Vermont teachers are calling for significant regulatory changes and a new model for evaluating student and teacher success.
An agenda released Monday by the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association includes broadening contract negotiations to encompass educational policy, providing more training and support for new teachers, and shifting teacher oversight from the Agency of Education to the Office of Professional Regulation.
VT-NEA president Martha Allen said the recommendations, embedded in a larger “Agenda for Student Success,” are directly responsive to a teacher survey conducted in 2013 by the organization in conjunction with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s office and the Agency of Education.
Allen emphasized the value of local control as the state’s education system struggles to close the achievement gap between wealthy and poor students.
“If you and your children live a comfortable life where your family has a comfortable home, good jobs, food on the table and enough income to lead the kind of life you want, then congratulations,” Allen said. Families of means in Vermont have access to a world-class education system, she said, but it’s not a reality shared by all.
Allen said local schools can respond more nimbly to their communities’ needs if they’re not forced into a “cookie-cutter” curriculum with a punitive evaluation system carried out to a “relentless drumbeat about the cost public education.”
Sen. Richard McCormack, D-Windsor, chairs the Senate Committee on Education. He said Monday afternoon that he had not yet read the NEA report and was not familiar with some of the regulatory changes being proposed, but that his committee would certainly hear them out.
“When the NEA speaks, we listen,” McCormack said.
Evaluation & oversight
One prominent theme of the NEA agenda is teacher evaluation, coupled with a de-emphasis on standardized test scores as a single means for measuring student achievement.
Allen said standardized tests are geared toward measurement of college readiness — a standard she said is impractical when not all kids are bound for or even need to pursue higher education.
Allen said the NEA is developing a set of “student learning objectives” that school districts can use to measure a broader sense of how well students perform. Multiple measures of success, in turn, would generate more robust metrics by which teachers would be evaluated.
Professional standards for teacher performance — such as classroom management skills, lesson plan development and participation in the school community — could then be layered into a more complete picture of how well a teacher is performing.
Currently, Allen said, standards for teacher evaluations vary greatly from district to district. Teachers are evaluated on different cycles, some may be given “just a little checklist,” and others may be given feedback they can actually learn from.
“We don’t want to have a statewide evaluation system (for teachers),” Allen said. But the NEA would like more clear guidelines and thorough training available to help get teacher evaluations more in line.
They’d also like to completely overhaul the relicensing process, right down to changing jurisdiction for professional oversight.
Darren Allen, NEA spokesman, said the organization plans to craft a formal proposal in the 2014 legislative session to move teacher regulation from the Agency of Education to the Office of Professional Regulation, in the Secretary of State’s office.
Licensing would be purely a matter of professional credentials, Martha Allen said, while evaluation would be left solely up to the school districts.
Teacher training
The NEA agenda states that more than half of educators leave the profession within five years. A variety of reasons are cited, many of which circle back to teacher evaluation, training and support.
To attract and retain the “best and brightest” teachers for Vermont schools, the NEA proposes restructuring teacher training for newcomers to the profession, starting with requiring a full year of student teaching — rather than the 12 weeks now commonly in place. The longer training period would be followed by a two-year mentoring process.
Still more emphasis is placed on allowing local schools to “innovate” new programs to foster creativity in both teachers, students and communities.
“There are numbers of programs that do that already,” Darren Allen said. “We just want to keep encouraging it.”
The NEA report names continued professional development as another priority, especially as the group works to establish a new evaluation paradigm for students and teachers, alike.
Time and again, Martha Allen said, teachers responded to the state’s survey by saying they need more time and resources — and to be trusted with more responsibility — to help children become capable, contented adults who can pursue any path they desire.
Contract negotiations
Martha Allen acknowledged that many of the organization’s goals are long term. And on some points — such as not over-relying on standardized test scores for teacher evaluation — she said the union and the state’s Agency of Education are well aligned.
But administrations change, she noted, both at the state and local levels. As the NEA levies its resources to institute structural changes and new program models into public curricula, the group doesn’t want its victories subject to the winds of politics.
“We want to open up the regular contract negotiation process,” Darren Allen said, “to move beyond compensation and working rules, to dive into educational policies.”
Such negotiations could take place on very local and pragmatic matters, he said, such as building a few more minutes into every school day to make time for business partnerships, or establishing apprenticeship programs.
Full agenda
The NEA’s full agenda can be found on the NEA’s website.
The survey results on which many recommendations were based can be found at www.tellvermont.org.
