SEADAE Assessment Institute July 29, 2014

 To provide a level of richness that develops assessment literacy and changes teacher practice- not just teacher evaluation, but instead providing a rich instructional tool for teachers so that they could connect student assessment data with teaching and instruction

A (5)process to (4) document a (3) measure of educator effectiveness based on (2)student achievement of (1)content standards.

4 June 26,2014

 What items are in your “pie,” and at what percentages?  Are teachers in the arts affected differently than teachers in “tested grades and subjects,” and if so, how?

 Please refer to Handouts for ◦ SLO Template ◦ Performance Task Framework Elective Rating Indicators Measures GoalContext

 To meet federal RTT Requirements  To appropriately address the problem of teacher in non-tested grades and subjects  To improve understanding of assessment literacy for teachers and administrators  To encourage teachers to use student achievement data toward changing instructional practice

 What processes are you using in your state to gather evidence of student achievement?  Are these processes tied to teacher evaluation, and if so, how?  Why were these processes chosen?

Development of materials and processes: pdesas.org

 Implementation Timelines  Turn around training ◦ Authors to Intermediate Unit personnel ◦ IU personnel to school district implementation teams  Intent for materials to be used several ways: ◦ For professional trainers ◦ For school leaders and implementation team members ◦ For personal study

 What materials did your state develop to support use of student achievement as a teacher evaluation tool?  What processes were undertaken to train and implement those materials as part of teacher evaluation?

 Regional Education Lab  MACC West Ed  Center for Assessment  Reform Support Network ◦ SLO Toolkit SLO Toolkit ◦ sa/workgroups/slo/slo-toolkit

 Intent for a 3 year plan, still in flux due to current budget constraints  Original plan focused on materials, training, and perception of SLO process ability to improve teaching and learning.  Available studies come primarily from schools who based the process on teacher incentive funds

 State recommended process that will be implemented 500 different ways (LEA control)  Distrust of teacher evaluation systems ◦ Unions ◦ Denial  Funding ◦ State timelines and procurement processes ◦ RTT allocation restrictions ◦ SLO was the last piece of teacher evaluation developed but the least familiar piece

 Least familiar component of teacher evaluation ◦ Last one developed ◦ Perception that SLO should be easy, not cumbersome  Developing “Guidelines for Implementation” ◦ LEA control state ◦ Gaming the system  Teachers in non-tested grades and subjects are not familiar with PA Standards and Curriculum Framework

 Levels of alignment required by the process ◦ Alignment to PA Standards ◦ Alignment of Assessment to Goals and Standards  Connecting PA vision of student achievement to vendor-developed processes and tests  Understanding that SLO is intended to be content specific ◦ Continued attempts by administrators to have all teachers support Math and ELA goals ◦ Difficulty understanding assessments that are not easily quantified

 What challenges did you find in your state when implementing evidence of student achievement as part of teacher evaluation?

 Capacity difficulties on all levels ◦ Money ◦ Time to build and train: building the plane while flying it ◦ Training  Capacity to support trainers  Supervision of trainers  Understanding the diversity of trainer abilities/perspectives  Ways in which trainers and teachers retrieve and learn information has changed, suggesting “sound byte” learning  Trainer buy-in was weak

 Should we have trained Assessment Literacy first? ◦ Tests should be built from blueprints ◦ Designing, Building and Reviewing assessments is a misunderstood art form  Teachers are so inundated with new teacher evaluation changes that they will settle for compliance as opposed to the rich instructional tool that SLO can be  Teachers and trainers are reluctant to commit to percentages of students demonstrating achievment

 SLO is an opportunity to honor teaching of all content standards areas  SLO is a rich instructional practice  SLO is not an easy piece to initially understand or implement