Teachers urge changes to evaluations

System judges on students’ scores, critics say

Half of the teachers in Palm Beach County schools get the highest rating on their performance evaluations — a bigger percentage than anywhere else in South Florida.

A third of the teachers in Miami-Dade Schools get the highest score, and 18 percent in Broward get the coveted rating.

The differences have led teachers unions to demand assessments they say will allow them a fair shot at the highest ratings, which bring bigger pay increases and bonuses from the state.

Critics say the current system, mandated by the state, is unfair because it judges teachers in part on students’ test scores, which tend to be lower in districts with more poverty.

“The whole thing, in my opinion, is fraudulent,” said Palm Beach County School Board member Debra Robinson. It’s unlikely that wealthier schools have so many more highly talented teachers, she said.

School districts are starting to respond to teachers’

complaints. Many school board members acknowledge that the evaluation system hurts morale and makes it difficult to attract teachers to low-performing schools.

Every school district in Florida establishes its teacher evaluation criteria based on rules from the state. Among them: Teachers must be evaluated with a combination of student test scores and an appraisal from a supervisor.

Teachers with the highest scores get the highest raises. In Palm Beach County and Broward, the biggest raise was about 3.5 percent last year. In MiamiDade, the highest scoring teachers received a 2.67 percent raise.

This year, highly effective teachers got a $1,200 bonus from the state, while effective instructors received $800.

“Why does Broward have one of the lowest levels of highly effective teachers in the state?” asked Hal Krantz, a special education teacher at Coral Springs Middle School who was rated effective, the secondhighest rating. “That tells you there’s something wrong with the rating system.”

Broward schools are working to improve the evaluation structure, said Heather Parente, the school district’s director of employee evaluations. She said a committee of teachers and administrators meets twice a month to review the evaluation process. Such discussions have yielded change: Students’ test scores used to be 50 percent of teacher evaluations; now they represent 35 percent, she said.

Even though a minority of teachers are deemed highly effective, she pointed out that 99 percent of Broward teachers are rated effective or highly effective, similar to the two other counties.

After hearing complaints from teachers at a workshop last month, the Palm Beach County school board promised to take another look at its evaluation framework, including making criteria more specific and reducing the number of items teachers are judged on.

Broward teachers union president Anna Fusco said the union and the evaluation department plan to send teachers a survey soon to find out their biggest gripes related to evaluations.

“The evaluation should not be a tool to harm,” she said.