Senate Passes Teacher and Administrator Evaluations

The Senate passed a revamped proposal to reframe existing educator evaluations Tuesday by a vote of 35-2, with dissent from Senator Rebekah Warren (D-Ann Arbor) and Senator Coleman Young II (D-Detroit), and Senator Mike Green (R-Mayville) absent for the vote. The House passed the updated version last week, and the legislation currently awaits approval from Governor Rick Snyder.

SB 103 establishes training requirements and options for public school academies and school districts to develop their own teacher evaluation tool or create changes to an existing tool. Funding for these training requirements must come from the Educator Evaluation Reserve Fund. It also requires the Department of Education to keep and maintain a list of teacher and administrator evaluation tools and also include a list of the tools recommended by the Michigan Council on Educator Effectiveness. Districts will not be required to use the same tool for administrators and teachers.

If law, SB 103 will immediately establish for administrators 25 percent of the annual evaluation to be based on student growth and assessment data, the data being an aggregate of student growth data used in teacher evaluations in the district where the administrator works.

Teachers will have, beginning the 2018-19 school year, 40 percent of the year-end evaluation based on student growth, measured half by state assessment and half from a local assessment. SB 103 also allocates $14.8 million for districts to train teachers and administrators on the new evaluation tools.

Many educational interests were receptive to the bill, including the Tri-County Alliance for Public Education and the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals with the adoption of the H-8 amendment. Other organizations were pleased as well, but are looking to the Department of Education for leadership.

posted by PAA Online , Friday, October 23, 2015 10:49 AM
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