MITCHELL, S.D. (MITCHELLNOW) The Legislative Rules Committee considered a request from the South Dakota Education Standards panel and the South Dakota Department of Education to drop ratings of student progress from the teacher evaluation system. The current evaluation for teachers in South Dakota is what is known as “The Danielson Framework”.
Dr. Joseph Graves, the South Dakota Secretary of Education, argued for dropping the standard. He suggested several things in his presentation. First, there are several measures of a student’s success such as GPA, level of coursework (AP and other advanced classes), their ACT and student achievement test scores as well as high school graduation rates. None of those things can readily be tied to the efforts of a single teacher, especially not at the high school level.
Second, Dr. Graves suggested the rating student progress for individual teachers is arbitrary. Standards can be set so that they are easily achieved or have no real meaning so that retaining the standard may actually lower expectations for student achievement rather than the accomplish the Legislature’s goal of holding teachers accountable for a high level of quality education.
Representative Jon Hansen (R-District 25) said he had a difficult time not equating student progress with teacher performance. The committee deadlocked on a 3-3 tie vote and the change was not adopted. Dr. Graves was tasked with looking at the evaluation system and returning to a later committee meeting with more information on the Danielson Framework.