SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The much anticipated results of teacher evaluations are out and New Jersey’s educators received high marks, with 97 percent ranking in the two highest categories as “effective” and “highly effective.”
The state released the AchieveNJ teacher evaluation data earlier this month for the 2013-14 school year. The ratings were based primarily on administrator observations, but student performance on tests and student improvement was also considered.
According to the results, of the 403 teachers evaluated in the South Orange-Maplewood School District, 396 teachers were ranked as effective or highly effective.
The new evaluation system was created as a result of an education reform law passed in 2012 that requires annual evaluations and stricter tenure rules for teachers.
The evaluations included the following four categories: ineffective, partially effective, effective and highly effective. However, in order to protect the privacy of teachers, if any school had fewer than 10 teachers in any one category, the results for that category were not listed.
The evaluations were also not listed for some schools if all the teachers in one school were evaluated in the same category, since any individual would then know each teacher’s evaluation in that school. These factors resulted in 10,000 teacher evaluations statewide not being disclosed.
Assistant Education Commissioner Peter Shulman pointed out the results from the first year of the AchieveNJ evaluation were not significant enough to identify trends or make sweeping conclusions about teachers statewide.
The information, though, he said, would be used to help the 2,900 teachers in the state who were “found to be struggling.” These teachers, Shulman said, work with 13 percent, or 180,000 of all New Jersey students.
“We need to work with these teachers to help them improve, if they can’t improve we need to remove them,” Shulman told the state Board of Education at a meeting two weeks ago when the evaluations were discussed.
The findings, he added, also showed that teachers with two years or less experience were more than twice as likely as experienced educators to earn partially effective ratings. That, Shulman said, is even more incentive to improve training and mentoring of new teachers.
Shulman said in his report to the state board of education that after analysis, one in 12 teachers were rated less than effective in districts that had a high concentration of low-income students. One in six teachers were rated less than effective in these priority schools or schools with the lowest performing 5 percent statewide.
Teachers rated ineffective or partially effective will be put on corrective action plans and receive extra support, according to Shulman. However, they will only have two years to improve or they could lose their jobs.
There has been concern by educators teaching challenged students that their schools would rate lower in the evaluations, but the state found no major difference in ratings for teachers of students learning the English language or special education students, Shulman reported.
Shulman, though, said the latest release of evaluation results represents a “significant step forward,” and that educators can receive meaningful feedback that provides growth.
Districts were advised by the state to carefully consider whether their scores present an accurate picture of the actual student learning taking place. To help districts facilitate this, the state will continue to provide “tailored support” to improve the goal-setting for educators.
This includes focus group listening tours to schools, achievement coaches, professional development sessions, innovation and flexibility initiatives, greater focus on principal evaluations and deeper study within the Strategic Data Project.
In the South Orange-Maplewood School District, out of 403 evaluated teachers, 263 were rated effective and 133 were rated highly effective; seven teachers in the district were rated as ineffective and/or partially effective.
Of the 120 evaluated teachers at Columbia High School, 69 were rated effective and 50 highly effective, leaving one teacher as either ineffective or partially effective.
Of the 37 evaluated teachers at Maplewood Middle School, 32 were rated effective, leaving five teachers rated as ineffective, partially effective and/or highly effective. Of the 37 evaluated teachers at South Orange Middle School, 23 were rated effective and 14 were rated highly effective, meaning no SOMS teachers were rated ineffective or partially effective.
At Clinton Elementary School and Jefferson Elementary School, which each had 33 evaluated teachers, each school saw 27 teachers rated effective, leaving six teachers at each school as ineffective, partially effective and/or highly effective. Of the 31 evaluated teachers at Marshall Elementary School, 13 were rated effective and 17 were rated highly effective, leaving one teacher as either ineffective or partially effective.
Of the 33 evaluated teachers at Seth Boyden Demonstration School, 19 were rated effective and 13 were rated highly effective, leaving one teacher as either ineffective or partially effective. Of the 36 evaluated teachers at South Mountain Annex School, 22 were rated effective and 12 were rated highly effective, leaving two teachers rated as ineffective and/or partially effective. Of the 42 evaluated teachers at Tuscan Elementary School, 30 were rated effective and 11 were rated highly effective, leaving one teacher as either ineffective or partially effective.
According to the numbers, of the 23 teachers in the district whose rating was not disclosed, at least 16 were rated highly effective at Maplewood Middle, Clinton and Jefferson, but those numbers were not disclosed as the number of highly effective teachers did not exceed nine at any of those schools.