Minnesota Lawyer
Education Minnesota president Denise Specht, pictured, said the local unions she is in contact with have expressed “universal concern” about the teacher evaluation mandate passed into law in 2011, which has not been factored into the state’s education budget. (Photo: Matt J. Johnson)
Some look to state Q-Comp dollars to prepare
Welcomed by some as a long overdue step toward accountability, teacher assessments have also led to troubling headlines in recent months. It was the threat of teacher evaluations that led to a messy teacher strike in Chicago’s public school system, and it was their implementation that inspired education officials in Atlanta to fix students’ scores on standardized tests, leading to criminal charges for teachers and the district superintendent.
Nearly two dozen states have implemented teacher performance programs over the past several years; as evidenced by the resulting scandals, not every state can be counted as a success. In fall 2014, Minnesota will launch its own new statewide evaluations system. Already, 17 districts are participating in pilot programs that mirror, either wholly or in part, the state system as presently outlined.
In November, a team of outside experts will prepare a report on those pilot programs, which will be made available for the 2014 Minnesota Legislature. Later in the year, a 30-plus member Teacher Evaluation Working Group will present a final report on the projects, and make recommendations for the long-term policy framework and goals for grading the people the state trusts to grade its students.
The delicacy of the issue at hand sometimes leads to light treading and the repetition of clichés, even among those with strong opinions. Every person interviewed for this story said, repeatedly, that he or she wants the best possible teachers in the state’s classrooms – though how they get there, and how to pay for it, remains undecided.
‘Unfunded mandate’
More than one close observer of education issues calls the state’s teacher evaluation program an “unfunded mandate.” On that accusation, they’ll get no argument from Rep. Paul Marquart, DFL-Dilworth, who said the Legislature had chosen to pour increased money into efforts on special education and all-day kindergarten, among others, and leave the teacher evaluations until later.
Marquart, chair of the House Education Finance Committee, said he doesn’t think the total costs for evaluation will run to the $250 million estimated by some – “I think that’s way high, quite frankly” – but admits the state needs to find at least some additional funding for education review and development.
“I do think we’re going to have to look for more dollars,” Marquart said. “How much, I don’t know.”
One option, he said, is to look for areas where the new evaluation system overlaps with the existing Quality Compensation system, or “Q-Comp,” as it is known. As passed in the mid-2000s, Q-Comp allots a maximum of $75 million in state grants to be doled out to districts for teacher assessment and development. Marquart said he would like to broaden Q-Comp, or something like it, so that it funds similar efforts in all districts, rather than those that choose to opt in.
Initially passed as an alternative approach to teacher performance pay, which was meant to incentivize teachers to strive for monetary bonuses, Q-Comp has changed since Gov. Mark Dayton brought in Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius in 2011.
According to Cassellius, she immediately sought to enable more local control of Q-Comp funds, which allow districts to emphasize professional development over compensation awards if they so choose. She credits this decision, along with schools’ desire to prepare for the coming teacher evaluations, as cause for Q-Comp’s sudden rise in popularity: In the 2009 fiscal year, 43 districts and 28 charter schools tapped $46 million worth of Q-Comp funds; this school year, 71 districts and 67 charter schools have accessed $69 million worth of the $75 million maximum.
The local flexibility proved attractive to leaders with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), which opted to devote only a maximum of $3 per teacher in performance bonuses in its Q-Comp grant, with the remainder of the $9.7 million aimed at development and evaluation. (That proposal is currently being voted on by MFT members, with voting set to close Sunday.)
Cassellius said many districts have chosen to “deemphasize” the compensation aspect, which she doesn’t believe factors into teacher effort, particularly not at the levels available through Q-Comp. That thought was echoed by MFT union president Lynn Nordgren.
“We don’t believe that just because we’re going to give somebody an extra $300, or an extra $1,000, that they’re going to work harder,” Lindgren said.
To Jim Bartholomew, a lobbyist with the Minnesota Business Partnership, the use of teacher performance in determining compensation is an attempt to break education out of a decades-old system that rewards seniority, or advanced degrees, rather than actual classroom success.
