Jindal Signs HB 1033 Into Law

From a release by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office…

Today, Governor Bobby Jindal announced that he has signed HB 1033 by Rep. Frank Hoffman into law which enacts the use of value-added data to improve teaching, student achievement, and communication about school performance.

Governor Jindal said, “Louisiana has taken a huge step forward today in ensuring that every child is taught by an effective teacher and that every public school is led by effective instructional leaders. This groundbreaking law will incorporate student growth data as a component of teacher and administrator evaluations – and this evaluation system will enable school districts to identify and reward highly effective teachers and deliver targeted professional development to teachers and school leaders who need it. The data used in this evaluation system will also account for a portion of schools’ performance scores in our accountability system, giving credit to all schools for the hard work they have put into improving student achievement.”

Specifically, this new law calls for value-added assessment and works by establishing expectations for what students should learn throughout the year. Actual performance of students is then assessed and results are compared to what students with similar characteristics statewide learn on average. This model helps to identify teaching strengths and weaknesses so that teachers can be rewarded for strong performance and receive targeted professional development if they need help improving their instructional techniques.

Rep. Frank Hoffman said, “Value-added or student growth data is used to more accurately measure student growth, but it is also a powerful tool for teachers and school administrators. Incorporating this important information into their evaluations gives us an objective way of measuring their effectiveness and recognizing their hard work in a very positive way.”

Governor Jindal worked with the Legislature to provide $580,000 in Fiscal Year 2010 for the Louisiana Department of Education to develop a value-added assessment system for practicing teachers.

The new law will require the use of value-added assessment data by 2011-2012 for school accountability and by 2012-2013 for teacher and administrator evaluations. School performance will no longer be measured solely by comparing one year of student test scores to the previous year’s scores. With this new component, performance will be measured in a more reliable way, taking into account how well students meet growth expectations.

Teacher evaluations in all public schools, including charter schools, will be based at least at 50 percent on growth in student achievement using the value-added assessment model. For grades and subjects for which value-added data is not available, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will adopt policies to measure student growth. Both will be developed and implemented based on recommendations from an advisory committee comprised of a majority of practicing classroom educators.

School governing authorities will be required to evaluate all teachers and administrators yearly and make school-level effectiveness data – student achievement growth data that comprise 50 percent of the evaluation – available to the public.

This law will also repeal the Louisiana Teacher Assistance and Assessment Program (LaTAAP) and require that all teachers be evaluated using the value-added assessment data described above.

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