Utilizing Educator Effectiveness as a Tool for Educator, School, and District Improvement

Jessica Arrigoni, Researcher, Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative, UW-Madison, [email protected]
Steve Kimball, Scientist and Co-Director, Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative, UW-Madison, [email protected]

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has articulated five principles necessary to promote a learning-centered Educator Effectiveness (EE) System. One of those principles is the integration and alignment of the System with local improvement priorities. Since the initial implementation of the EE System in 2014, some school and district leaders have intentionally leveraged EE to create coherence around individual, school, and district improvement goals. Researchers from the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC) at UW-Madison recently reached out to school and district leaders from across the state to learn about their alignment efforts. We highlight five examples from these discussions.

Wausau School District: Leveraging the EE System to support the district strategic plan and build capacity. 

Wausau School District’s strategic plan for 2019-2023, titled Whole Child-Whole Wausau, outlines the district’s goals for students, staff and the community. The plan lists five key priority areas that inform practices from the district to the school level: 1) achievement, 2) resources, 3) people, 4) service, and 5) wellness. Notably, the first element within the achievement area explicitly connects to the EE System – “Wausau School District staff will demonstrate the awareness, flexibility, and commitment to use instructional strategies to increase equity for all students in their classrooms as evidenced by an increase of 5% per year of teachers District wide scoring proficient or distinguished in components 2a, 2b, and 3e in the Danielson Framework for Teaching.”

In support of the student achievement area, a district administrator explained that the district examined “longitudinal and historic trends” over three, five, and seven years to identify those groups of students who within the “current system and structures continue to underperform.” The focus of the work is “being flexible and responsive” and “recalibrating around the role of being an educator and a leader.” It is also about “taking responsibility for when kids don’t perform and for when kids aren’t successful, that [they] look internally and make some decisions about what it is that we need to change to ensure success for all students.”  

To support this work, the district developed an equity walkthrough tool aligned with the Danielson Framework for Teaching (FfT). The leadership team developed the tool with two to three teachers from each school building. The tool focuses on five areas of classroom practice:  1) community building in the classroom environment; 2) adult and student relationships; 3) cultural responsiveness; 4) student-centered discipline; and 5) routines and procedures. Aligning the walkthrough tool to the FfT components has “naturally made it more purposeful and more meaningful and easier to connect to.” Use of the tool has allowed district and school administrators and teachers to build capacity collaboratively.

This use of the equity walkthrough tool encourages coaching and feedback. To improve coaching skills, members of the Wausau school district have attended AWSA’s Impactful Coaching Academy and the Supporting Principal Excellence Academy. Administrators from Wausau have been pleased with parallels in how AWSA and the DPI emphasize coaching and growth within the context of the EE System.

Holmen High School: A coaching system based on Wisconsin Educator Development Support and Retention (WEDSR) survey results, The Fundamental 5, and John Hattie’s work that supports improvement priorities.

The Holmen High School administrative team used three resources to identify their improvement priorities, described by a school administrator as a “three-pronged approach to what we are looking at and why.” Those resources included staff feedback gathered through the WEDSR survey and two books: The Fundamental 5^[1] and John Hattie’s Visible Learning^[2]. The improvement priorities developed from those resources were then aligned to components from the FfT.

Educator Effectiveness observations and feedback are two activities that support Holmen’s improvement priorities. This year, in an attempt to be “more strategic about getting into the classrooms,” the district has rolled out a new observation process in which educators, regardless of Summary or Supporting Year status, are observed every four weeks. This four-week cohort model allows administrators to be in the classroom more frequently, supports the goal for consistent amounts of feedback across teachers, and reinforces that the System is for coaching and not compliance. 

Observations and feedback are based on The Fundamental 5 areas and aligned to FfT components. They also pull in pieces of Hattie’s research from Visible Learning to demonstrate why these five areas are their focus and how the areas can impact student learning.

Two observation-related resources were developed and shared with educators. One document provides an overview of the five areas, the alignment of the FfT components, and Hattie’s research that supports the areas. The other document is an observation checklist with look-fors, which includes the five areas, the related FfT component, and the behaviors on which administrators focus during the observation. Prior to observations, educators are given a “reflective question” document that includes The Fundamental 5 areas; they can identify the areas where they want to focus their observations and feedback for the next 100 days. The school administrator shared that they wanted “to narrow down” the focus and make sure that the teachers and administrators know what they are looking for. Written feedback is shared with educators immediately. 

Burlington School District: A coaching system built on rapid-cycle observations and feedback in support of improvement priorities.

Administrators in Burlington are using the EE System as a coaching model, focusing on three improvement priorities aligned to the FfT. Their improvement priorities include: essential skills, best instructional practices, and universal access. Administrators calibrate as a team and meet with the Assistant Superintendent individually every three weeks to co-observe an educator and discuss coaching strategies and feedback for that educator.

