Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/02/09//2018532/a-public-school-accountability.html#storylink=cpy

Washington state already has a law, approved two years ago, to reshape the way public-school teachers are evaluated.

Now it’s looking at several proposals that would reshape the reshaping — one pushed by the business community, another backed by the state teachers union, one from Gov. Chris Gregoire and yet another from state Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn.

So how do all of these differ from yet another system — one recently put in place by the state’s largest school district, Seattle Public Schools?

There are only a few differences, it turns out, but they concern major issues, especially pertaining to how the evaluations can be used in hiring decisions — a flash point because some think the evaluations are too subjective for that.

All of the systems involve moving from a two-level rating — satisfactory or unsatisfactory — to a four-level rating system that would give teachers more feedback and thus help them improve. Under the earlier system, almost all teachers were rated satisfactory.

The current law leaves the specifics up to individual districts, while the bill supported by the union would fill in some details and provide training. The reform-minded bill, on the other hand, would require student test scores to be used in evaluations and evaluations to be used in hiring decisions.

The proposals from Gregoire and Dorn are similar to the bill backed by the union but have not generated much discussion this session.

Seattle’s new system, crafted through collective bargaining in the summer of 2010 and still being rolled out, is considered innovative for the middle ground it strikes. It makes test scores a factor, although indirectly, and gives the new evaluations some teeth.

The disagreements mirror a debate taking place across the country: Making what have often been superficial evaluations more rigorous has become a focus of national education reform and is a major priority of President Obama. But the details of how to do that have sparked controversy across the country, and Washington is no exception.

Here — based on documents and interviews with district officials, union leaders and lobbyists — is a more detailed breakdown of Seattle’s system compared with the current law and the two main bills:

The law now on the books put the state on a path toward more rigorous evaluations but does not spell out many specifics.

It established pilot evaluation programs and required districts to move to a four-level evaluation system by the 2013 school year, but it left most details up to individual districts. Seattle is not one of the pilots — it started moving to its new system before the state law was passed — but it meets the requirements of the law and then some.

Lytton-Frockt proposal

The bill supported by the union, sponsored by Rep. Kristine Lytton, D-Anacortes, and Sen. David Frockt, D-Seattle, would mostly fill in details to the current law.

Under the legislation, the state would develop three different options of four-level rating systems, and districts would be required to choose one to put in place by 2013. Under this measure, Seattle may have to alter its system but not significantly.

The state would also be required to provide funding for evaluation training.

The bill backed by the business community, sponsored by Rep. Eric Pettigrew, D-Seattle, and Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Bellevue, would shake things up the most.

It would require the use of student test scores as a factor in evaluations. The bill does not lay out specifics; Seattle’s system would probably fit the bill.

In addition, the proposal would require evaluations to be considered along with seniority in hiring and transfer decisions. Seniority now is the only factor.

It also would give principals the power to refuse “forced placement” by the superintendent of bad teachers transferring from other schools.

Finally — and perhaps most alarming to unions — the bill would allow for veteran teachers to lose their right to due process if they receive the lowest rating two years in a row.

Unions view that as unfair, but those advocating for change consider being able to more easily get rid of bad teachers a necessity.

Seattle Public Schools

Seattle’s system is based on evaluations by principals or assistant principals during classroom visits at least twice per year.

Evaluators use a rubric that includes four categories — planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction and professional responsibility. Each area is made up of specific components. In each category evaluators classify the teachers as either unsatisfactory, basic, proficient or innovative.

The system is designed to provide feedback to teachers surrounding specific goals they set for themselves at the beginning of the year. Struggling teachers receive extra mentoring and funding.

But the structure also allows for using the evaluations to identify ineffective teachers.

Veteran teachers must be proficient on all domains or risk being placed on a performance improvement plan. If they don’t improve, they can be placed on probation and eventually fired after an administrative hearing.

New teachers are allowed to work toward proficiency. But if they don’t get there fast enough, they can be fired without even getting probation.

As for the use of test scores: If a teacher’s students perform poorly two years in a row, additional evaluations are triggered. If students perform well, the teacher can become a mentor, which comes with additional pay.

Finally, as part of the agreement on the new system, the district also agreed to end forced placement in the city’s lowest-performing schools.

This month, the American Academy of Pediatrics is issuing a landmark warning that this toxic stress can harm children for life. I’m as skeptical as anyone of headlines from new medical studies (Coffee is good for you! Coffee is bad for you!), but that’s not what this is.

Rather, this is a “policy statement” from the premier association of pediatricians, based on two decades of scientific research. This has revolutionary implications for medicine and for how we can more effectively chip away at poverty and crime.

Toxic stress might arise from parental abuse of alcohol or drugs. It could occur in a home where children are threatened and beaten. It might derive from chronic neglect — a child cries without being cuddled. Affection seems to defuse toxic stress — keep those hugs and lullabies coming! — suggesting that the stress emerges when a child senses persistent threats but no protector.

Cues of a hostile or indifferent environment flood an infant, or even a fetus, with stress hormones like cortisol in ways that can disrupt the body’s metabolism or the architecture of the brain.

