Growing criticism over the state’s rollout of its high-stakes teacher evaluations came to a head last week, with the Hawaii State Teachers Association filing a class-action grievance with the Department of Education over what it calls a "flawed implementation" of an evaluation system that lacks equity and transparency.
The grievance, filed Thursday on behalf of the union’s 13,500 members, seeks to unlink "adverse personnel actions" from evaluation ratings, which are based in part on student surveys, test scores and classroom observations. The move was prompted by a contract deal recently awarded to principals that the HSTA says removed high-stakes evaluations for school leaders.
Under teachers’ 2013-2017 labor contract, the state and teachers union agreed to annual performance-based evaluations, which starting next school year will tie ratings to pay raises, tenure and termination.
Separate from the grievance, HSTA’s board of directors has requested to reopen the contract, which stipulates that only teachers rated as effective or highly effective will be eligible for pay increases in the year after the evaluation. An unsatisfactory rating will be cause for termination.
Teachers have decried implementation of the so-called Educator Effectiveness System, or EES, since it was rolled out statewide in the fall, saying they don’t understand its complex design and are overwhelmed with the work required to prepare for the six areas measured by the evaluations.
HSTA officials emphasize teachers are still committed to a fair evaluation system that will help improve teaching in Hawaii’s public school classrooms.
"When HSTA negotiated the EES, our understanding was that there would be a fair and equitable system of support and accountability, encompassing all DOE educators, from the state superintendent on down to school-level administrators and teachers," HSTA President Wil Okabe said. "We agreed to it on the premise that it was going to be from the top down, but now it’s only the teachers being held to this standard."
Okabe said the principals’ arbitration ruling — which covers the Hawaii Government Employees Association’s 850-member Bargaining Unit 6 — creates a "double standard between teachers and principals."
Arbitrators awarded annual raises and other benefits to principals, who had been working without a contract since their last pact expired June 30, but did not resolve disputes between the HGEA and the state over performance contracts for principals.
The principals union and the state are still negotiating terms of a permanent performance evaluation system for school leadership that factors in student achievement — a decade after lawmakers first mandated performance contracts for school principals.
The agreement with HGEA does establish a "rewards and recognition program" but a committee will need to determine how to best reward and recognize principals based on performance ratings.
"Administrators are not subject to the ‘pay for performance’ compensation element that teachers agreed to as part of a shared commitment to support the DOE’s strategic plan to transform public education in Hawaii," Okabe said.
Recent surveys have revealed widespread concerns over implementation of the EES, with principals saying the teacher evaluation system has negatively affected their schools and morale; teachers complaining they don’t understand how their performance rating is calculated; and both groups lamenting the time it requires to prepare for and perform the evaluations.
"We’re not objecting to being evaluated," Okabe said. "We’re all-in in trying to make this evaluation piece work, but it has to be fair and equitable."
Asked if the union would be open to personnel consequences in the future should the current evaluation system be revamped to HSTA’s liking, Okabe said, "Anything is negotiable."
DOE Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi called the timing of the grievance unfortunate.
She noted that work is progressing under the joint committee of HSTA and DOE officials called for in HSTA’s contract to review the design, validity, reliability and supports for the evaluations and recommend changes to improve its design and implementation.
In a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Matayoshi said the committee "is in the process of proposing modifications to the Educator Effectiveness System intended to simplify and streamline it to reduce burden. The DOE is considering all feedback — including from teachers, principals, the unions, and technical experts — and expects to make modifications in the next few weeks for implementation in the 2014-2015 school year."
She added, "This first year was negotiated as part of the collective bargaining agreement to have no consequences for tenured teachers specifically so that we could learn from and improve the EES for next year."
Under rules laid out in the HSTA contract, grievances are to be worked out between the union and the state within certain timeframes. If a settlement can’t be reached, the union can request arbitration as a last resort, in which case the arbitrator would make a final, binding decision.
