The Harrison Plan: Teacher Compensation Based on Effectiveness

Terry Ryan / March 14, 2012

Pop quiz: Which school district is farthest ahead in designing and implementing a workable teacher evaluation system?  Washington, DC, with its IMPACT system? Denver, Colorado, with PRO-COMP? You’re getting warmer…

The correct answer, according to a brand-new paper from the Fordham Institute, is very likely the Harrison (CO) School District. Harrison is a high-poverty district of about 10,000 students near Colorado Springs. It has confronted the triple challenge of determining what elements are most valuable in a teacher’s overall performance (including but not limited to student growth on standardized tests), applying that determination to the district’s own teachers (all of them!), and then reshaping the teacher-salary system (with the teacher union’s assent!) to reward strong performance. Excellent teachers earn substantially more—and do so earlier in their careers—than their less effective peers.

Under the Harrison Plan, salaries for all teachers depend not on paper credentials or years spent in the classroom, but on what actually happens in their classrooms. “Step increases” based on longevity were eliminated, as were cost of living raises. And professional development is tailored by evaluations to help teacher improve. Harrison’s evaluation process is divided into two parts, with “performance” and “achievement” each representing 50 percent of the overall score.

Performance is gauged via multiple observations of the teacher-in-action over the course of the school year. Some of these are conducted by the principal, other parts by a committee of external district evaluators from other schools

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The Harrison Plan: Teacher Compensation Based on Effectiveness

Charter schools’ self-dealing hurts kids and needs attention

Terry Ryan / March 14, 2012

Fordham has worked in Dayton – as a funder, charter-school authorizer, and charter-school advocate – to push for the creation and growth of high quality charter schools since 1998. Over the last decade one of the highest performing charter school clusters in the city has been the Richard Allen (RA) Schools (RA has three schools in Dayton that serve about 800 children). Over the years I’ve spent time with the leaders of Richard Allen, visited their schools, and even helped judge their annual debate competition. In short, I have always been impressed by both the educators and the students I’ve met and worked with from the RA schools and believe the schools delivered quality education to students.

It is because of these personal connections to the schools over the years that I found the recent “Special Audit of the Richard Allen Academy Schools” such painful and disturbing reading. The Special Audit provided a litany of “missing money, missing records and self-dealing” that has led to $929,850 in findings for recovery. The audit describes a situation where public dollars were used without any basic accountability or transparency. It reads as if the schools’ leadership considered the schools a private operation free of any responsibility for how the state dollars were spent. There also seemed little understanding as to whom the public resources were meant to support.

For example, the audit details how the schools contracted with the Montgomery

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Charter schools’ self-dealing hurts kids and needs attention

New A-F school-rating system a shock, and needed wake-up call, for many

March 14, 2012

In Ohio’s recent waiver application to the U.S. Department of Education for relief from the most onerous portions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the Buckeye State proposes the creation of a revamped and significantly improved reporting system for school and district performance.

Ohio’s current rating system uses vanilla and confusing terms for rating schools and districts like “Excellent with Distinction,” “Continuous Improvement,” and “Academic Emergency.” Worse, the state’s rating system provides inflated grades for performance. For example, in classic Lake Wobegon fashion, 57 percent of Ohio’s school districts were rated as “Excellent with Distinction” or “Excellent” (the best possible ratings) in 2011. Conversely, not one of the state’s 609 rated school districts was rated “Academic Emergency” (the lowest possible rating).  

Ohio’s new system would incorporate an A-F letter grade system, and grades would be based on a basket of performance metrics ranging from number of academic standards met or surpassed to value-added gains to progress in closing achievement and graduation gaps. Under the proposed new system – which has to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education and put into Ohio law – districts and schools will be provided with an overall grade and separate grades in the categories of: 1) student performance, 2) school performance, 3) gap closing and 4) student progress (see details here).

The proposed system would not only be easier for parents, citizens, and others to

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New A-F school-rating system a shock, and needed wake-up call, for many

Kudos to KIPP: Fordham-sponsored school wins award for academic growth

Kathryn Mullen Upton, Esq. / March 14, 2012

Congratulations to KIPP: Central Ohio Executive Director Hannah Powell (who was the school leader for the past several years) and the entire staff at KIPP: Journey Academy for the school’s EPIC Silver Gain Award from New Leaders for New Schools.

The EPIC (Effective Practice Incentive Community) award recognizes schools that make substantial gains in student academic growth. In partnership with Mathematica Policy Research, NLNS gathers student test data and analyzes them.  Schools with the highest gains are selected as winners. To be eligible for an EPIC award, schools must have student populations of at least 30 percent eligible free and reduced-price lunch (over 90 percent of KIPP Journey students are considered economically disadvantaged) , submit three years of state test score data for all students, and be willing to share their effective practices with NLNS EPIC partners. As part of the award, KIPP: Journey Academy will receive approximately $50,000 to be distributed among its staff.

Of the 179 charter schools from 24 states and the District of Columbia that participated, only 14 winners were selected, and KIPP: Journey Academy was the only school in Ohio - and the only KIPP school nationally- to receive an award.

On behalf of the school, Ms. Powell said, “We are thrilled and honored that KIPP: Journey received this award. This award recognizes the dedication of our teachers and staff as they help our students climb

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Kudos to KIPP: Fordham-sponsored school wins award for academic growth

Tightening Up Title I: The Implementation and Effectiveness of Supplemental Education Services

March 14, 2012

The No Child Left Behind Act requires public schools that have not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for two consecutive years to offer children of low-income families the opportunity to receive supplemental educational services (SES). SES comes primarily in the form of tutoring offered outside of regular schools hours and is often provided by private entities. Schools failing to meet AYP requirements are required to set aside 20 percent of their Title I funding to pay for SES and to measure the effectiveness of tutoring on student achievement. How much impact does SES have on student achievement though? A recent report by the Center for American Progress sets out to answer this question as well as provide policy recommendations that aim to improve the SES program.  

The report found that many states and school districts are extremely deficient in the evaluation and recording of SES providers and their results. A combination of self-reporting and unreliable data collection methods such as parent surveys has resulted in lack-luster evidence on the effectiveness of tutoring programs.  In addition to the lack of sufficient data among states and districts, the number of tutoring hours that students receive is critical in the impact on student achievement. Research has proven the “magic” number to be 40 hours. Students receiving less than 40 hours of tutoring do not demonstrate any statistically significant gains in reading and math.  The report also states that another problem

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Tightening Up Title I: The Implementation and Effectiveness of Supplemental Education Services

Peanut butter jelly time!

March 14, 2012

•    This report takes an interesting look at the push for data driven student instruction.  It analyzes teacher preparation programs to see if graduates know how to interpret student assessment data and apply the results to quality instruction decisions.
•    It’s peanut butter jelly time for a few students, minus the jelly.  Central Ohio schools are cracking down on parents who consistently fail to pay for their child’s lunch, or don’t sign up for free and reduced lunch.  These students are served peanut butter crackers, juice, and applesauce.  
•    Schools are filing complaints with auditors’ offices asking for an increase in property values.  The decrease in property value in a school district means less money for schools during levy collection.  
•    A study in New York City schools found that students learning a nonfiction-emphasized curriculum outperformed their peers learning a balanced literacy curriculum on reading comprehension tests and science and social studies knowledge.  It was a very limited study, but one worth investigating.  
•    Florida is allowing a teacher to bring an “interesting” perspective to the profession.  An ex-porn actor was forced to sell his pornography company after he was fired from a school district in Florida. The Sunshine State recently determined he is allowed to pursue his teaching certificate with a probationary period of two years and a psychological evaluation.

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Peanut butter jelly time!