Legislator advocates to maintain current evaluation practices

State Rep. Scott VanSingel has introduced a plan to ensure teachers and administrators are evaluated based on fair and practical success measures.

Since the 2015-16 school year, student growth and achievement has been the basis for 25 percent of the annual evaluation teachers and administrators receive. Without VanSingel’s legislation, the basis will change to 40 percent for this year’s evaluations.

“There’s zero evidence to suggest student growth should carry this much weight in evaluation of our teachers and school administrators,” VanSingel said. “We need to take into consideration factors such as class makeup, student effort, and poverty levels in addition to student growth.”

Student growth refers to a measurement comparing the relative change in a student’s performance on a specific test with the performance of all other students on the same test.

Other states widely accept the 25 percent measure and it has been successful in Michigan for years.

“Time and time again, government swoops in to fix problems that simply don’t exist,” VanSingel said. “There’s no reason to turn the system upside down when we have a perfectly effective means of measuring teacher and administrator success already in practice.”

House Bills 4221 and 4222 were referred to the House Education Committee.

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