We all know that Texas has significantly strengthened its focus on student learning and accountability in recent years, and that research shows that putting a high quality teacher in every classroom and a high quality principal in each school is crucial to improving student achievement. Yet little is known about the state’s efforts to increase educator quality.
Few can deny the importance of the goal, and Texas appears determined to not be left behind. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is moving ahead with a coordinated action plan to improve educator effectiveness including revising the teacher appraisal process, developing a new principal appraisal process, aligning teacher credential requirements, ensuring that educators are “worthy to instruct,” and strengthening the accountability of educator preparation programs.
In March 2010, Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott conducted a review of all agency rules, requirements, and guidance to determine those that should be changed or clarified. As a result of this review, Texas’ teacher appraisal system, the PDAS, was targeted for revisions to include “current research and data related to improving teacher effectiveness.”
As we’ve reported earlier 
, the current version of PDAS does a poor job of distinguishing effective from ineffective teachers. The most recent district reports on the use of PDAS indicate that the overwhelming majority (98.2 percent) of all evaluated teachers were found to be proficient. Contrast that with student passing rates on state achievement tests—just 77 percent—and it’s easy to see why PDAS needs an overhaul.
This spring, TEA will begin the appraisal development process and determine whether the revisions will be major or minor and which components will change. A Teacher Appraisal Advisory Committee (TAAC) will assist TEA in the development process. The committee will include principals and teachers of all levels, teaching both tested and nontested subjects, and who represent the state’s diversity.
PDAS currently includes a student achievement component (Domain VIII—Improvement of Academic Performance of all Students on Campus). TEA Associate Commissioner for Educator Leadership and Quality Ann Smisko noted that student achievement may be one component that gets strengthened as the new system is developed. TEA will create training components and begin to pilot the new system later this year. Here’s a quick look at the timeline for system development:
| 2013-14 | Develop the new teacher appraisal data collection system |
| Pilot a second, more advanced version of the new system | |
| Write the commissioner’s rules that will govern the appraisal process | |
| 2014 | Develop new training materials |
| Conduct statewide training | |
| 2014-15 | Rollout of new teacher appraisal system |
Because the commissioner is required to develop the system by rule, it won’t be subject to State Board of Education approval. Smisko indicates that districts will still be able to develop their own systems by meeting certain conditions (TEC 21.352).
Teachers aren’t the only educators with a new appraisal system on the way. TEA is in the initial planning stages of creating a comprehensive appraisal and professional development system for principals in response to new legislation (Senate Bill 1383).
Districts currently decide how to evaluate principals on their own. Having a system that includes school leadership standards with indicators of successful school leadership, and that aligns appraisals with training and professional development will be a major change for Texas districts.
The commissioner is expected to work with a consortium of nationally recognized experts to develop the system, but it’s too early in the process for TEA to offer many details about the direction that might take.
While the timeline for development of the teacher and principal appraisal systems will overlap, the principal system is likely to take longer to develop and implement. TEA is required to report its progress on the system to legislators in December of 2012 and again in December of 2014, so more detailed information should be available as soon as the end of this year.
As with PDAS, the Principal Appraisal and Professional Development System will be established by commissioner’s rules and not subject to SBOE approval. Districts will not be required to use the new system if they have their own approved, locally developed system.
TEA is in the process of reorganizing Texas Administrative Code Chapters 230, 232, and 233 to clarify the rules and make them easier to use. The State Board for Educator Certification is expected to take action on the proposed changes at its February meeting. The goal of the changes is to ensure that teaching credentials reflect the expectations of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and ensure that teachers have both the content and pedagogical knowledge to be effective teachers.
TEA has also proposed changing certification grade bands from grades 8 to 12 to grades 7 to 12 to make it easier for districts to place teachers at the middle school level.
Recent changes to Disciplinary Proceedings, Sanctions and Contested Cases (19 TAC Chapter 249) and the Educator’s Code of Ethics (19 TAC 247) clarify and strengthen the requirements related to the ethical behavior of educators.
The changes are in response to the newly amended law which specifies that administrators must file misconduct reports even if an educator resigns before an investigation is complete. If an educator is arrested and law enforcement officials request that a district stop investigating, the superintendent is still required to make a timely report to SBEC to let the agency know that the investigation was interrupted at the request of law enforcement.
In January, TEA sent a letter to superintendents and human resource directors detailing their statutory obligation to file written reports of educator misconduct to SBEC. The letter specified the types of misconduct that need to be reported, when district administrators are required to make reports, and the consequences for failing to report misconduct.
Accountability is nothing new for school districts.
Until recently, educator preparation entities have escaped such scrutiny, but that’s not going to be the case much longer. An emerging consensus of researchers, policymakers, and educators support teacher preparation reform. The U.S. Department of Education is leading the charge, declaring state accountability for educator preparation weak and calling for higher admission standards and tougher pass rates for licensure. Teacher unions have joined the chorus, calling for stronger, clinically based programs.
To ensure a supply of effective teachers in Texas, TEA is in the final stages of developing a much stronger accountability system for educator preparation programs (EPPs). EPPs must align their programs to meet the curriculum needs of districts, specifically with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS—the state’s standards for what students should know and be able to do) and the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) testing program. The new accountability system for EPPs includes four standards:
Given the divergence of the data, we don’t know whether Texas teachers are truly better prepared than teachers from other states or whether Texas principals tend to rate their new teachers too generously. The survey data would appear to indicate the latter, with the vast majority of Texas principals giving new teachers the top two ratings for all survey questions. Additional training may be needed to ensure that TEA is able to collect meaningful data on new teacher performance from principals.
to design a new metric to measure the influence of new teachers (those with three years experience or less) on student achievement. PEEQ’s metric will include measures of growth in student performance, observations of teachers, principal appraisals, and school-wide growth in student performance. Data linking teachers with students became available last fall.TEA and PEEQ researchers will present preliminary “impact data”—data that shows how EPPs would fare if the accountability system were in place now—and make preliminary recommendations to SBEC at its February meeting. PEEQ’s pilot of its metric will take place this spring, and TEA/PEEQ will make final recommendations on the metric and other standards that are part of the accountability system in June 2012.
