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Teacher evaluations鈥攂oth their role and the mechanics of carrying them out鈥攁re a politically fraught subject, and the Every Student Succeeds Act has kicked the dust up once again as states wrestle with how to comply with teacher-quality sections of the new law.

ESSA, which goes into effect this fall, does away with the 鈥渉ighly qualified teacher鈥� mandates under its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act. It also bans the U.S. secretary of education from dictating the ways in which states grade their teachers, a sore spot under the NCLB law.

At the same time, ESSA requires states to provide a single definition of 鈥渋neffective teachers鈥� in the plans they submit to the federal government and then describe how they will ensure that poor and minority students aren鈥檛 being taught by a disproportionate number of them.

This shift in policy has reignited battles over who should stand in front of America鈥檚 classrooms, whether state or local leaders should make those decisions, and what information about teachers鈥� performance should be reported.

Civil rights advocates and teacher accountability hawks have expressed deep frustration with how some states ignored this portion of the law in the 17 plans submitted so far. They are pushing the Education Department to get tough as those plans undergo peer review before the education secretary rules on them.

鈥淲e are disappointed at the extent to which some states have taken the opportunity, with the absence of strong regulations, to really include a very minimal amount of information about what they鈥檙e doing to close equity gaps,鈥� said Elizabeth Ross, the managing director of state policy for the National Council on Teacher Quality, or NCTQ, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. 鈥淔rom our read, some states failed to provide even the most minimal definitions, statutory terms, and data. No state is getting this perfect across the board. 鈥�

State education officials, meanwhile, say they struggle to collect teacher quality information from districts, many of which have different evaluation systems. Many states are navigating a myriad of privacy laws that can make collecting and analyzing teacher quality information challenging.

Further complicating things, district administrators, union officials, and state politicians often disagree over what indicators, including test scores, should be considered when deciding a teacher is ineffective. Navigating these political and technical hurdles is difficult for state departments, said Holly Boffy, the program director of teacher and leader development for the Council of Chief State School Officers.

鈥淚 believe, if we鈥檙e successful, we鈥檙e going to see incredible improvement for our kids that ESSA is intended to serve,鈥� Boffy said, referring to defining and tracking ineffective teachers. 鈥淚鈥檓 excited about this push in the law because it influences the way we think about how we support teachers.鈥�

Early Signs

About a third of the states have submitted their ESSA plans so far, and their approaches in this area vary widely.

Oregon and the District of Columbia did not explicitly define ineffective teachers, saying they will do so at a later date.

Michael J. Kirst, the chairman of California鈥檚 state board of education, said that the state will likely punt the decision to the legislature.

Connecticut, which has a clear definition of ineffective teachers, said it does not track where those educators work since state law prohibits that information from being made available to the public.

North Dakota will calculate how much ineffective teaching occurs in schools, rather than how many ineffective teachers work at a school.

Vermont will name every teacher who has a teacher certification as effective.

In North Dakota and Vermont, the majority of schools are so tiny that merely identifying schools with ineffective teachers would place names and faces on teachers who need help, which amounts to public shaming, department officials in those states say.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 have the ability to look at the individual context and determine whether teachers are doing the best of their ability based on what鈥檚 going on in that classroom,鈥� said Patrick Halladay, Vermont鈥檚 ESSA project manager.

And during the reporting process of this story, after questions from 澳门跑狗论坛 and NCTQ, Michigan officials realized they erroneously left that part out of their submitted plan. They revised and resubmitted the plan to the department.

Clash of Views

Teacher union officials in some states say ESSA contradicts itself by both banning federal meddling in teacher evaluations and asking states to define what an ineffective teacher is鈥攅ssentially forcing the state to determine who does and doesn鈥檛 belong in the classroom.

鈥淲hen I think back to a good teacher, the thing that might have made the biggest difference, I look back and say, 鈥楥an you really have measured that?鈥� 鈥� said Ray Rossomando, the research and policy development specialist at the Connecticut Education Association. 鈥淭herein lies the difficulty. What鈥檚 beneficial is a reliance on observations and what鈥檚 grown to be rich conversations between supervisors and teachers.鈥�

Civil rights activists, however, say the data collection piece is what will make ESSA effective in closing the nation鈥檚 stubborn achievement gap.

They say that by knowing and tracking where ineffective teachers are clustered, state agencies and local districts can more specifically tailor federal resources to schools most in need, and the public can more closely hold their school board members accountable.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 plausibly say you鈥檙e going to close gaps without addressing fundamental, longstanding allocation of resources and, principal among those things is great teaching,鈥� said Liz King, the senior policy analyst and director of education policy of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Role of Data

In 2015, most states with waivers from the NCLB law held high-profile, sometimes-raucous meetings with teachers鈥� unions over how to comply with the federal requirement to include standardized test scores in teacher evaluations.

States also in recent years have begun collecting statewide data on things such as teacher experience, how long teachers stay at schools and where they attended college. These are clues states can use to help come up with a single definition for an 鈥渋neffective teacher,鈥� said Brennan McMahon Parton, the associate director of state policy and advocacy for the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that works with state policymakers to improve data collection and use.

鈥淣o state is starting from scratch, and that鈥檚 why we were so disappointed to see that some didn鈥檛 even include the minimal amount of information in their plans,鈥� Ross said.

In several submitted plans, state officials, in sometimes very plain language, say that what makes for an ineffective teacher is still an unsettled debate. (By contrast, there鈥檚 wide consensus in policy circles on what qualifies as an out-of-field and inexperienced teacher.)

Among those that have yet to submit a definition, the reasons vary.

The District of Columbia, for example, says in its submitted plan that the state doesn鈥檛 want to intrude on the autonomy of its many charter school operators. More than 40 percent of the city鈥檚 students attend more than 118 charter schools. District officials didn鈥檛 respond to several requests for an interview.

Oregon will hold a series of statewide meetings this summer to figure out how to define an ineffective teacher in a state where the evaluation models vary widely among the 213 districts, and where the state legislature has voted to remove the use of test scores in teacher evaluations.

鈥淚 think, somewhere along the lines, we kind of messed it all up,鈥� said Timothy Boyd, the state department鈥檚 director of the office of teaching, learning, and assessment. 鈥淲e鈥檝e created a bit of high-stakes scenario where [teachers] have to pass the evaluation rather than being reflective on what they need to work on and how do we give them the right tools to get better.鈥