A new review of how Tennessee evaluates its teachers makes relatively few recommendations that would take approval from state lawmakers. But an outgoing Republican senator says one of them is a doozey.
Governor Bill Haslam called late last year for the review from SCORE, the education reform group founded by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Some saw it as Haslam keeping lawmakers from tampering with the new evaluation system this spring.
East Tennessee Senator Mike Faulk sees a legislative fight brewing now that SCORE’s review is done.
Half of a teacher’s evaluation is based on how their students do on standardized tests. But if there’s no good test to use, SCORE says such results shouldn’t count for the full half. Faulk says it’s a problem, because current law sets that minimum – 50 percent – in stone.
“It may have been a mistake then. In hindsight it probably was a mistake then and it should’ve been more open-ended. But the percentages are subject to a negotiation process with all of the different stakeholders.”
Asked whether next year’s legislature might give up control of the percentages and leave them to state education officials, Faulk – who is retiring – says he’d be surprised.
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