ATLANTA – The Georgia Department of Education (DOE) Wednesday announced a pilot project to test a new method for evaluating teacher performance.
The new program will be called GaLEADS. It will be tried in a dozen Georgia school districts beginning in the 2023-2024 school year. Districts will be able to apply to participate in the pilot beginning Thursday.
“I am fully committed to developing a teacher evaluation model that treats teachers as professionals and helps them succeed throughout their careers, to the benefit of students – rather than a punitive ‘gotcha’ system,” said State School Superintendent Richard Woods.
“This pilot is an opportunity for proof of concept and will allow us to work with school districts throughout the state to create an evaluation system that’s designed for teacher growth.”
The DOE recently published a report exploring the reasons for teacher burnout in Georgia. Teachers said they face unrealistic performance expectations, especially given the learning disruption caused by the COVID pandemic.
“Coming out of the pandemic, the desire to ‘return to normal’ has also come with an unrealistic expectation … without giving teachers the time, support, resources, and compassion to meet students at their current level,” the report said.
“PAGE is encouraged by the announced teacher evaluation pilot,” said Margaret Ciccarelli, director of legislative services for the organization.
Data from a 2021 statewide survey indicated that 45% of educators felt supervisor feedback under the current system was not helpful to their instructional practices, Ciccarelli said.
“A more effective Georgia educator evaluation system will better serve students by supporting teachers at every stage of their career, recognizing that the coaching needs of beginning teachers differ from the needs of skilled veteran educators,” she said.
Lisa Morgan, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, called for increased teacher involvement in revamping the state’s teacher-evaluation program.
“Classroom teachers are the experts and must be the principal voices speaking to the necessary supports available for themselves and their colleagues,” she said. “We look forward to working with the department to ensure that current classroom educators are involved throughout the process.”
Searcy hit back at Wednesday’s announcement about the new teacher-evaluation program, calling it an election gimmick with questionable timing.
“Why is the current state superintendent, who has been in office for almost eight years, deciding that now, 69 days before the election, he wants to make teacher evaluations a priority?” Searcy asked. “This has been a concern for teachers for at least eight years.”
Searcy said teachers should be involved in revamping the teacher-evaluation process.
“Educators, students, and parents deserve a state school superintendent who is a collaborator and who seeks the feedback of teachers,” she said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia teachers stocking up on supplies for the new school year will get some help from the state.
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday that every full-time public school teacher in Georgia will receive a $125 supplement to help them get their students back to in-person learning coming out of the pandemic.
The money will be provided through the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Program, a federal pandemic-relief fund established by Congress in 2020.
“Through wise investments and policies that empower families while supporting teachers, students and faculty will return to the classroom stronger and safer than ever for the first full school year not impacted by distanced or remote learning,” Kemp said Friday during a back-to-school event at Ola High School in McDonough.
“We hope this $125 ‘Back-to-School Supply Supplement’ will aid in these efforts and help us close the learning loss gap caused by the pandemic.”
The supplement also will go to school staff members who work to provide instructional and supportive services directly to students.
The money can be used to buy materials, supplies, or other items that can be used to supplement classroom materials, address learning loss or mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Department of Education has awarded the first teacher recruitment tax credits to 69 teachers from across the state.
The General Assembly voted unanimously last year to create the tax credit to incentivize teachers to ply their profession in rural and low-performing schools.
Each teacher selected for the program will receive a $3,000 credit on their state income taxes each year for five consecutive school years.
“The most important thing we can do to improve student achievement is to invest in our educators,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said this week.
“This tax credit provides an additional way for Georgia to recruit and retain excellent teachers in our public-school classrooms.”
Eligible teachers were those recently hired to teach in a high-need subject area at one of 100 participating schools.
High-need subject areas are defined regionally by Georgia’s Regional Education Service Agencies (RESAs).
Applications for the tax credit were released in February. An additional round of applications will take place next spring.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia teachers are struggling to cope with the impacts of the pandemic on education to the point that many are likely to leave teaching, according to a new report from the Georgia Department of Education.
“The teachers I know don’t want to walk away … but too many teachers I know are running on empty,” Cherie Bonder Goldman, the 2022 Georgia teacher of the year, wrote at the start of the report.
