APPR

APPR Stands for Annual Professional Performance Review and I recently attended a lecture about what it is.  This implies to classroom teachers and building principles, the reviews will be based off of Rubrics that are in place.  My interpretation of the lecture is that there was grant called Race To The Top that basically gave schools money who signed off on it and also have to begin the APPR's.  The idea is to get the bad teachers that are tenured out of schools and hold teachers accountable for their student;s performance and growth.  (I made a Chart that broke down the percentages but I am having troubles uploading it, so I found this data from the link below.)  "The composite score will be determined as follows: 

• 20%--student growth on state assessments ora comparable measure of student acheivement growth (increases to 25% upon implementation of a value-added growth model);
• 20%--locally- selected measures of student achievement that are deteremined to be rigorous and comparable across classrooms (decreases to 15% upon implementation of a value-added growth model); and
• 60%--other measures of teacher/principal effectiveness."

I find this interesting because the assessments will be done at the end of one year and the end of the next and each assessment will be part of the teachers final grade.  I think that this system has flaws because the assessments that the kids take are made by the teachers that are being evaluated.  The punishment if teachers do not do meet there required score out of one hundred, is probation and if the following year they do not meet the required score they are dismissed from school which means fired.  I cannot speak for every school but i came from a small rural school that graduated 70 kids my senior year.  I bring this point up because I think about the teachers I had and coming from such a rural area had students who just flat out did not care or wanted to try and there were small classrooms so that one student could play a significant role in a teachers job.  I just think that the two years then a dismissal is a little drastic.  However I do agree with a lot of the assessments and the fact that hopefully more teachers will be on the same page with their enthusiasm and desire to connect and reach the students beyond just the simple text book material.  Hopefully the new reviews better our schools and betters the education for our future students.