education is piloting the new system during the 2012-2013 school year, with the expectation that the system will be fully implemented statewide in 2013-2014, as stated on the CDEís website at http://cde.state.co.us.The bill, Senate Bill 191, states in part that the law ìshall require that at least fifty percent of the evaluation is determined by the academic growth of the teacherís students.îFalcon School District 49 acting chief education officer Don Begier said this bill leaves some questions unanswered. ìThe bill says that 50 percent is based on student achievement scores as they are tied to teachers,î Begier said. ìBut how are you going to measure that? How can you see who (which student) belongs to who (the teacher)? Falcon has invested in tracking that, and we have the ability and evaluative information on students saying here is this teacher and here are the results.îA district could opt to use Transitional Colorado Assessment Program scores as the 50 percent that reflects student achievement, Begier said. Since several schools in D 49 have achieved Innovation status, there are more options available, he said. ìThey (those schools) have an opportunity to significantly impact the tool that is used,î Begier said. ìWe are looking, at some level, of creating an assessment over time that would replace TCAP.îìOne way to measure academic success in students would be to make subject matter exit exams for students,î said Tammy Harold, D 49 board of education president. Students would not be tested on a subject as a whole but on their appropriate skill level based on the class level for the subject, she said. A student in calculus would be tested on calculus, and a student in trigonometry would be tested in trigonometry, Harold said. ìThat way, they are tested on what they are actually learning, not on something they maybe havenít learned yet,î she said.According to the CDE website, ìIt is essential for the state and its districts to improve the quality, validity, and availability of student assessments during the implementation period. The state has academic standards for ten content areas, but has developed statewide assessments for only four of those areas, and only for students in particular grades.ìIn particular, the state should take the lead on expanding the availability of statewide summative assessments in some currently non-tested content areas. Select districts participating in the pilot of the state model system shall also pilot a Student Growth Objective-based approach to calculating an individual teacherís student growth performance.îìPeople view the state test (TCAP) as the ceiling, but I view that as the floor,î Begier said. ìThat is the minimum that we are doing, and we should be doing way more than that. We have higher expectations, and the state standards are the beginning of the quality of education for the child.îAnother requirement under S.B. 191 is that teachers must be evaluated on a yearly basis. Begier said that D 49 has been doing that for a decade, so teachers are familiar with the process and eager to receive feedback from the evaluations.Begier said the bottom line with S.B. 191 is that school districts have to meet or exceed standards for teachers and principals. ìThe state wants to make sure there are quality standards that meet or exceed what the state has set forth,î he said. ìThis is really about teaching and learning and what the information is that you are going to use that says unequivocally, our teachers are effective and hereís the proof.ìWe have talked about it (S.B. 191) for a long time but now here it comes. We are used to it, weíve always had a culture of bringing together a committee to look at evaluations and really look at them on an ongoing basis to say ëHow effective is our tool? Do we need to change it?íî
