To the Members of the Education Committee: As an educator and co-chair of the educator evaluation committee for the Gorham Public School System I have to say that I and a number of my colleagues, educators and administrators alike, are working very hard to wrap our heads around the student growth component of the educator evaluation mandate. All of the work that our committee has done, and happily embraced, over the past year and a half has focused on the idea that the evaluation process should help develop reflective practitioners as per the models that the department endorses. The 20% student growth component perverts these evaluation models to a degree that I do not believe their creators (Marzano and Danielson) would ever support. I also do not think the general public would support their education tax dollars being spent to support a system (human or computerized) whos sole purpose would be to manage numbers within a district. This would surely be needed if districts must disaggregate multiple measures of data for each student and teacher over the course of each year, and then align that data with each educators 2-3 year evaluation cycle. Do you really think in this economy this would be money well spent? If you do, then I beg of you to clarify for me as a parent, educator, and taxpayer, to what end? So that we can uncover how much money is being wasted on lousy educators in this state? So that we can get rid of all the “bad” educators and replace them with the amazing educators who are coming in to the state in droves because we offer such competitive salaries and benefits compared with other New England States? The work that Maine educators do is some of the best work in the country, and we do that work in spite of the every new challenge, expectation, and unfunded mandate we encounter. I ask you to do what is in the best interest of students, educators, and taxpayers and remove this component of the educator evaluation system entirely. Sincerely, Amanda Cooper
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 23:39:37 +0000