Mississippi Teacher Appraisal Rubric Analysis

“Assessment is at the heart of education” (edutopia). Educators use assessment to determine students’ strengths and weaknesses, gauge students’ comprehension, document students’ growth, determine grades, and to plan instruction. The goal of assessment is to make improvements. It is different from testing and evaluation, because tests measure a student’s knowledge or level of skill, and evaluations are the process of making judgments. Assessments document skills, knowledge, and attitudes (edutopia). There are two types of assessment: authentic and traditional. Authentic assessment is a technique that examines students’ abilities using real-world challenges that requires them to apply the skills they have previously learned. It is much more
than the tradition paper and pencil tests. “It is the assumption that there is a much wider spectrum of student performance that can be displayed than that limited by short-answer, standardized tests” (Callison 1). Examples of authentic assessment include: oral interviews, story retelling, writing samples, projects, experiments, constructed-response items, teacher observations, and portfolios (Callison 2). Traditional assessment is the more frequent method of assessing students. Examples include quizzes, exams, papers, and standardized tests. This type of assessment would be the formative and summative exams. Formative is ongoing throughout the year and summative happens at the end of a unit, semester, or year. Traditional assessment is not used as much today, because it is believed that these types of exams do not measure the full range of student outcomes, and teachers have difficulty using the information to improve instruction (Callison 3). Students are required to take state standardized tests in particular subjects and grade levels. During the 2014-2015 school year, Mississippi schools were required to use the PARCC exam. PARCC stands for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (MDE). This was one of the two state consortia that developed a common set of K-12 assessments aligned with the Common Core standards. There were many limitations with this test. Students were required to on depend computers, it took three full days to test, and the cost of the test is extremely high (MDE). Due to these limitations Mississippi is no longer a part of the PARCC consortia. In the 2015-2016 school year, Mississippi schools will be using the Mississippi Assessment Program testing. This exam is computer-based; only the writing portion of the English language arts section will be paper and pencil. It will be a single, end of the year test (MDE). Many schools in Mississippi have been named STAR schools. To earn this recognition, a school must earn a letter grade of an A. The school must have made appropriate or outstanding academic growth and a completion rate of at least 230 or graduation rate greater than 80% (MDE). Schools can also be rated as high performing (B), successful (C), academic watch (D), low performing (F), at-risk of failing (F), or failing (F) (MDE). Educators in Mississippi are evaluated using the MSTAR.
MSTAR stands for Mississippi Teacher Appraisal Rubric. The rubric has five domains: planning, assessment, instruction, learning environment, and professional responsibilities. To earn the highest score, a teacher must be distinguished in each domain. A few of these distinguishing characteristics are being prepared, assessing his/her students, communicating effectively, setting expectations, managing the classroom, and staying professional. It would be to the teacher’s greatest advantage to look over this rubric before the school year. This will allow him/her to know how he/she must perform in order to be effective
(MDE). Rigor refers to standards, or learning experiences, which help students understand complex concepts and help students acquire skills that can be used throughout their lives (edglossary). The Common Core standards are very rigorous. They are a set of academic standards in mathematics, English language arts, and literacy. They outline what a student should know and be able to do at each grade level (corestandards). Mississippi adopted the Common Core state standards in 2010, and fully implemented them in the 2013-2014 school year (corestandards). In 2015, Mississippi changed the name of the standards to Mississippi College and Career Readiness standards. The only change made was to the name; Mississippi still uses the common core standards. Common Core only has standards for mathematics, language, and literacy.
Each state has it’s own set of frameworks for science, social studies, and physical education. The purpose of these standards is to prepare students with the knowledge and skills to be successful in college and the workforce (MDE). These standards clearly outline what is expected of the students. The purpose of the frameworks is to outline what students should learn and be able to do. They provide teachers with “the structure of planning and delivering instruction in a comprehensive and logical form” (MDE). Essentially, the frameworks and standards have the same purpose. They are just developed by different
companies. There have been three key shifts in English language arts. Regular practice with complex texts and their academic language; reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from texts, both literary and informational; and building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction are the three key shifts (corestandards). Understanding these shifts is essential to implementing the standards well (corestandards). There are no required reading lists. Students are required to dig deeper into a wide variety of texts and use text evidence when doing so. Teachers now have more choice in what they want to teach and how they want to teach it. However, with the standards being so rigorous, teachers have to be mindful when they make these decisions.
Education is primarily the state’s responsibility. The state establishes the schools and the requirements within it. However, the federal government also has a hand in it. It is the federal government who provides funding for public schools. Federal laws are also in place that tells each state what to do (ed.gov). No Child Left behind, for example. In 2002, President Bush signed the NCLB Act, which required states to establish academic standards and a testing system. The focus was primarily on English language arts, and mathematics. During the fall of 2015, President Obama replaced the No Child Left Behind Act with the Every Student Succeeds Act. This act gives states more power in the role of education, eliminates the system that punished states if enough students were not proficient in reading and math, and also restricts states from having to adopt the Common Core standards (Camera). The third grade state assessment will be used for retention/promotion decisions beginning in the 2016-2017 school year. The exam has been used for these decisions in previous years, however it will now be required by law to make those decisions (MDE). If a students scores at the lowest achievement level, they will be retained in the third grade unless they meet good cause exemptions. The goal of this law is to ensure that students are successful in fourth grade and beyond that grade (MDE).
Assessment is an important part of education. Many decisions are made based on a student’s performance on these assessments. It helps teachers to improve their teaching, and also determines some students’ promotion or retention. The government also plays a role in assessment. Laws are passed that require states to make changes to their assessment processes. Over the years, state assessments have become more rigorous and the expectations of students continue to grow higher. The goal is for students to be successful in college and in the workforce.