John Dodig is currently the Principal of Staples HS in Westport, formerly Principal of Cheshire HS (Cheshire, CT), Wilbur Cross HS (New Haven, CT), Fairfield HS (Fairfield, CT) and a former Principal of the Year for the State of CT. Recently, like Superintendent Thomas Scarice of Madison, CT, he sent a letter to the CT Commissioner of Education, in this case regarding the newly introduced teacher evaluation system in the state. I feel that this letter is a fine complement to Dr. Scalises; both tell it like it is, from the inside. Please feel free to share. Dr. Stefan Pryor Commissioner of Education 165 Capitol Avenue Hartford, CT 06106 Dear Dr. Pryor: After 43 years as an educator, I have never been more discouraged than I am at this moment. I am the Principal of Staples High School in Westport, and I recently attended a meeting with our central office staff members to discuss how we are going to observe and evaluate all of the teachers in the district according to the new teacher evaluation law. I left that meeting disheartened and frustrated as I considered how it is even going to be possible to follow these new evaluation guidelines. Using the following data, it is reasonable to assume that Staples High School students are achieving at the highest levels: SAT scores, ACT scores, 100% graduation rate, 94% seniors going to college, 60% of those graduates going to the “most competitive” or “highly competitive” colleges and universities, and CAPT scores. What more can you ask of any school district? It makes absolutely no sense to me to divert our attention from helping students build strength in 21st century skills like critical and creative thinking, problem solving, persistence, and collaboration to scripting what a teacher says in class and coding it to produce a score to be used to evaluate teacher competence. As you must know, the great disparity in public education in our state has much more to do with the social and economic conditions of students especially in our urban areas than in the quality of teachers as a whole. In high-achieving districts like ours, we attract the most qualified teachers from the finest institutions in the world who all have a passion for teaching. We spend very little time on classroom management. Our students come to school regularly and do their homework in preparation for class allowing teachers to coach students into discovering the answers to big ideas rather than memorizing facts. Our track record has been proven over time. I strongly urge you to consider exempting us and schools in districts like ours, which in turn, will allow you to spend your money, time and energies on districts that have significant problems. Asking my Department Chair of Science to do 72 formal observations and 63 reviews of practice means that he will have precious little time to spend with the new teachers who need help developing the pedagogy required to maintain and increase the high standards we now have. It pains me to think that we will now bury our noses in spread sheets, ProTrax software and the like keeping track of how many times we have seen each teacher. The time spent doing, what amounts to, nothing more than bean counting will reduce the time available to continue our focus on 21st century skill building and will, in fact, diminish the quality of the outcome. Respectfully,
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 04:21:48 +0000
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