Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/99516
rup. ACCOUNTABILITY Is Still the Word WEA Professional Issues Director Kathy Scheurman School and educator accountability continues to occupy the time and minds of educators and legislators nationally. Wyoming is no exception. WEA has high hopes that Wyoming will be choosing the high road by taking the time to be thoughtful and deliberate in the development and implementation of our accountability system. We appear to be learning from the mistakes of some other states that jumped into the fray before thoroughly examining the consequences, both intended and unintended, of the decisions and legislation around education accountability they have implemented. The Advisory Committee to the Select Committee on Statewide Education Accountability, which is comprised of representatives of all K-12 education stakeholders as well as of other entities such as the business community, has been working many hours to lesh out the rules and deinitions pertaining to school accountability. The State Board of Education, too, has devoted much time to the topic of accountability. An important recommendation coming from that body to the Legislature is not to pursue the concept of end-of-course assessments. A Professional Judgment Panel (PJP), under the direction of a national consultant hired by the State Board of Ed., was created and convened to make speciic recommendations as to the "cut scores" of the legislatively-speciied deinitions. Although far from decided at this point, the recommendations for Phase 1 from the PJP would potentially mean that, beginning in SY 2013-14, schools would be given overall schoollevel performance ratings based on the following indicators and targets: -- for Achievement, that schools must have 75% of their students at or above Proicient on PAWS or PAWS-ALT in order to be classiied as Meeting the Target, and 87% at or above Proicient to be classiied as Exceeds the Target; -- for Equity, that schools must have reduced their proportion of Below Basic students between 2011 and 2012 by 6% to Meet the Target, and by 20% to be classiied as Exceeding the Target; -- for College- and CareerReadiness (or Readiness), that schools must graduate at least 85% of their high school students within four years OR must have at least 20% of their students achieve the ACT Composite Benchmark to Meet the Target, and must attain BOTH of these criteria to be classiied as Exceeding the Target; The Advisory Committee has done a signiicant amount of work this year on Phase 2, individual educator accountability and evaluation system recommendations, as well as starting to draft a school leader evaluation system. Key information at this point is that teacher evaluation in the future is recommended to be based 80% on four domains of professional practice and 20% on student performance data. During the week of December 10, the Select Committee on Accountability will meet to receive reports and updates from the Department of Education, the Educational Liaisons to the Legislative Service Ofice, the Advisory Committee, and others, as well as to begin working the draft legislation. The two bills currently on their agenda pertain to Phases 1 and 2 of accountability. The Joint Education Committee will also be meeting that week and will be receiving reports, but it appears that most of their meeting will be for consideration of three draft bills: school inance amendments, energy and natural resource education initiative, and high school equivalency certiicates. As always, WEA will be attending and monitoring these meetings in order to obtain the most current information for you, our members. If you have any questions about accountability, please contact our ofice. -- for Growth, that schools must attain a median growth percentile of 50 to Meet the Target, and a median growth percentile of 60 to Exceed the Target. WINTER 2012 Winter 2012.indd 19 | wyoea.org 19 12/14/12 3:24 PM