The legislative Rules Review Committee has rejected a proposal removing student academic growth from the process of rating the performance of educators.
The proposal brought by the Department of Education would make assessing teachers based on student performance optional on a district-by-district basis.
State education secretary Joe Graves said it comes down to effectiveness.
“When the evaluation system for teachers was made a requirement in the state of South Dakota, that was put into place and required to be done," Graves said. "What we’ve noticed over the years and what districts have reported repeatedly to us is because those are part of the evaluation system, it begins to create strong incentives for making the student learning objectives nonmeaningful.”
Graves said it’s not the best measure of success for a district.
“Well suddenly, if you have a high bar on those student learning objectives, you begin to get low evaluations," Graves said. "So, what do people do? They begin to produce student learning objectives that are relatively easy to meet.”
The proposal wasn’t wholly supported though, with one no vote coming from Rep. Jon Hansen.
“My concern is specifically with making student learning objectives optional and further separating teacher evaluations from those learning objectives – which in my opinion is the number one objective, the learning outcome," Hansen said. "So, that’s the basis of my no vote.”
The change did not receive a majority vote, and the process was reverted to the previous step. Next month, the state Board of Education Standards will reassess the proposal to the board.