*Correction: The original version unfortunately called Ms. Frizzle a Miss.
Apologies. *
Last week a few hundred teachers were fired
<http://www.washingtonpost.
the Washington D.C. school district based on a teacher evaluation system
called IMPACT<http://dcps.dc.gov/
was instituted under former chancellor Michelle Rhee.
There have been many complaints about the system, including charges that it
is unfair to teachers who work in high-poverty schools, and that is chief
assessment tool is five 30-minute observations by administrators and master
educators of teachers each year as they work in the classroom. That’s a
total of 2 1/2 hours a year of observation. Some teachers are also evaluated
by the standardized test scores of their students, which many argue is an
invalid and unfair method of evaluating a teacher.
This was written by Marni Barron, an instructional coach in the District of
Columbia Public Schools, and Leigh Dingerson is a community organizer and
writer on public education reform.
By Marni Barron and Leigh Dingerson
Recently, we were reflecting on the portrayal of teachers on screen these
days. There’s the animated “dance of the lemons,” and Michelle Rhee’s
teaching bashing in “*Waiting for Superman*.” Now comes Cameron Diaz in “*The
Bad Teacher*.” What happened to the teacher as guide? Or the teacher as
inspiration? What happened to Ms. Frizzle?
You remember Ms. Frizzle. She was the uber-elementary science teacher of the
public television series *“The Magic School
Bus<http://www.scholastic.com/
*.” The show was first broadcast in 1994, based on the books by Joanna Cole.
Miss Frizzle is famous for the amazing field trips that she takes her
students on—a fantastic demonstration of experiential learning where
students don’t just learn about life on Mars or the workings of the heart
and lungs…they go there. Through the extraordinary power of the Magic School
Bus, they shrink to size, and take off on educational adventures.
We remember watching episodes of* The Magic School Bus *with our children,
hoping that our toddlers would someday have teachers as dynamic, quirky,
creative and flamboyant as Ms. Frizzle. But it seems like today’s teachers
are getting all the Ms. Frizzle drilled out of them, both on-screen and off.
Which got us thinking about teacher evaluations and how, like everything
else, what you get depends on what you measure.
We both live in Washington, D.C. The recently ended school year marked the
second under the District of Columbia’s new evaluation system, called
IMPACT. Just last week, the District announced
<http://www.washingtonpost.
206* teachers have been fired for flunking IMPACT this year.
IMPACT was launched in the fall of 2009 by former D.C. Chancellor Michelle
Rhee, and was immediately lauded as a model for the rest of the nation.
While much of the focus and reporting on IMPACT has been on its use of test
scores—so-called Value Added
Measures<http://www.washington
judge teacher effectiveness, the majority of teachers in DC are not subject
to the Value Added components of IMPACT. They teach in grade levels or
subject areas that are not tested (yet). For these teachers, 50% of their
evaluation is dependent on two, thirty-minute unannounced observations
conducted by “Master Educators,” known as “MEs.” Three additional
observations are conducted by the school’s principal.
What are these evaluators looking for? What counts? IMPACT established a
“Teaching and Learning Framework” (TLF)—essentially a checklist of nine
teaching practice areas that each teacher is expected to demonstrate during
the course of their 30-minute, surprise evaluation. Within each practice
area, there are a set of specific skills that must be demonstrated to
qualify for an “effective” grade, and additional skills that must be present
for the teacher to be considered “highly effective.” In all, to receive a
perfect score on their observation, teachers must demonstrate over 60
strategies and skills over the course of 30 minutes.
Marni is an instructional coach in a DC elementary school. As we discussed
teachers in the media, and DC’s Teaching and Learning Framework, she
reflected that her role used to be helping teachers become better educators.
Under IMPACT, her job is now defined as helping teachers pass their IMPACT
observations. We thought about the effect of that change on teachers. And we
thought of Ms.Frizzle.
*Rating Miss Frizzle*
Could Ms. Frizzle teach in D.C.? How would she fare on IMPACT?
We decided to find out, by conducting two formal observations using IMPACT’s
nine-point rubric. Assessing teachers’ preparedness for their IMPACT
observations is Marni’s job. She relished the chance to be an “ME” for the
day.
Our observation found “the Frizz” herding her students on to the Magic
School Bus for a trip into the solar system. As her students traveled from
Mercury to Jupiter to Saturn to Neptune, Ms. Frizzle allowed them to see,
feel, and learn. They determined the gas, oxygen, hydrogen and water levels
of each planet they visited. They collected rocks, and analyzed their
composition. They worked collaboratively, sharing their knowledge with each
other. At one point, the students gently prodded one disengaged student to
rejoin the learning experience. Ms. Frizzle helped guide the students—at one
point by becoming “lost” herself, and forcing her students to figure out
which planet she was on based on scientific clues. They found her.
