Mike Matthews doesn’t have to teach for the next three school years! Instead, he will be taking over from Frederika Jenner as the President of the Delaware State Education Association beginning July 15th. Today, Mike got his final evaluation before he takes off to Water St. in Dover. He reflected on this evaluation and much more in his Facebook status earlier this afternoon. I’m going to say right now, I expect a lot out of Mike the next three years. My expectations are very high. Are we going to agree on everything? Hell no. I expect we will have our fair share of disagreements. I also want to wish the very best to the outgoing President, Frederika Jenner. I never really had the opportunity to get to know Frederika, and I will regret that. I was very tough on her a couple of years ago, and once again, I apologize to Frederika for that. But back to President Matthews…
I finish my year at Cooke Elementary with a totally different worldview. I had an excellent Component V conference with my administrator this morning. Now, that’s not to say I’m a fan of Component V. I’m still 100% absolutely against using standardized test scores of students on an educator’s evaluation.
The meeting was productive because it laid bare and confirmed my thoughts over the last few years. Whereas students at my other schools often showed lower proficiency, but high percentages of growth, my students at Cooke showed amazingly high proficiency at the beginning of the year, but some of the Smarter Balanced growth goals set by the state were so high, that a handful of my students didn’t meet them. Consequently, I was one student away from getting an “Exceeds” rating on my Measure A Component V.
It’s a different world at Cooke, with different challenges and successes from what I experienced at Warner and Richardson Park. But my resolve remains: I feel that our educators should not be judged based on a system that has never been shown to be a valid or reliable measure of teacher effectiveness.
I’ll miss being in the classroom next year, but will certainly be fighting like hell with the awesome DSEA team and educators and professionals throughout the state to lobby and advocate for a teacher and specialist evaluation system that respects the work they do.
The Season Of Myths 