EDITORIAL: CCSD’s teacher rating system is effectively ineffective

Making the education establishment comfortable won’t improve things for students in the Clark County School District. To the contrary.

The Board of Trustees recently reviewed teacher evaluation data. Of the 15,209 teachers who were rated, just 11 were “ineffective.” Only 65 were rated as “developing.” The majority, nearly 12,500, were deemed “effective.” Around 2,700 received the top rating of “highly effective.”

Most schools don’t have a single teacher who is rated worse than “effective.” Students are 244 times more likely to have a top-rated teacher than a poorly rated one.

But given student achievement levels in the district, the disconnect is stunning. Last year, the district had more than 85 one-star schools. Yet, there aren’t even enough teachers rated “ineffective” or “developing” for each of those schools to employ even one.

Test scores at many schools are atrocious. At Lois Craig, Matt Kelly and Wendell Williams elementary schools, fewer than 20 percent of students are proficient in reading. At William Orr, Clifford Findlay and Indian Springs middle schools, less than 10 percent of kids are math proficient.

What might shock most parents and taxpayers is how low achievement is in many highly rated schools. Rancho High School is a four-star campus. But only half of its students are proficient in reading, while just 21.4 percent are proficient in math. Even so, its graduation rate is 91.6 percent.

A system filled to overflowing with truly “effective” and “highly effective” teachers would produce better results. Yes, families and home life play a role in learning. But studies show that teacher quality is the most important school-controlled factor in student achievement. If schools want to help students learn, they need to identify struggling teachers and either help them improve or replace them.

The district should feel confident taking this course because it has no “ineffective” administrators, according to its evaluations. Of the 785 who received a rating, just one was deemed “developing.” That compares with 149 who received a “highly effective” rating.

These ratings are a sham, a fiction that makes life easier for the adults in the system. They strain credulity to the breaking point. If evaluations identify virtually no “ineffective” teachers, the system has been designed to deceive rather than to advance the best interests of students. Education special interests can then shift blame for this systemic failure — over decades — to a lack of money.

No private business could operate like this because its customers would go elsewhere. Traditional public schools, however, have long been shielded from competition. But the number of students leaving for charter schools suggests many families don’t believe the district is populated with nothing but highly ranked educators.

Democrats in the Legislature for years have tried to kill or neuter any public school accountability measures. If Superintendent Jhone Ebert wants to create a destination district, she should push for a teacher evaluation system that’s more effective at identifying educators who are in over their head.