Student Growth Details
Annual Objectives
Eligible Educators: All teachers represented by the DCTA agreement
Decision Maker: Teacher/specialist and Principal
Year Implemented: 2006-2007
Purpose
- Measure student growth in a way that is consistent with the responsibilites of all teachers and specialists
- Recognize teachers whose students meet growth expectations set collaboratively between a teacher and their principal based on district guidelines
- Create a consistent process for teachers and principals to collaborate on expecations for student growth and to plan how those expecations will be met
- Measure student growth using educationally sound methods and assessments that are grounded in the teacher's or specialist's area of practice
Rationale
- A compensation system should reflect research showing that individual teachers have the greatest impact on student growth
- The experience of the Pay for Performance Pilot has shown that objective setting has a positive effect on student growth
- To measure student growth we must look at student performance in relation to individual teachers in the subject they are teaching
- CSAP and other large-scale assessments have limitations when used to measure student growth:
o They do not provide any information about student growth in areas other than reading, writing and math and are limited to grades four through ten
- The objective setting process provides teachers with a useful tool to make informed decisions about instruction
- Teachers are not rewarded for the growth of their student under the current system
- A compensation system needs to provide an equitable way for student services professionals and other specialists to identify and achieve student growth objectives
Economic Specifications
- Increases will be applied in June or July following presentation of evidence that objectives have been met
- Teachers cannot receive sustainable decreases unless they have already earned a sustainable increase
District Capacity That Needs To Be Built
- Expand capacity in human resources, instructional departments, areas and schools to track results on objective setting
- Expand capacity to train teachers, principals and administrators on the objective setting process, including assistance for teachers and specialists who choose to use teacher-made assessments in their objectives
- Expand central guidance for the teacher objective setting process for the broad range of the diverse work done by teachers and specialists
- Expand objective setting database so it can support inclusion of all teachers and specialists
- Create neutral problem solving and dispute-resolution processes to address differences in the collaborative process between teachers and principals
- Develop a collaborative system for DPS and DCTA to evaluate the objective setting system