Teacher Evaluation Law in Michigan: A Case Study

To further my interest in the legislative changes to teacher evaluation laws nationally, I partnered with Wayne State University researcher, Ben Pogodzinski, to investigate how teacher evaluation reform in Michigan affected labor relations in this strong union state through a survey of local district superintendents and human resource directors.

The Michigan legislature revised its educator evaluation system in two consecutive years: 2010 and 2011. The law now requires districts to adopt and implement a "rigorous, transparent, and fair performance evaluation system" that includes annual evaluations of teachers' job performance, to inform decisions regarding employee effectiveness, retention, promotion, firing, and the granting of tenure. These evaluation systems must include student growth data as a "significant factor" (Mich. Comp. Laws Sec. 380.1249). Student achievement growth will account for 50% of a teacher's evaluation by 2015 (Mich. Comp. Laws Sec. 38.81). 

While these types of changes to state teacher evaluation law were common around the country, the Michigan Legislature added a prohibition against collective bargaining on this topic (Mich. Comp. Laws Sec. 423.215(3)). This change was significant because the teacher employment relationship at the vast majority of Michigan's public schools are governed by collective bargaining.

Through our survey, we found that teacher unions continued to play an informal role in shaping teacher evaluation policy in about half of the districts relating to issues such as how student acheivement data would be used in the evaluation process, how classroom observations were structured, and teacher goal setting and attainment. This limited union involvement through channels other than collective bargaining may have contributed to administrators' positive reports about the labor climate in the state despite the significiant change in teacher labor policy.

Michigan Innovative Schools Conference

I attended the Michigan Innovative Schools Conference in East Lansing, MI today. Michael Horn of the Clayton Christensen Institute was the keynote speaker. He spoke about the ideas from his book, "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation will Change the way the World Learns." He provided suggestions for how schools should think about adopting emerging blended learning models to improve student learning outcomes. One key point he made was that schools should not blindly adopt new technologies. Instead, they need to identify the problem they are trying to solve to see if blended learning makes sense to try to solve it and then quantify the learning outcomes they'd like to achieve. 

He also discussed the difference between hybrid models of instruction that add online learning to the mix of available options such as in an elementary classroom where students spend some time receiving direct instruction from a teacher and some time learning online and disruptive models that use online learning to drive all instruction such as in a virtual school. 

Ultimately, Horn contended that for any blended learning to be successful teachers need to understand that they have a very important role in student learning. Teachers need to be trained for the new models, not feel replaced by the technology. Horn argued that the currently available technology isn't ready yet to take over core academic subjects, especially in high schools. It is more useful in non-consumptive areas like credit recovery and to offer additional learning opportunities for students in subjects not offered at their schools. Yet, the introduction of technology in these areas will be the engines of change in the long run. They bring unique value propositions such as not being tied to seat time and student agency in owning their own learning. Also, students can accelarate at their own pace once they start learning, so productivity can increase. Another benefit is access to great teachers wherever students are located. 

Horn's advice to create disruptive innovation, schools should create an autonomous team that is separate from the rest of the organization, have them focus on a point of nonconsumption, and commit to supporting a fledgling project they create.

As a faculty member in a higher education institution, I see my institution moving very quickly to adopt new models of blended learning to meet student learning needs, particularly for flexibility since most of our students work full time in addition to pursuing their advanced degrees. As a parent, my children's schools are moving much more slowly to incorporate techonology into their instructional options. However, Michigan has a robust virtual university that offers online courses to high school students, legislation that allows several K-12 virtual schools to operate, and new law, Sec. 21f of P.A. 60 of 2013, that allows students to take more online courses as part of their education. The educational landscape is rapidly transforming.