By John Mooney
Summer training and deadlines for schools following Christie rollback on use of student test scores in evaluations.
What it is: The State Department of Education sent to districts last week the details of the administration’s updated mandates for teacher evaluation in 2014-2015, following Gov. Chris Christie’s decision a week ago to change some of the criteria in the face of growing political opposition.
What’s in it: The major changes outlined were Christie’s decision to reduce for the next two years the amount that student progress on state tests — known as “median student growth percentiles” (SGPs) — count toward teacher evaluations.
It also outlined a new review process for the use of other “student growth objectives” (SGOs) in the 2013-2014 school year. In addition, the memo laid out a series of workshops for educators over the summer that will offer further training on the evaluation process and the use of SGOs.
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