It didn’t take long to start unraveling Impact, the widely-touted teacher evaluation tool initiated by former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. As Examiner reporter Lisa Gartner first reported, Council chairman Kwame Brown wants to waive Impact evaluations up to three years so more “highly effective” teachers will want to work in the city’s poorest schools. They would still be eligible for performance bonuses up to $10,000. The Washington Teachers Union has predictably endorsed Brown’s plan to remove the stick while retaining the carrot, which is one of the main reasons why his idea should be rejected. Impact evaluations hold teachers responsible for their students’ achievement. Waiving them in the very schools that most desperately need good teaching is worse than counterproductive, it’s an abandonment of another generation of kids to inadequate educations. But Impact scores are not only based on test results. Five times a year, master educators grade teachers’ professionalism and ability to collaborate. Those not performing up to par receive feedback and extra coaching. Teachers who fail to improve after two years of additional help can be terminated.
It’s no coincidence that nearly twice the number of “highly effective” educators teach in affluent Ward 3 instead of more challenging Wards seven and eight where they would be equally responsible for improving test scores. And despite a highest-in-the-nation expenditure of nearly $20,000 per student and steady improvement since 2003, DCPS reading and math scores still remain far below the national average.
Progress claimed by Michelle Rhee, who was appointed chancellor by former Mayor Adrian Fenty in 2007, has been under fire since before her departure under Mayor Vincent Gray. The Washington-based Albert Shanker Institute maintains that demographic changes, a new test, and statistical manipulation that excluded some students from the testing pool generated “artificial increases” in DCPS scores. And a January 2011 study by Dr. Alan Ginsburg, a former U.S. Department of Education official, found that the improvement rates under Rhee were no better than under predecessors Clifford Janey and Paul Vance. A test cheating scandal involving more than 100 D.C. public schools during Rhee’s three-year tenure has further marred her legacy.
Children who were kindergarteners when Rhee became chancellor are now in fourth grade, so the 2011 NAEP scores released on November 1 will indicate who’s right. But one of Rhee’s major accomplishments was standing up to a complacent unionized labor force that had forgotten its responsibility to the community. Teacher accountability was Impact’s major impact on DCPS, and it would be a grave mistake to abandon it now.
