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IN lawmakers study teacher evaluations

Brandon Smith
/
IPBS

As a new school year begins, it’s not just students who have homework due. Hoosier school corporations are required to submit new teacher evaluation programs to the state Department of Education by next month.

Some legislators are concerned about the effectiveness of the evaluations. They met Tuesday for a summer study committee to hear from the state Department of Education about its plan.

The department developed a teacher evaluation model that was tested in dozens of school corporations last year.  Schools don’t have to use that model.  They can modify it, use other models or develop their own.

State law does however set basic requirements that all evaluation models must follow, such as a minimum number of evaluations and a four-category ratings system.  And Terre Haute Democratic Senator Tim Skinner says he’s worried about what the state can do if evaluations aren’t effective.

“So if a school gets a letter grade of a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ and the administration has evaluated most of those teachers as highly effective, how do you react to that?”

Assistant state superintendent Dale Chu says the Department of Education doesn’t have the power to approve the plans. State law only requires it to collect them.  However, Chu says fine-tuning evaluation models is still an on-going process, both for the state and individual school corporations.

“In a situation where there is that disconnect, we want to see…is the evaluation plan that corporation has, does it provide the tools for the administrators to be able to provide that very, very specific feedback to teachers?  If not, maybe we call that school district and say, ‘Here are some suggestions.’”

He says there are potential accreditation consequences for schools that blatantly ignore the state’s basic teacher evaluation plan requirements.

Brandon Smith is excited to be working for public radio in Indiana. He has previously worked in public radio as a reporter and anchor in mid-Missouri for KBIA Radio out of Columbia. Prior to that, he worked for WSPY Radio in Plano, Illinois as a show host, reporter, producer and anchor. His first job in radio was in another state capitol, in Jefferson City, Missouri, as a reporter for three radio stations around Missouri. Brandon graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Bachelor of Journalism in 2010, with minors in political science and history. He was born and raised in Chicago.
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