The task force behind the report conducted focus groups with teachers across Georgia last winter.
About a third of educators said they were unlikely to remain in the profession for the next five years, according to a survey cited in the report.
Georgia should reduce the emphasis on test scores as a marker of teacher success, the new report contends.
“There were so many tests from every angle, district and state required, that the students were numb,” said one middle school science teacher quoted in the report. “These scores fall on us.”
“The unspoken message that if a student isn’t successful then it’s the teacher’s fault needs to go away,” an elementary school teacher added. “There are so many factors outside of a teacher’s control that impact student achievement.”
Teachers also need time and support to help their students return to pre-pandemic levels of engagement and performance, the report contends.
“Coming out of the pandemic, the desire to ‘return to normal’ has also come with an unrealistic expectation … without giving teachers the time, support, resources, and compassion to meet students at their current level,” the report notes.
The state Department of Education recently said it would use 2022 data, rather than pre-pandemic data, to evaluate school improvement going forward.
Class sizes should be reduced so teachers can “meet the individual needs of students,” the report says.
The report also recommends hiring additional school support staff, including counselors and psychologists, school nurses, and paraprofessionals.
School systems should streamline paperwork and reduce unnecessary meetings so teachers have more time to focus on teaching, the report states.
“The workload is nearly impossible to tackle during the hours we are actually at the school,” said an elementary school teacher. “So many of us have to ‘volunteer’ our time simply to do what is required of us.”
Gov. Brian Kemp and the General Assembly gave teachers a $3,000 pay raise in 2019 and provided another $2,000 this year. Teachers and support staff also received bonuses totaling $3,000 during the pandemic.
But teachers still need more pay if they are to battle burnout and remain in the profession, the report contends.
Georgia should “fund step raises at every stage of a teacher’s career” to encourage teachers to stay in the profession. The state should also protect teacher health-care and retirement benefits, according to the report.
“Teachers always seem to go above and beyond their call of teaching but are hardly compensated or acknowledged for their efforts,” one high school math teacher told the task force.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams recently said she would revise the teacher pay scale so that all teachers make at least $50,000 a year. Her revised pay scale would increase teacher pay across the board.
Those who are making decisions about what teachers do should either be teachers themselves or have significant recent classroom experience, the report states.
“So many decisions are made regarding what should be happening in a classroom by people who are no longer in a classroom and have been out for a long time, or by people who have never been in a classroom,” one elementary teacher quoted in the report states.
Finally, like all other Georgia workers, teachers need mental health support and work-life balance.
“Recognize that teachers are people … and treat them accordingly,” the report recommends.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is vowing to raise teacher pay in Georgia to a minimum of $50,000 a year from the current $39,092.
Abrams called for fully funding education in the Peach State during remarks Sunday as she was endorsed by the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), the state’s second largest teacher organization.
“Central to our children’s educational success is supporting the teachers, paraprofessionals and support staff who help us grow resilient children,” Abrams said. “When our educators are highly valued and fairly compensated for their commitment to education, our children benefit.”
Abrams’ plan also would raise average teacher salaries from $62,500 to $73,500, moving Georgia from 21st in the nation in teacher pay to 10th.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has increased teacher pay in Georgia by $5,000 since taking office in 2019. The raises came in two installments, $3,000 in 2019 and the other $2,000 this year.
Kemp said Abrams’ plan would result in “runaway government spending” and higher taxes.
“Following the lead of her pals in the Biden administration, Stacey Abrams’ latest Hail Mary proposal for over $2 billion in new state spending annually joins an ever-growing pile of pie-in-the-sky plans that would make inflation worse and require higher taxes on Georgia families to pay for it all,” Kemp campaign spokesman Tate Mitchell said Sunday.
But Abrams said the raises she is proposing are necessary to recruit new teachers and retain those who are dropping out of the profession or moving out of state. She said her plan could be implemented without raising taxes.
The GAE opposed several education measures Kemp steered through the Republican-controlled General Assembly this year, including a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” establishing a process for parents to review curriculum and other instructional material for their children’s classes and legislation restricting how racism and slavery can be taught in Georgia schools.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