It was quite a lesson. But IMPACT’s rubric gave no credit to Ms. Frizzle for
the experiential and self-guided nature of this exploration to the solar
system. She failed to announce an objective for the lesson at the beginning.
She did not provide “scaffolded” prompts, or link their learning that day to
previous lessons. While she had allowed her students to experience the solar
system through a variety of senses and learning styles, she missed several
requirements on the IMPACT checklist.
Under IMPACT, a teacher must be evaluated based on the strict rubric. Ms.
Frizzle scored only a 2.2 during our first observation. She was “minimally
effective.” No matter that her students had had the experience of a
lifetime, and demonstrated extensive knowledge of the subject matter at
hand. Under IMPACT a teacher could literally take her students to the moon
and still be minimally effective. We decided to give her another chance.
The next time we randomly popped in on Ms. Frizzle, she had planned an
extraordinary lesson on asteroids. For this, her students were required to
intercept and re-direct an asteroid that was hurtling towards Earth,
threatening a direct impact on the elementary school where she taught. The
students launched into space, where they encountered several
extraterrestrial objects (a comet, space junk). How could they determine
whether each was the ominous asteroid? The kids realized they needed to
analyze the object’s composition, trajectory and speed. When they finally
found the asteroid, they figured out that it was made of iron and therefore
could be thrown off its course by a magnet. Mission accomplished!
Ms. Frizzle had prepared well for the lesson, having all of the appropriate
equipment available on the bus for the student’s discovery process and
eventual success. She did better on this evaluation. But she still fell
short of “highly effective.” For example, the Frizz did not ask the students
any questions. Rather, she provided them with opportunities to determine the
relevant questions and then answer them themselves. This sinks her on
IMPACT.
The overall average of our dear teacher’s two scores was 2.6—barely into the
“effective” range. If we were to conduct three more IMPACT evaluations for a
total of 5 (the number of times DCPS teachers are formally observed each
year), the outcome for Ms. Frizzle could be dicey. If she were to drop to
even a 2.59, she would be considered minimally effective, and subject to
dismissal like so many teachers were, just last week.
*Something’s Wrong Here*
A teacher who is able to create a learning environment that is student-led
and teacher facilitated is considered a master of their craft by the
education community. But not by DC’s IMPACT rubric.
Of course, Ms. Frizzle is fictional, and her extraordinary field trips
aren’t really possible in today’s under-resourced classrooms (no funds for
magic school buses in most districts!). But our little exercise of
conducting formal IMPACT observations of Ms. Frizzle helped identify a
troubling aspect of DCPS’ teacher evaluation system. It’s not that the
Teaching and Learning Framework is a bad thing. Particularly for new
teachers, having a framework on good practices (stating objectives, checking
with students for comprehensive throughout the lesson, etc.) is critical. In
a strong professional growth system, teachers would not only be given such a
framework, but would also be given carefully constructed supports and
extensive professional development in the areas where they seemed to be
struggling (IMPACT provides only rudimentary feedback from Master Educators,
and little real professional support).
But for creative and dynamic teachers like Ms. Frizzle, the IMPACT rubric is
a death-knell. Teachers in D.C. now, according to several we have talked to,
are changing their practice to conform to IMPACT’s checklist. Their salaries
and their jobs depend on it. Some are tossing out their most creative lesson
plans, knowing that if a Master Educator walked in on such a lesson, their
job could be put at risk. We’re forcing some of our best teachers to be less
creative, to dumb-down their practice…or even to leave the classroom
altogether. And yes, some of the city’s dynamic and popular teachers have
been fired because their lessons didn’t adhere to the IMPACT rubric.
Evaluation systems should be part of a building process—building great and
creative and effective teachers. They shouldn’t be designed with the
inflexibility of a mousetrap. “Snap! Gotcha!”
We hope that our children will have teachers with the breadth of skills
identified on the IMPACT checklist. But we also hope that our kids will be
in classrooms with the many Ms. Frizzles of Washington, D.C.— those teachers
who don’t just talk about the planets, but take their students to them.
Without revisions, and without recognition that sometimes great teaching
doesn’t conform to a checklist, we worry that Miss Frizzle, and teachers
like her, may be getting thrown under the bus.
**number of teachers fired based on Post reporter Bill Turque’s adjusted
figures*
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