The upshot is that children are sometimes permanently undermined. Even many years later, as adults, they are more likely to suffer heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other physical ailments. They are also more likely to struggle in school, have short tempers and tangle with the law.

The crucial period seems to be from conception through early childhood. After that, the brain is less pliable and has trouble being remolded.

“You can modify behavior later, but you can’t rewire disrupted brain circuits,” notes Jack P. Shonkoff, a Harvard pediatrician who has been a leader in this field. “We’re beginning to get a pretty compelling biological model of why kids who have experienced adversity have trouble learning.”

This new research addresses an uncomfortable truth: Poverty is difficult to overcome partly because of self-destructive behaviors. Children from poor homes often shine, but others may skip school, abuse narcotics, break the law, and have trouble settling down in a marriage and a job. Then their children may replicate this pattern.

Liberals sometimes ignore these self-destructive pathologies. Conservatives sometimes rely on them to blame poverty on the poor.

The research suggests that the roots of impairment and underachievement are biologically embedded, but preventable. “This is the biology of social class disparities,” Dr. Shonkoff said. “Early experiences are literally built into our bodies.”

The implication is that the most cost-effective window to bring about change isn’t high school or even kindergarten — although much greater efforts are needed in schools as well — but in the early years of life, or even before birth.

“Protecting young children from adversity is a promising, science-based strategy to address many of the most persistent and costly problems facing contemporary society, including limited educational achievement, diminished economic productivity, criminality, and disparities in health,” the pediatrics academy said in its policy statement.

One successful example of early intervention is home visitation by childcare experts, like those from the Nurse-Family Partnership. This organization sends nurses to visit poor, vulnerable women who are pregnant for the first time. The nurse warns against smoking and alcohol and drug abuse, and later encourages breast-feeding and good nutrition, while coaxing mothers to cuddle their children and read to them. This program continues until the child is 2.

At age 6, studies have found, these children are only one-third as likely to have behavioral or intellectual problems as others who weren’t enrolled. At age 15, the children are less than half as likely to have been arrested.

Evidence of the importance of early experiences has been mounting like snowflakes in a blizzard. For example, several studies examined Dutch men and women who had been in utero during a brief famine at the end of World War II. Decades later, those “famine babies” had more trouble concentrating and more heart disease than those born before or after.

Other scholars examined children who had been badly neglected in Romanian orphanages. Those who spent more time in the orphanages had shorter telomeres, a change in chromosomes that’s a marker of accelerated aging. Their brain scans also looked different.

The science is still accumulating. But a compelling message from biology is that if we want to chip away at poverty and improve educational and health outcomes, we have to start earlier. For many children, damage has been suffered before the first day of school.

As Frederick Douglass noted, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

Now, students at the University of Washington have come up with a slate of proposals they say would keep lawmakers from having to choose — by raising money for higher education without raising state taxes.

“We’re students; we do our homework,” said Andrew Lewis, head of government relations for the Associated Students of UW (ASUW).

The three-pronged proposal includes: allowing colleges and universities to invest operating funds in higher-yielding investments; partly closing a tax break that gives business-and-occupation and sales tax credits to high-tech firms for research-and-development spending; and giving community and technical college districts the ability to raise money through ballot levies.

The students, who rolled out their ideas Wednesday during a news conference at the University Book Store, said they and their peers are growing increasingly worried about how the cuts are affecting the quality of their education and the cost of getting a degree.

Randy Hodgins, vice president of external relations for the UW, said he was glad to see students offering creative ideas for new funding sources.

“The more ideas, the better,” Hodgins said. “They have an important voice in this, and it needs to be heard.”

Last week, Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed cutting $166 million from higher education as part of a $1.5 billion package of cuts needed to plug the state’s latest revenue shortfall. The Legislature is to convene a special session Nov. 28 to begin that process.

Lewis said changing the terms of the two tax exemptions alone could raise $80 million a year. He said students plan to mount an aggressive lobbying campaign in Olympia for both the special session and the regular session.

One of their ideas, to change the way operating funds are invested, also is being pushed in Olympia by the UW administration, Hodgins said. Currently, that money must be invested conservatively.

Changing the rules to allow schools to take advantage of higher-yielding investments could eventually raise an extra $10 million to $20 million yearly, Hodgins said. It would require an amendment to the state constitution.

Students also want to change the tax credits available to high-tech businesses so that companies with more than 250 employees could no longer take advantage of the break. Lewis said he didn’t know which companies might fall under that category.

According to the state Department of Revenue, one such company is Microsoft, which reported to the state that it is due $104 million in sales-tax breaks under this program.

Hodgins said closing tax loopholes has been floated in Olympia for several years. The university isn’t taking a position on that measure, although he noted the UW itself actually qualifies for the break.

And students say giving community and technical college districts the ability to raise money by putting levies on the ballot would indirectly benefit four-year schools because more students could complete their first two years in a less-expensive community college, then transfer to earn a four-year degree.

UW student Alejandro Peña said the message to lawmakers is this: “You don’t really need to cut. You can say yes to new and creative revenue solutions.”