Solid teacher evaluations good for all

It was a great day for schoolchildren when the General Assembly passed legislation designed to improve teaching in Illinois. The task now is to ensure that happens. Outside of home influence, there is no greater factor in student success than classroom teachers. So, there's also no sense in letting those unfit for the job continue.

The Performance Evaluation Reform Act in 2010 overhauled the way teachers in Illinois are to be evaluated. The product of a remarkable compromise by lawmakers and teachers unions, it requires that test scores and other measures of student achievement be included in teacher evaluations. Results will be linked to tenure and layoff decisions.

The law further pushes Illinois toward substantial changes in education that have long been needed. But laws established with good intentions can be weakened by the time they are put into practice. That must not be the case here.

Under the law, student growth is to be a “significant factor” in assessing a teacher's performance. That phrase is at the heart of the debate over details in the process. The Illinois State Board of Education proposed making student growth one-quarter of a teacher's total evaluation for the first two years and 30 percent thereafter. The board then kicked the proposal to the public for response; the comment period ends Jan. 17. A legislative committee will vote on it, and by 2016, teacher evaluations are to be in place in all school districts.

Employee review is a sensitive matter in any field, and with teachers it can be even more dicey. As an objective measure, test scores seem simple enough: the better the teacher, the greater the learning. However, while student performance is an important gauge, relying too heavily on test scores has inherent problems to consider. Kids in lower-income areas may not have the parental support to improve scores or advantages like private tutoring. Teachers may feel they have to “teach to the test.” A special education student's progress may be slower regardless of a teacher's abilities. And individual teachers' evaluation scores in other states have been found to vary from year to year, making a fair assessment difficult.

To their credit, unions and legislators have avoided the battles seen elsewhere that pitted the public against teachers. While they work to fine-tune the state board's proposal, the continuation of such cooperation is key. And beyond that, decisions that are made must stay true to the legislation's original intent.

The unique challenges of assessing teachers are not insurmountable. Effective teachers make strong schools that in turn produce contributors to the state's well-being. The state board has proposed minimum requirements with the potential to make good teachers better, reward those who do the best job and remove those who shouldn't be in the classroom. Now is the time to see them through.