Today's New York Times carries an op-ed by Samuel Culbert arguing that performance evaluations are "subjective evaluations that measure how 'comfortable' a boss is with an employee, not how much an employee contributes to overall results." If true, one implication is that it would be unwise to let managers--including principals--decide whom to lay off when cuts are unavoidable.
Still, until stronger teacher evaluation systems are in place, it seems that our education system faces two stark choices: make lay-off decisions based on seniority, or trust administrators to pick and choose the teachers to fire. Which option do you think carries greater risks?
This sparked a lot of debate on our Fordham team; let me share some of it here. And please add your two cents in the comments section below.
For what it's worth, I think this argument is just a distraction. Decrying evaluations as ?unfair? seems silly to me. (Life's not fair, eh?)Of course evaluations are, on some level, subjective. Even if we include, for example, student achievement scores in teacher evaluations, there will be?and should be?subjective measures of evaluation. Without them, we're stripping leaders of their ability to set a clear vision and manage to it. I don't expect leaders to have all the answers, but I do expect *them* to be the ones who get to make the final calls on critical, direction-setting decisions.
Of course, we all know that the best leaders often do things that are unpopular or that seem ?wrong.? (Anyone tracking Mark Zuckerburg's decisions related to the growth of Facebook would have thought he was crazy. He made ?bad? decision after bad decision, and now has one of the most successful businesses in the world.) Others crash and burn in spectacular fashion.
But if we try to design a system focused solely on preventing crashes, we shouldn't be surprised when we don't see true excellence either. In order for leaders to lead, we have to allow for mistakes; we have to give them the opportunity to get things wrong. And that includes hiring and firing decisions. If we don't, we're stripping them of their ability to lead, turning principals and superintendents into middle managers, and stifling the kinds of innovation we so desperately need.
It seems to me that, instead of demanding that leaders make perfect hiring and firing decisions?and stripping them of their ability to make these decisions because they *might* be imperfect?we should steer the conversation towards holding leaders more accountable as both managers and for their end-of-the-day results.
(Incidentally, I think the author is right that it's a leader's responsibility to create a culture of open, multi-directional feedback, where people are encouraged to speak their mind and where they feel comfortable giving direct feedback to the boss. But collective bargaining is probably the least efficient and effective way of encouraging that kind of open dialogue.)
Good stuff. Understanding perfection does not exist, and we have data limitations, there are now two choices for RIF decisions caused by budget cuts in the next few months. Seniority above all else or trust school administrators to make cuts based on their professional judgement. They are held accountable for their district performance by state report cards, their school board and their voters ultimately. That's the best argument we can make in Ohio for reductions in July.
Interesting, and I agree with Kathleen that the imperfections/subjectivity of evaluations shouldn't lead us to avoid adopting a new system that is infinitely better.But per your point, Terry: ?trust school administrators to make cuts based on their professional judgment? ? this is an enormous fear that teachers have and I think this article is right:
Under such a system, in which one's livelihood can be destroyed by a self-serving boss trying to meet a budget or please the higher-ups, what employee would ever speak his mind? What employee would ever say that the boss is wrong, and offer an idea on how something might get done better?
Only an employee looking for trouble.
This argument came up a lot during a happy hour we had last night (for area ?ed reformers?). Folks were talking about SB 5 and its impact and teachers ? charter and district alike ? overwhelmingly said they've had good bosses they trust to make these decisions but have also had lousy ones who would be terrible at determining who to let go and who to keep. This is why you've got to have a mix of measures (obviously) or trust some other objective metric during the interim ? before we've established new evaluation systems ? to fire teachers (chronic absenteeism, for example).
I'm talking about making do with least bad decision in the case of Ohio. There are going to be thousands of teachers laid off in the coming months. Under current state law all will be RIFed exclusively on seniority. Less bad is trusting school administrators. Whatever system we create won't be available for cuts in 2011.
For me, it's not a hard decision: empower principals to make these decisions--and hold them accountable for the results. There may be isolated abuses and plenty of poor judgments, but can it be much worse than what we've got now? According the recent Dan Goldhaber study out of Washington, only 16 percent of the teachers given pink slips last year would have received them if the decisions were based on value-added measures instead of seniority. That means getting it wrong for 84 percent of the workforce; surely school principals can do better.
-Mike Petrilli
