First some background. Ed White has the most disabled kids in the county. They have something like 350 kids who receive services including about a hundred severely disabled kids in the Intellectually Disabled Unit.
Next, teacher’s evaluations have two components, the principal observation and student data. These scores are added together and that score gives you a ranking, highly effective, effective, developing/needs improvement and unsatisfactory
Last year the intellectually disabled teachers did not receive the student data portion and as a result of only having half a score they were all deemed needs improvement which is credit to them because their principal thought so highly of them. If they would have gotten student scores they would have all been effective or highly effective On paper because this score was omitted it seems like the whole department sucks. The reality however is nothing could be further from the truth.
The District has known about this for a year too and thus far has done nothing about it and now it is costing people opportunities. One teacher told me she was going to apply for the curriculum writing team but the first question was: what was your evaluation. Another may be blacklisted from teaching summer school because he too is unsatisfactory in the eyes of the CAST, the districts evaluation tool. Until this is fixed it is a beaming black mark on all their records.
People’s livelihoods are threatened and the district has been unwilling to fix what they admitted last year was a problem.
It is shameful and it is just one more example of a district which isn’t interested in taking care of the employees that carry out the one job, teaching, that the district exists to do in the first place.
Next, teacher’s evaluations have two components, the principal observation and student data. These scores are added together and that score gives you a ranking, highly effective, effective, developing/needs improvement and unsatisfactory
Last year the intellectually disabled teachers did not receive the student data portion and as a result of only having half a score they were all deemed needs improvement which is credit to them because their principal thought so highly of them. If they would have gotten student scores they would have all been effective or highly effective On paper because this score was omitted it seems like the whole department sucks. The reality however is nothing could be further from the truth.
The District has known about this for a year too and thus far has done nothing about it and now it is costing people opportunities. One teacher told me she was going to apply for the curriculum writing team but the first question was: what was your evaluation. Another may be blacklisted from teaching summer school because he too is unsatisfactory in the eyes of the CAST, the districts evaluation tool. Until this is fixed it is a beaming black mark on all their records.
People’s livelihoods are threatened and the district has been unwilling to fix what they admitted last year was a problem.
It is shameful and it is just one more example of a district which isn’t interested in taking care of the employees that carry out the one job, teaching, that the district exists to do in the first place.
Let's get real about the observation component of the CAST system. At my school, the principal reserves 'highly effective' for the principal's inner circle of cronies and pets. These buddies include the 'spy' who gets rewarded for narcing on teachers who criticize the current principal's regime. Furthermore, if the teachers do not teach according to the principal's very narrowly-defined standard of how to teach, they are toast on post-observation day. This is a farce because the principal is now using CAST as justification for using this allegedly objective instrument as a blunt weapon with which to ruin teacher morale. CAST may have had good intentions, but it is a real reign of terror in the hands of principals who use it to keep their subordinates in line. SAD.
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