Piccola: Education Department Should Get $1.4M More

The top Republican on the state Senate Education Committee wants to give $1.4 million to the state’s Education Department in return for tougher teacher evaluations tied to student test scores.

Committee chairman and state Sen. Jeff Piccola, R-Dauphin, said many changes would be made to the House budget, and this could be one of them.

Piccola has introduced SB 1087, which would allow the Legislature to change teacher evaluations. The Education Committee heard testimony June 8 for the proposal, which it will vote on June 14.

Carolyn Dumaresq, deputy secretary of elementary and secondary education for the state Education Department, agreed with tougher standards for Pennsylvania’s school system employees.

“A reliable and valid system should be the basis for decisions involving tenure and retention or dismissal of staff,” said Dumaresq. “The use of such an evaluation could also be used as a benchmark to assist with decisions involving furloughing of employees. It can also play an important role in discussion performance pay incentives for educators.”

According to the department’s current system of teacher evaluations, 96.8 percent of teachers and 93.8 percent of principals are rated as satisfactory, with 0.6 percent and 0.7 percent being rated as unsatisfactory, respectively. These evaluations were conducted as part of a survey by the PDE, funded by the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“I don’t care how good your school district is," Piccola said. "I don’t think we can do too much in the way of teacher evaluation and teacher performance."

In the 2009-2010 standardized tests, the latest available, 47.9 percent of all students rated as “advanced” and 28.4 percent as “proficient" in math.

In the 2009-2010 PSSA report, the latest available, in math, 47.9 percent of all students rated as “advanced” and 28.4 percent as “proficient.”

In science, 28 percent of all Pennsylvania students rated as “advanced” and 31.4 percent as “proficient.”

With the Education Department planning to expand its evaluation from two to four ratings, Piccola said he would work to get the department the requested $1.4 million by shifting funds around in the budget.

“A million dollars is almost nothing,” said Piccola. “It probably would be some kind of adjustment within the education budget. I want to get a firm view of everything (the Education Department) needs to start implementing this as fast as possible, so we can have a better judgment...as we start our Senate (budget) process.”

That funding would allow the Education Department to bring 20 percent of all school districts into the evaluation program. The department plans to include all districts by the fall of 2012-2013. 

State Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-Chester, minority chairman of the Senate Education Committee, expressed concerns about the impact these proposed changes would have on high performing school districts.

“In some of the districts, we sense that achievements that we have are not necessarily respected by the state, but rather we are forced into situations where what the department does is to concern themselves with the lowest-achieving schools at the expense of the highest-achieving schools,” Dinniman said. “We are often required to go through testing and go through mandates that really, in our judgment, take away what works.”