What is required often is determined by the bottom line. The bottom line sets the minimum expectancy that a person sets for their behavior or efforts in order to sustain a status. Said differently, the bottom line also is the maximum effort or behavior a person must exert or demonstrate in order to attain that status. Usually, meeting the bottom line is a quality point. Above the bottom line and a person is in relatively good standing. Below the bottom line is where the person is in bad standing.
In order to drive a vehicle, a person must complete and achieve a minimum score on a written driving test, a vision screening, and a behind-the-wheel driving test. A person does not have to be perfect on any of three to meet the minimum requirements for a driver’s license. In fact, a qualified driver in Wisconsin must answer 40 of 50 questions correctly or can miss nine of 50 test questions. The vision screening results must be at least 20/100 in one eye or 20/40 in both eyes. Bottom lines seldom require perfection or even close to perfection to qualify for a given status.
http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/index.htm
So, what is the bottom line regarding educator effectiveness? And, will “bottom lining” educator effectiveness make any difference in the quality of student and school achievement?
Establishing a bottom line for educator effectiveness purports to do three things. Effective instruction
1. ensures a higher quality of education of all children, especially in areas where child access to higher quality teaching has been difficult to achieve or sustain,
2. promotes higher student achievement, in particular in areas of national, state and local interest (improved standing on international academic assessments, STEM, creativity, and entrepreneurship), and,
3. provides all children with a better preparation for college and career readiness.
The means for improving educator effectiveness have been heavily influenced by government. Improving educator effectiveness are three words that appear in most state as well as the US Department of Education’s media releases. If you believe that funding provides direction, then the Dept. of Ed’s earmarking almost $2.5 billion indicates both the federal and subsequent state interest in improving educator effectiveness. The federal language includes improving “teacher and principal evaluation systems” and improving “the effectiveness of teachers and leaders in high-need schools by reforming teachers and school leader advancement and compensation systems” and “promoting evidence-based professional development.” Bottom line – states will be induced by federal money to engage in these reforms.
http://www.ed.gov/teachers-leaders
In addition, the Dept. of Ed included the reform of teacher and principal evaluation systems as a criteria for states to qualify for waivers from the requirements of NCLB, in particular the penalties that schools would incur if they failed to meet the requirement that all children will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. Bottom line – states and school districts will engage in these reforms or suffer prescribed penalties.
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/secletter/110923.html
To quality for and comply with federal funding, states have undertaken significant revision of their teacher professional development and evaluation systems. In Wisconsin, the Educator Effectiveness System (EE System) balances teacher practices (50%) and student achievement (50%) to create a numeric that represents a teacher’s effectiveness. While the DPI is very thorough in its provision of information and professional development regarding its EE System, it is equally careful to never, ever insinuate what a school district should do with teachers who do not achieve effectiveness as defined in the EE System.
The bottom line from the DPI is that “local districts and school boards will determine how to use data from the EE System within their own context. DPI recommends that districts consider quality implementation practices, research, district culture, AND consult with legal counsel prior to making human resource decisions.”
http://ee.dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/ee/pdf/eeteacherevaluationprocessmanual-version4.pdf
Understanding the bottom line is important for teachers. In Wisconsin, Educator Effectiveness is reduced to a numeric on an X, Y axis that places a teacher in a graphic distribution of all teachers’ numerics for the purpose of distinguishing between higher and lower performing educators. Rewards and recognitions or remediation and improvement will be doled out accordingly. Professional development instructs teachers that on this scale, 4 is Distinguished, 3 is Proficient, 2 is Basic and 1 is unsatisfactory. This plan complies with the US Dept’s mandates.
The bottom line for a teacher in Wisconsin is to achieve a numeric that places her EE at a (2,2) numeric or better. Or, to say it differently, the danger area of (1,1) must be avoided. This is what a teacher learns through the EE orientation and all subsequent professional development training related to educator effectiveness. This is the EE System plan and procedure for implementing educator effectiveness in Wisconsin.
It is not reality, however. Reality sets in when school boards decide how they will apply the EE System within their district’s continuing employment procedures. In the post-Act 10 era in Wisconsin, a district’s employment procedures are prohibited subjects of bargaining and the detail of these procedures is determined by school board action. After all is said and done with the federal incentives for improving educator effectiveness and each of the state’s initiatives relative to the NCLB waivers notwithstanding, the application of bottom line procedures rests with each state’s teacher dismissal statutes. And, the decision to take action relative to the EE System outcomes rests with each school board.
In pursuit of a bottom line regarding EE, a school board must fulfill two duties. The board must be compliant with its published procedures, and it must be complaint with WI Statute 118.24. The statute clarifies that the board alone has the authority to hire and fire teachers. Relative to discontinuing a teacher’s contract with the board, the statute outlines the due process standards for board action regarding teacher dismissal.
The history of board actions to dismiss teachers in Wisconsin is, as prescribed by the statute, confidential. Nationally, the statistics for teachers leaving their employment as teachers says that approximately 46% of the workforce turns over annually. Reasons for leaving the profession are many and include retirement, disenchantment with teaching, a change of professional interests and death, as well as dismissal. Non-renewal of employment represents one of the least frequent reasons for teacher turnover. For example, over a ten-year period in New York City, twelve teachers in an employment pool of 75,000 teachers were dismissed for incompetence. An unknown number of NYC teachers exited the profession rather than face dismissal procedures. However, if the NYC number is indicative, teacher dismissal in most states is a small number and in most school districts is a rarity and may have never been exercised.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/firing-teachers-mission-impossible-article-1.1615003
So,, what is the bottom line for educator effectiveness? It is remains mystery. At some date and place, a school board will take action to resolve its continuing employment of a teacher whose EE System metric is unsatisfactory and, despite district efforts to raise the teacher’s bottom line practices, has been unsatisfactory over time. At that date and time, an understanding of the bottom line will be temporarily affixed. No doubt, once that event has happened, other school boards will have a better understanding of how the EE System connects with continuing employment and will take action on its local bottom liners.
The mandate to improve educator effectiveness, at this time, is like a parent who makes a threatening statement to a child in the attempt to modify the child’s behavior. Frequently in that setting, a recalcitrant child looks the parent in the eye and asks, “What happens if I don’t?” Then the dance of parenting begins and, as often happens, the threat is withdrawn with small if any conciliation by the child. So it is with school boards and teachers and educator effectiveness. We don’t yet know how the bottom line for educator effectiveness really works because we don’t know how school boards will act if an employee persists in being ineffective.
Today, there is no bottom line to educator effectiveness improvement because there is no evidence of the “or else.”