Professional Development: Minnesota
Retaining Effective Teachers Policy
Analysis of Minnesota's policies
Minnesota requires that staff development activities be coordinated with "the evaluation process and teachers' evaluation outcomes." Teachers not meeting the standards evaluated under the state's evaluation framework must be given "support to improve through a teacher improvement process that includes established goals and timelines." While Minnesota's evaluation default model provides ample opportunities for feedback between evaluator and teacher regarding evaluation results, the framework does not specify that teachers even receive copies of their evaluations or other feedback.
Recommendations for Minnesota
Require that evaluation systems provide teachers with feedback about their performance.
In order to increase their effectiveness in the classroom, teachers need to receive feedback on strengths and areas that need improvement identified in their evaluations. As such, Minnesota should require that evaluation systems provide teachers with feedback about their classroom performance.
State response to our analysis
The Minnesota Department of Education did not respond to requests to review NCTQ's analyses.
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
Research rationale
Professional
development should be connected to needs identified through teacher
evaluations.
The goal of teacher evaluation systems should be not just to
identify highly effective teachers and those who underperform but to help all
teachers improve. Even highly effective
teachers may have areas where they can continue to grow and develop their
knowledge and skills. Rigorous evaluations should provide actionable feedback
on teachers' strengths and weaknesses that can form the basis of professional
development activities. Too often
professional development is random rather than targeted to the identified needs
of individual teachers. Failure to make
the connection between evaluations and professional development squanders the
likelihood that professional development will be meaningful.
Many states are only explicit about tying professional
development plans to evaluation results if the evaluation results are bad. Good evaluations with meaningful feedback
should be useful to all teachers, and if done right should help design
professional development plans for all teachers—not just those who receive poor
ratings.
Professional Development: Supporting Research
For
evidence of the benefits of feedback from evaluation systems, and the potential
for professional development surrounding that feedback, see T. Kane, E. Taylor, J. Tyler, and A. Wooten, "Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness." Education
Next, Volume 11, No. 3, Summer 2011; E. Taylor and J. Tyler, "The Effect of Evaluation on Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Student Achievement Data of Mid-Career Teachers," NBER Working Paper No. 16877, March 2011.
Much
professional development, particularly those that are not aligned to specific
feedback from teacher evaluations, has been found to be ineffective. For evidence see M. Garet, A. Wayne, F. Stancavage, J. Taylor, M. Eaton, K.
Walters, M. Song, S. Brown, S. Hurlburt, P. Zhu, S. Sepanik, F. Doolittle, and E. Warner, "Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study: Findings After the Second Year of Implementation." Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, May 2011, NCEE 2011-4024.
For
additional evidence regarding best practices for professional development, see K. Neville and C. Robinson, "The Delivery, Financing, and Assessment of Professional Development in Education: Pre-Service Preparation and In-Service Training" The Finance Project, 2003.