PIERRE, S.D. – A plan to remove an expectation of student growth from South Dakota’s rules governing teacher evaluation rules stalled Monday.
Student growth is one performance outcome among many used to track student achievement. It’s also part of the mix of factors used to measure teacher quality.
The South Dakota Board of Education Standards voted to rescind a previous decision to hold a public hearing on the effort to remove student growth from teacher evaluations. The rules will continue as they exist for now.
That’s primarily because state Department of Education Secretary Joseph Graves said some state Board of Education Standards members shared concerns after the group approved the department’s plan in May. He also expected the initiative to fail a legislative committee hearing required for the change, since the committee rejected a similar proposal last year.
The revision would have removed a requirement that teacher performance evaluations use “student learning objectives,” which are student educational growth goals. The objectives are set by the teacher and school administration. The standard is beneficial for some school districts, but not for others, Graves said.
Graves previously told the board that the specific student growth piece of the evaluation has become “increasingly trite and meaningless” with some teachers or schools setting low standards they can easily meet.
Department officials plan to review the rules and bring the topic back to the board later in the year. That will allow the department to educate the board about why the state tied student achievement to teacher evaluation and what other options there are.
Board president Steve Perkins was the sole vote against the effort at the board’s May meeting, saying he wanted another option presented and more time to study the issue. On Monday, he said he’d welcome a review of the policy.
“There is a problem, and this evaluation system is kind of broken for many districts,” Perkins said. “If we’re going to adopt a rule on it, we kind of need to understand it.”