School districts in Wisconsin, faced with a new mandate to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers and other educators, must make a choice.
They can use an assessment model developed by the state Department of Public Instruction, or an alternative. Currently, the only districts with an approved alternative are using a model offered by an educational service agency known as CESA 6.
Most of the state’s school districts plan evaluation-system pilot runs this school year. All must decide, by the end of September, which model to use in 2014-15, when the system will have a full-scale debut. The cost to the state is roughly $7 million a year.
So far, the DPI model has more takers, including the state’s largest school districts, in Milwaukee and Madison. But nearly a third of the state’s 424 districts are on board with CESA 6. Districts must commit for only one year at a time.