Kentucky's Professional Growth and Effectiveness System is being formed by
The MET Project (Measures of Effective Teaching). The goal of the MET study is to find out how evaluation methods can best be used to tell teachers more about the skills that make them most effective and to help districts identify great teaching. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently released the
MET Project Policy and Practitioner Brief.
The Met Project has brought together 3,000 teacher volunteers and dozens of education experts and researchers to help identify great teaching.
The vision for the Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (PGES) is to have every student taught by an effective teacher and every school led by an effective principal. The goal is to create a fair and equitable system to measure teacher and leader effectiveness and act as a catalyst for professional growth.
Teaching is too complex for any single measure of performance to capture it accurately. Assessing effective teaching requires multiple, valid measures supported by evidence. The following measures make up the PGES for teachers: observation, peer observation, reflection, professional growth, student growth and student voice.
A common language and understanding of effective teaching is the foundation of this system. Kentucky has adopted the Framework for Teaching which is based on the work of Charlotte Danielson. The framework includes the following indicators of effective teaching in five domains of practice: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, professional responsibilities and student growth.
Critical to the design of the Professional Growth & Effectiveness System is the collaboration with key stakeholders. Key partnerships with KASA, KSBA, KEA, JCTA, CPE, EPSB, colleges and universities were used to form a Teacher Effectiveness Steering Committee to provide ongoing guidance on the development and recommendations for deployment of the PGES.
During the 2012-2013 school year, over 50 school districts in Kentucky have participated in a field test of the new system. The field test has allowed educator experience and feedback to inform improvements prior to the statewide pilot during the 2013-2014 school year. During the statewide pilot in 2013-2014, as least 10% of the schools in each district will implement the Professional Growth & Effectiveness System. In 2014-2015 the system will be fully implemented statewide with full accountability in Spring 2015.