Administrators engage in a rapid cycle of eight mini-observations and feedback with educators. A district leader explained that all feedback is shared verbally because verbal feedback (in contrast to written feedback) allows for a higher-quality coaching conversation, and ongoing conversations allow trust to develop between educator and evaluator. The leader noted that the district has observed a shift in teachers' perception of observations and feedback from punitive to empowering.

Educators now seek out specific feedback from their evaluators and want to talk with them about instruction. The district leader also shared that given the frequency of shorter observations and related authentic feedback, the process helps teachers reflect on their teaching, which will help improve student outcomes. In end-of-year reflections, teachers have indicated that they have grown significantly more over the course of the year because of the feedback and conversations.

District administrators also provide ongoing verbal feedback to principals. This occurs through biweekly school visits, with the administrative team rotating buildings, conducting learning walks, and sharing feedback that aligns with the district’s “big 3” priority areas.

To create more coherence, the district switched to collaborative team-based SLOs. Teams select literacy or math based goals and then work together to review data and identify classroom-specific strategies. In order to model collaboration, the principals also develop collaborative team-based SLOs. For example, the four elementary principals are working together on a K-2 reading-focused SLO. PPGs are based on one of the three district priorities, and educators have the ability to develop goals in ways that meet their needs.

Cashton Middle and High School: A professional learning system that leverages a common framework and educator goals in support of district and school improvement priorities.

Cashton has three main priorities that were developed with their “guiding coalition”: high impact instruction, standards-aligned curriculum, and a safe and welcoming environment. A school leader stated that “Educator Effectiveness supports all of [their] priorities in a lot of different ways.” The leader further explained that the FfT “is research-based and best practice-aligned” and they have done a lot of work to “cross walk” it with John Hattie’s work. They “rely heavily” on the FfT, and “using it provides [them] with consistent language and also keeps [them] very zeroed in on what [the] priorities are.” In addition, the FfT also informs teachers’ professional development and helps teachers “not feel like [administrators] are constantly throwing new things at them. We constantly go back to [refer] to the Framework.” For example, they use EE to support their Multi-Level System of Support and Professional Learning Community (PLC) work. Related to PLCs, the school administrator articulated that “the whole [EE] process supports collaborative educators in a collaborative environment; PLCs are embedded in all of that.”

In addition to their use of the FfT, the district uses the SLO and PPG process to support their district priorities. At their October in-service, for example, they presented information on how Educator Effectiveness ties into their district priorities and how teachers and administrators can use EE to support those priorities. Building-level SLOs align with the district priorities and teacher SLOs align with building SLOs. The school leader explained that they intentionally created their October in-service “to help teachers understand that all the things [they] are doing are connected, including the EE Process, [and that] the EE process actually supports all of these other things.” 

Whitefish Bay High School: A professional learning system that aligns artifact collection, educator goals, and professional learning to the school improvement plan. 

The Whitefish Bay high school leadership team identified three school improvement goals, with action steps and FfT components aligned to each goal. Educators are given guidance on selecting artifacts that align with the school improvement goals and action steps. They are told that “artifacts must demonstrate accountability in our areas of focus…and align to four to five of the Danielson components.” The school administrator further shared that “artifacts should align to these components [and] demonstrate that you’re learning and growing in that area.” Educators also have time during the school year to upload their artifacts. 

Educator goals are also developed in support of the school improvement goals. The process begins with each department developing its own “department-specific action plans related to the spirit of moving those goals forward.” Educators then develop PPGs that support the department action plans. “The goal is to gain knowledge, implement plans related to the school improvement goals, and add any additional items that reflect the ‘big rocks’ for [their] team.”

SLOs are developed in support of their second school goal, responsive teaching, or the third goal, health and well-being. Educators have the option to use a sentence stem when developing their SLOs. The school administrator shared that school-wide scaffolding for SLOs helps educators write “SMART goals,” align the work across the building, and reduce stress in the process by helping teachers focus on “their classroom” and “their measures” rather than “crafting the entire thing from scratch.” The administrator further explained that this alignment process has been “extremely well received by staff.” Staff can see the “line” between the school improvement plan, the department action plan, and the goals they are measuring in their classrooms. 

In addition, all professional learning time during the school year is prioritized and scheduled during the summer leadership academy in support of the improvement plan. The administrator said that “professional learning has become more coherent and embedded” because staff see the connection back to the school goals.   

Based on conversations with these and other education leaders, consider the following questions when integrating the EE System into your improvement planning:  

Special thank you to the following leaders for their time and expertise:

Jennifer Rauscher and Chris Nyman, Wausau School District
Nick Bakke, School District of Holmen
Jennifer Butzler, School District of Cashton
Jill Oelslager, Burlington Area School District
Amy Levek, Whitefish Bay School District 

[1] Cain, S. & Laird, M. (2011). The Fundamental 5: The formula for quality instruction. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.