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Superintendent Evers: Department Combining 2 Teacher Evaluation Programs

Evers Defended Public School Performance, Says Schools Still Enjoy High Ranking Nationally

By
Tony Evers
Courtesy of Wisconsin Public Television

State Superintendent Tony Evers says teachers could soon be facing less paperwork, as the state Department of Public Instruction plans to consolidate two statewide programs designed to track teacher performance and development.

“There’s good news there,” Evers said Thursday on the Joy Cardin Show. “Starting next year, we will be combining those two efforts.”

Some have said the two programs, the Wisconsin Professional Development Plan and the Educator Effectiveness System, are redundant.

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Lowell Holtz, Evers’ challenger in the race for DPI superintendent, criticized the Educator Effectiveness System on the show Wednesday, calling it an “evaluation system on steroids.”

“I’m not training teachers to be able to work through a program, through a computer program,” Holtz said. “What I want the teachers to do is focus on what they’re doing with their kids in their classroom.”

Evers said combining the two systems will lighten teachers’ administrative load.

Evers further defended public school performance. He took issue with the criticism that instruction quality at private schools is superior to that of public schools, saying that is not the case statewide.

He said Wisconsin’s schools still rank among the highest in the United States, but conceded not every student has the same experience.

“I guess there’s always individual variations, and certainly there’s individual variations of kids,” Evers said.

Evers and Holtz will face off in a statewide general election Tuesday, April 4.