"Urban Legends" about DPASII-Revised
Last updated November 4, 2011
Presented here is the DSEA version of Snopes.Com regarding DPASII-Revised, misleading or incorrect information we have heard members say they have heard in their buildings about DPASII-Revised for 2011-2012; or information they have heard during DPASSII-Revised training that they have questioned.
All the information here has been double-checked with people at the Dept. of Education, and/or in the Guides that were rewritten for this year.
To keep up to date on changes to DPASII, please also know that the Dept. of Education will post what are called "non-regulatory guidance" documents. These are also official, and can be found on the DoE web site under "supplementary information." This is where official updates will be made to Component 5 - Student Progress.
Heard anything outrageous or questionable about DPASII-Revised?
Contact Debbie Stevens for the truth. And then we will post the misinformation you are hearing and the facts here.
"My administrator told us that DSEA agreed to DPASII-Revised. Is this correct?"
There is a great deal of misinformation out there particularly among administrators and some DOE employees. If you’re talking about component 5, DSEA is on the record for not supporting Parts I and II. In a letter sent to Secretary Lowery on June 16th we said that we did not support Parts I and II for the following reasons:
- They do not reflect specific educator input into student growth for educators not teaching is tested subject areas.
- A disproportionate percentage of the school wide score is applied to educators who may not have directly impacted the students assessed.
- The progress and growth of students in ILC’s, special programs, and special schools should not be judged by a computerized test that does not capture the teacher contribution to social and behavioral growth as well.
- They do not take into account student relocation.
- They do not meet the standards for fairness, validity, reliability, and it is not legally defensible.
What DSEA does support is:
- A system that is fair, valid, and reliable
- A system capable of differentiating growth for all student populations i.e. special needs students
- A system where Part I and Part II is eliminated
- A system where a comprehensive list of valid student assessment measures is developed for each content area in order to appropriately link teacher input to student output
"Administrators have to meet a quota of a certain number of Improvement Plans."
NO. This is completely wrong. There is no "quota" for Improvement Plans!
"You have to score 150 points of growth in Component 5 to be rated Highly Effective."
Wrong. In fact, there is no system yet approved by the U.S. Dept of Education for how Delaware administrators are to determine what satisfactory growth means. DoE first proposed using a 100-point scale but the feds said, No. To date, the DE DoE has not submitted another plan.
"Our administrator told us that DASL - the Delaware Association for School Leadership - suggested 26 questions to ask during pre-conferrences, and said that they are supposed to ask all 26!"
NO! These were only suggestions, to give administrators some ideas of questions that might be appropriate for particular types of teachers. Twenty-six questions are too many!
“If a colleague of mine chooses a particular student for their Student Cohort, then I can’t choose that student for my cohort.”
FALSE. There are no restrictions on which students can be considered for your student cohort measure.
“There is no Component 5 rating this year. Don’t worry about it. It’s off the table.”
FALSE. There is supposed to be a Component 5 rating this year. All teachers and specialists are supposed to receive a rating for Component 5 which, obviously, will affect their Summative Rating. It is not off the table.
What we did secure is that there will be no Improvement Plans or consideration of a “Pattern of Ineffective Teaching” because of your Summative Rating for this current year. Nor will the summative rating negatively affect a new teacher’s ability to earn a continuing contract.
“Your rating on Component 5 will be based on a 150 point scale.”
FALSE. First of all, DoE has not yet determined how your rating on Component 5 will be determined. What score on the DCAS tests, or your student cohort’s tests, or individual measures - if you have them - will equate to a Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory - is not yet known.
DoE had asked the U.S. Dept. of Education for permission to use a 100 point scale during this interim year (This is because the state cannot implement Component 5 as described in their Race to the Top application), but the feds said no. To date, the Delaware Dept. of Education has yet to submit its explanation of how ratings for Component 5 will be determined. What this means, of course, is that your evaluator can only rate you on Components 1-4 until DoE receives approval on a process.
“It is ok for Development Coaches to do pre-observation and post-observation conferences.”
FALSE. Insist that your supervisor do your evaluation. Tell him/her and the development coach that, per DoE, development coaches are not to engage in evaluating anyone. Development coaches are only to help supervisors carry out the DPASII process as correctly and as successfully as possible.
“DSEA asked for the summative ratings that are being considered for adoption by the State School Board in November.”
FALSE. DSEA opposed the summative ratings that DoE proposed for this year because they would have made them WORSE in 8 out of 9 categories of ratings. We suggested that the State Board keep, for this interim year, the ratings that were adopted by them for this year, 2011-2012. (We did not propose them. They were adopted in Jan. 2010 by the State Board as the ratings to go into effect this year.)
They will be the ratings in place when this interim year is over. Why make them more punitive in eight areas than they will be in the future? Why not keep them the way they were originally planned so we can see during this interim/pilot year, where the flaws are in the design of the ratings system?
During a September 1 meeting with Dr. Lowery, secretary of education, she agreed to not pursue the more punitive ratings, recommending that they be as originally planned. Those are the ratings that the State Board will consider for a vote at their November 17 meeting. She also agreed that the ratings not cause negative consequences (improvement plans or patterns of ineffective teaching) since Component 5 is not complete and, is in fact, DSEA believes, using invalid measures to rate “student progress” for many teachers and specialists.
“About 11 DSEA reps hammered out Component 5 at various meetings at DOE and this is what they came up with.”
FALSE. DSEA has three representatives on the DoE DPASII Review Committee, which, UNTIL NOW, has had very little to say about Component 5. DSEA influence with Component 5 was due to meetings with the Secretary of Education, the last of which happened on September 1 and is described above.
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