LFT President Steve Monaghan explains the union's position to the House Education Committee.
(Baton Rouge – April 28, 2010) The science that underlies a proposed new teacher evaluation plan may have merit, but the jury is out on whether it is ready to become law, Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said today. Nonetheless, the House Education Committee approved the bill without objection, and sent it to the House floor for further action.
Testifying before the committee, Monaghan said that HB 1033 by Rep. Frank Hoffman (R-West Monroe) is based on a promising but untested science called a Value Added Model, or VAM.
“This young science has both advocates and doubters in the academic community,” Monaghan said. “We believe it is problematic to build a value-added model into law without the benefit of an adequate field test.”
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Frank Hoffman (R-West Monroe) credited Monaghan with helping to create amendments that made the bill more palatable to teachers. Changes included a guarantee of teacher confidentiality, a process to challenge unfavorable evaluations, and a requirement that charter schools also be subject to the law, among others.
Hoffman said that the bill, which will be implemented over a two-year pilot period, can be changed if it does not work as anticipated.
“If during the pilot, we see that it is not working, I’ll be the first and loudest to do away with it,” Hoffman said.
Monaghan contrasted HB 1033 with the state’s application for federal Race to the Top funds, which would have tested the strengths of the VAM in the course of a “well-financed lab experiment in the field, with the voluntary participation of school districts and the inclusion of teachers in a collaborative process.”
The R2T application, he noted, included a provision, called a “learning environment index,” that schools must correct issues that teachers identified as roadblocks to student achievement. Without that level of involvement, he said, teachers do not have the authority they need to improve learning conditions in a school.
Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) asked if a value-added model can accurately reflect the effectiveness of teachers in classes which are not covered by standardized tests. Hoffman admitted that the new program would only include data for core courses like English, math and science.
Edwards then asked how non-core teachers could be fairly evaluated under the new system. The startling answer was given by Dr. George Noell, the LSU professor who is developing the instrument.
“There will always be inequities,” Dr. Noell said.