OLYMPIA — Gov. Chris Gregoire on Tuesday proposed changing the way Washington teachers and principals are evaluated, providing them with more feedback and potentially expanding the field of educators at risk of being fired for poor performance.
Gregoire said the evaluation system would replace one in which teachers and principals are now rated as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory with one that would have four categories: unsatisfactory, basic, proficient and distinguished.
Her plan builds upon a four-tier evaluation process that has already been tested as a pilot program in several school districts across the state under a law passed in 2010.
While all school districts would have been using a multi-tiered process by the 2013-14 school year, what Gregoire is proposing is to say what exactly the tiers are and to set probation limits, said Judy Hartmann, Gregoire’s K-12 policy adviser.
Gregoire said teachers need to know what they’re doing well and how they need to improve.
“It will be fair. It will be clear. It will be effective,” the governor said.
Under the current law passed in 2010, teachers and principals who are found “unsatisfactory” are placed on probation.
And if they don’t improve by the end of the academic year, they are at risk of being fired, Hartmann said. Under Gregoire’s proposal, that will remain, but teachers who receive a basic rating for two consecutive years would also enter probation and have to raise their evaluations.
“We need to address this concern out there that we have bad teachers,” Gregoire said. “For the most part, we have very, very good teachers. We want to make sure the public feels confident that we have everybody at the proficiency-or-above level.”
Washington Education Association President Mary Lindquist said her organization supported and helped develop the pilot evaluation system, and isn’t concerned with the governor’s announcement.
“We think when it’s fully implemented it’s going to make a significant difference to the students in our classrooms,” she said. “The purpose of the evaluation system is to improve instruction. That’s the focus of our evaluation system.”
Lindquist said the greater concern is further budget cuts to education.
“The biggest problem facing us is not tinkering with the evaluation system. The biggest problem is we don’t have adequate funding for our schools,” she said.
Gregoire also wants opportunities for struggling schools to partner with universities and to create a new office called the Office of Student Achievement that will focus on educational attainment for students from high school until graduate school.
