... My name is ... and I teach in Dallas ISD and have taught here for 7 years. I want to communicate with you how concerned I am about the use of CEI's and how they are used to evaluate teacher performance.
First of all, I love teaching! I always felt that teachers that teach in Dallas ISD are special because we have special students sometimes who have problems at home that preoccupy their time and make it hard for them to learn. We have to be conscious of that when teaching them and in interacting with their parents. I have felt for a long time that I want to be one of these teachers. Someone has to teach them, they are our future leaders!
Since we have been awarded recognition from the Brookings institute it would seem that we are on our way to doing that. My school has also been recognized or exemplary all of the years I have been there. I have taught third grade for 3 of these years and 1st and second for the other years. My TAKS passing rate at the time I taught 3rd was in the 90,s each time. Now all of the sudden I, along with some of my colleages are ineffective according to the CEI rating.
How can we be so bad that you do not want us in this school district any further? The PDAAS teacher evaluations do not reflect this, nor have we been approached by our administrator about problems in the classroom.
On the contrary, we are asked to tutor other students who are struggling and complimented on our teaching style. Our colleagues request our assistance with struggling learners and TPRI results show improvement. How is our school always recognized or exemplary? Yes, we did help this to happen!
The CEI rating is comparing our students to like students in the district, not how they have grown from one year to the next. How can we be rated on one item and not take anything else into account before letting teachers go?
I can handle the change in pay dates, the increased insurance premiums if I have to,but please, please do not use CEI's to determine my contract and also, keep learning center programs!
Thank-you for taking the time to read this and please reconsider this issue.
Dallas ISD Teacher
