Schools and Education Manatee Teachers Score Well in State Evals

photo by Dennis Maley

Editor's note: After this story went to press, the FDOE pulled all scores from its website citing widespread errors due to coding problems caused by many teachers having more than one "job code" in the computer records, causing many instructors to be counted more than once.

BRADENTON – The Florida Department of Education released its first report on the state's new "value-added" evaluations on Wednesday. Manatee County schools had 1,338 teachers scored as "highly effective" with another 1,418 listed as "effective." Only 25 "needed improvement" and a mere 2 were labled "unsatisfactory" for the 2011-12 school year.

The evaluations are based on a combination of factors including observations and test scores. They categorize teachers as highly effective, effective, needs improvement, developing or unsatisfactory. 38 Manatee teachers were categorized as developing. 528 were not evaluated.

Starting in 2014, the new evaluations will be part of tenure and salary criteria. Teachers who repeatedly receive poor scores could also be let go. The “value-added” score is calculated through a formula factoring several years of test scores and other data. It counts for half of a teacher's professional grade.

The value-added component has been extremely controversial among teachers, unions and education activists. Teacher unions have argued that the formula was not in place during the time that teachers were evaluated and that because not all subjects require standardized tests, such data is not evenly applied to evals.