Senate Bill 001 was passed in the spring of 2011 to address teacher evaluations and licensing. The bill established an annual staff performance evaluation that categorizes teachers as highly effective, effective, improvement necessary or ineffective.
Attitudes toward these evaluations were the focus of the policy survey distributed to teachers, principals and superintendents in Indiana.
The survey found that superintendents were more favorable than teachers and principals in believing that teacher evaluations do the following: measure growth and achievement with validity, accurately judge teaching and learning and finally, that evaluations have a correlation with professional development and influence on teaching and learning.
The policy brief also addressed participants’ beliefs affected by the new evaluation implementations. The analysis found that the opinions of teachers for kindergarten through third grade were significantly more positive. Newer teachers, with less than four years of experience, also expressed more positive beliefs in teacher evaluations than their senior counterparts.
These types of variations throughout the system will influence changes in teacher evaluations further down the line, Hardy Murphy, policy brief author and IU research scholar said.
“How superintendents, principals and teachers feel about the transformation of teacher evaluation can provide insights into the development of policy and guidance in the implementation of the legislation requiring changes in the evaluation of teachers,” Murphy said in an IU news release.
Murphy and the policy brief’s other authors Sandi Cole, Gary Pike, Jim Ansaldo and James Robinson believe that this brief provides data that can be used by lawmakers to gain teacher support and make meaningful adjustments to current policies.
“The recommendations the brief offers should be of particular interest for state policymakers, especially the concerns related to the fidelity of implementation,” Cole said in an IU news release.
With consideration to other work being done through the Indiana Teacher Appraisal and Support System, developed by the Center on Education and Lifelong Learning, the authors have provided some policy change recommendations.
For example, the brief recommends reviewing the methodology, use and weights for student growth in the evaluation system.
The current policy states that teachers who are rated ineffective or improvement necessary may not receive a raise or increment the following year, according to ?the bill.
Lindsay Moore
