The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

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March 21, 2024

Md. regulation for ‘Race to the Top’ grant could change teacher evaluation system

MCPS may be forced by the Maryland Board of Education to change its teacher evaluation system to one that bases 50 percent of teacher evaluations on student achievement, despite opposition from county officials.

The proposed new teacher evaluation is a result of the state receiving a $250 million from the Race to the Top grant from the Department of Education Aug. 24. The Race to the Top program, which Education Secretary Arne Duncan started to promote education reform, rewards school systems that reward successful teachers. Maryland applied without the support of Montgomery and Frederick counties.

The Maryland BOE drafted teacher evaluation regulations to comply with federal guidelines, which call for 50 percent of yearly teacher evaluations to be based on student performance, including scores on standardized tests and student progress over time. If approved by Governor Martin O’Malley, the regulations will become state law, but he hasn’t said when he’ll announce his decision.

MCPS originally offered a conditional approval of Race to the Top in May 2010, if it could keep the current teacher evaluation system. After state superintendent Nancy Grasmick deemed the MCPS teacher evaluation system non-compliant with Race to the Top guidelines, the county school board decided to opt out of the program.

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The county declined its $12 million share of the grant after BOE members weren’t willing to alter the current teacher evaluation system, public information officer Lesli Maxwell said.

In MCPS, teacher pay is based on the number of years teaching and level of education. The county currently evaluates new teachers three or four times a year through school administrator’s observations. Eventually, tenured teachers, who earn tenure their third year of teaching, are evaluated every five years. If the evaluation deems that the teacher needs improvement after two years, the teacher is entered into the “Peer Assistance and Review” system and is paired with a mentor teacher.

Using student progress as half of teacher evaluations isn’t an effective way to evaluate teachers, county BOE member Phil Kauffman said.

“Students would have to take tests at the beginning and end of the year in just about every subject,” he said. “There’s really no impact on the student for taking a lot of these tests. If a student decides not to try on the test, then the score would hurt the teacher. Teachers are worried about whether or not it’s fair.”

MCPS officials, including superintendent Jerry Weast, testified against the state’s proposal at a Nov. 8 hearing, saying it conflicted with the MCPS teacher evaluation system.

Current state law requires student achievement to be a factor in evaluating teachers, but limits any one criterion to 35 percent of the evaluation. The Maryland Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review voted 12-3 Nov. 8 to reject the state’s teacher evaluation proposal. The committee functions as an advisory panel on proposed state regulations, offering recommendations to state agencies.

Despite the Committee’s decision, the Maryland BOE chose to send the original proposal to O’Malley who has final say on the proposal, even without the Committee’s approval. If approved by O’Malley, the proposal will require all counties to alter their teacher evaluation systems to meet the new state law.

Another reason the Committee rejected the proposal is because current state law also requires the Maryland BOE to solicit recommendations from the local school systems prior to drafting Race to the Top regulations. The Maryland BOE ignored this and continued without consulting local school systems, said state senator Paul Pinsky, the primary co-chair of the Committee, on his website.

The Committee asked the Maryland BOE to go back and revise its proposal to comply with existing law and allow for more input from county schools systems on the regulations, Pinsky said.

The regulations, if passed by O’Malley, don’t allow for counties to personalize the teacher evaluation system to fit their own school system, Kauffman said.

“If it ultimately prevails, then I don’t think there’s anything we could do about it,” he said.

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