New education bill causes concern for Teacher of the Year

Alabama teachers could face massive changes in the way they are paid and evaluated and the way their tenure is treated, if the second draft of a state education bill currently under discussion passes without significant changes.

Vestavia’s Jennifer Brown, Alabama’s Teacher of the Year for 2015-2016, said she doesn’t mind the idea of changes meant to benefit students.

But she is wary of the ones this particular bill — the Rewarding Advancement in Instruction and Student Excellence (RAISE) Act — would make in its current form, she said.

“I’m hearing that there’s a third draft coming and that it is supposed to be really different,” said Brown, who teaches sophomore physical science at Vestavia Hills High School. “But as it currently stands with the second draft, my biggest issue is with the student achievement evaluator.”

The current RAISE draft would introduce a tool to measure student growth statewide and tie the results to educators’ evaluations and performance pay. Alabama is one of only six states that don’t already measure student progress this way, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The bill backers want to change that by standardizing student growth, Brown said, but she doesn’t think that’s something that can be standardized without jeopardizing the very thing it is aiming to protect.

“We all know there are so many more factors that play into student growth. A test is a single indicator, and there are lots of factors that play into student growth that are not quantifiable. At the end of the day there is no real way to quantify that,” Brown said. “These tests were just created so teachers can get their performance pay.”

Brown, who in the Teacher of the Year spot serves as a voice for the state’s 46,000 public school teachers, said individual schools should be given the flexibility to decide what makes an effective teacher.

“Everybody wants their schools to be better — everybody. But what’s needed in Vestavia might not be what’s needed in Winterboro or Mobile or Huntsville,” Brown said. “To me, the answer is to grow the profession and focus on teachers. I don’t think a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation is going to work.”

What she suggests instead is getting educators involved in the process and having legislators talk with them about what teachers need in order to help their students grow.

She suggests open conversations with teachers about better practice, not summary reports that rank and sort.

“We need to keep our focus on what’s best for the kids — this is a big deal,” Brown said. “I think (legislators) truly want to give good teachers a raise — I really do. But I worry sometimes that they don’t know the schools. It’s got to be bigger than (just a raise).”

In addition to student performance evaluations, the current draft of the bill addresses teacher tenure, upping the requirements from three years to five and setting a performance-rating requirement. It also includes a practice for revoking tenure.