“It’s different,” Bartholomew said. “Salary schedules and seniority are well-ingrained policies that people have grown very comfortable with. So the idea we might do something different, it can be a barrier.”
Program design worries union
Rep. Kelby Woodard, R-Belle Plaine, who is a strong supporter of tying teacher pay to performance, said he thinks most teachers would be on board with the idea, were it not for the influence of the state teachers union. Saying the labor union represents “all teachers, whether they’re our best and brightest or they aren’t,” Woodard said Q-Comp likely didn’t catch on in some districts due to Education Minnesota’s opposition.
“I think it’s controversial because Education Minnesota makes it controversial,” Woodard said.
Not true, says Education Minnesota President Denise Specht, who won election to that post this past spring. Specht points out that the union isn’t opposed to the increased tapping of Q-Comp dollars, though she points out its use as a stop-gap for teacher evaluations is a departure from the original design.
“It’s all about money,” Specht said. “Q-Comp has become the funding source for teacher development and evaluation law, and that’s not what Q-Comp was intended to do.”
Specht said the local unions she is in contact with have expressed “universal concern” about the teacher evaluation mandate passed into law in 2011, which has not been factored into the state’s education budget. Funded or not, Education Minnesota is trying to prepare members for the coming reform, with 30 training sessions on teacher evaluations held so far this year and another 20 on the calendar.
Also on the upcoming schedule is the union’s annual “Professional Conference,” which will be held in St. Paul over two days in October. One event on the conference agenda is a discussion on evaluations, with Rep. Kathy Brynaert, DFL-Mankato, booked as an expert panelist. Presently vice-chair of the House Education Policy Committee, Brynaert said she has been closely involved in the topic of evaluations for years, and attended numerous meetings and hearings with educators and policy experts in preparing to craft the evaluation statute.
One change made from the original design was introduced by Sen. Branden Petersen, R-Andover, who, as a House freshman in 2011, successfully inserted language into that year’s education omnibus bill that makes student achievement account for 35 percent of a teacher’s performance review.
How that student performance should be measured is a matter of some debate. Some states have used student scores on standardized tests to assess teacher performance. But that practice has been blamed for numerous instances of cheating, including a systematic answer-fixing scandal by teachers in Atlanta.
For her part, Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, said she thinks capturing student advancement is a better goal. A former special education teacher, Nelson said she knows first-hand the experience of watching a student advance by leaps and bounds, though the student would still test below grade level.
“We now have tech and tools available to measure student growth,” Nelson said.
Aside from those student-based assessments, the performance law charts a three-year course for teachers, who would go through growth and development programs, peer-to-peer evaluation and additional evaluation by another evaluator, such as a school administrator. Lindgren said Minneapolis teachers are somewhat uneasy about the idea of using administrators for evaluations, making the case that school principals likely aren’t experts in each course subject.
The most divisive aspects of teacher evaluation are the classic question of carrot-versus-stick as a means of motivation. In this instance, the carrot would be the inclusion of compensation bonuses linked to teacher performance. The stick, then, is the threat of punishment, including firing, for poor performance.
Asked directly whether her members were concerned about that piece of the evaluation process, Specht sidestepped the question, saying only that the subject is “addressed in the law.” Indeed it is. According to the existing statute, teachers who fall short on evaluations and aren’t “making adequate progress” must face discipline, which “may include a last chance warning, termination, discharge, nonrenewal, transfer to a different position, a leave of absence or other discipline a school administrator determines is appropriate.”
Business Partnership lobbyist Bartholomew said compensation rewards and possible teacher firings are, for the moment, at the margins of the conversation, but he hopes they receive some attention during the coming session.
“Just because they are the edges of the discussion, that doesn’t mean we don’t need to talk about them yet,” he said. “Somehow, we’ve got to find a way to talk about these things without shutting everything down.”
Though the issues will likely surface, Brynaert doesn’t think the Legislature should rush to use the teacher evaluations for bonuses or punishment until 2017, at the earliest. According to experts, she said, the evaluation system should be in place for at least three years, and proven functional, before it is considered operational.
“With time, trust comes to be experienced by staff in the system,” Brynaert said. “Until we have that, I don’t think you can talk about any type of application toward bonuses or high stakes.”
