Don’t water down teacher evaluations

After all the wrangling and public debate it took to strengthen the accountability of public school faculty for their students’ achievement, it would be a waste to now step away from that commitment to high-quality teacher job evaluations.

That is what the Legislature is in danger of doing if it simply throws up its hands at the price tag for putting the evaluations in place, rather than push education officials to save money through efficiency measures.

There are various reforms underway at Hawaii’s public schools, largely program changes developed with a $75 million Race to the Top federal grant. The Department of Education has requested about $14 million for a new hire at each school to help manage the added workload from these reforms.

However, it’s the evaluation system, bolstered by more rigorous data gathered in surveys and classroom observations, that seems to have drawn the most fire from lawmakers.

The most pointed criticism came from state Sen. David Ige, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee and is a principal in all budget talks. Ige said he warned the state Department of Education against adopting a "Cadillac" evaluation scheme, urging DOE to design "an evaluation system that you can afford."

And here we all thought the goal is to design an evaluation system that works, with better student achievement being the goal.

When the issue is viewed apart from the politicized context of the Capitol, most people would agree that public education is best served if the system can deal appropriately with staff, rewarding the most effective teachers and administrators and ultimately showing the persistently ineffective ones the door.

If we expect better management of teachers, for example, that means decisions must be backed by information that will withstand vigorous pushback from union and status-quo advocates. And that kind of system will take no small amount of work and time to perfect.

Does this mean legislators should just roll over and deliver the full amount requested for the upgrades? Clearly, no. This is a session during which there will be many hands out, from state agencies and others, with needs that have been deferred in recent years.

However, everyone knew this day was coming, when federal dollars supporting the pilot versions of the reforms would be running out and a sustainable plan would be needed. DOE officials, aided by lawmakers, should have collaborated in the months leading up to the session, putting pencil to paper and working out more efficient uses of DOE staff resources.

That said, it’s still only Week 1 of the new session, so there’s time to go over the department budget. Undoubtedly more resources will be needed, but first the DOE should demonstrate that it’s investigated which support staff from its statewide and district offices could be redeployed to help with the workload. That would reduce the amount of the additional appropriation.

This does not suggest that reassigned staffers aren’t doing important work, only that the DOE priorities have shifted and other tasks have greater urgency.

And in education, few improvements are needed more urgently than reforms ensuring that the best teachers are fairly compensated for their work. The other side of the same coin: Those unsuited to the profession shouldn’t be left to linger in the classroom, to the detriment of their students.