When will I get my final eval?

When to Expect Your Final Evaluation Rating

Once all those required observations and related conferences with your evaluator are completed—and the professionalism rubric has been scored—when, you ask, will you receive your summative evaluation rating for the 2011-12 school year?

Since 50 percent of your evaluation rating is based on data—TVAAS data and some other student achievement measure—your final evaluation rating cannot be calculated until the data is available.

When will all the data be available?

Tennessee’s Department of Education has been working with SAS to have value-added scores returned by June 15 this year, which is months ahead of when it’s been available in the past. This makes June 15 the earliest date by which a teacher’s summative rating could be available.

Whether your rating will be available by June 15 depends on what option was chosen for the 15 percent student achievement data. Scores on 2012 TCAP and end-of-course assessments—which were selected by/for almost 40 percent of teachers—should be available by the end of July. Graduation rate will not be available until mid-fall because the calculation includes summer-school graduates and cannot be calculated earlier. Other data may be available sooner or later than that.

TDE has developed a 15 percent achievement measure timeline spelling out when the data would be available for the various options, and when the data is to be entered in the TEAM data system. (You will need to log in to the Member Center atwww.teateachers.org to view the timeline.)

TDE is reviewing the 15 percent options for future years in order to ensure a more timely wrap-up of the evaluation process.

Your end-of-year and summative conferences

During state training for evaluators in January, districts were encouraged to hold end-of-year conferences with teachers to discuss their final qualitative (observation and professionalism) scores as well as the 15 percent student achievement data if it’s available by then.

At a beginning-of-year conference for 2012-13, your summative rating for this school year will be discussed—provided your 15 percent data is available by that time. If the 15 percent data is not available by the beginning of the 2012-13 school year, then evaluators are to review the 85 percent of the evaluation score that is available in the beginning-of-year conference. The outstanding data is to be entered in the TEAM data system within two weeks of when it becomes available.

For the record

Educators are not the only Tennesseans who doubt the value of the new teacher evaluation system. According to a Middle Tennessee State University telephone poll released February 29, only 18 percent of Tennesseans think the new evaluation system is increasing the quality of education. Nineteen percent think it’s making no difference, and 16 percent think it’s decreasing the quality. The largest group of those polled (48 percent) say they don’t know. Check out the complete poll results.

-from TEA Tuesday report