Over the course of the year, the Trendline covered everything from hot topics like teacher evaluation and salary (including this interactive map) to the nitty gritty of teacher planning time and the length of teacher contracts. As the year draws to a close, here is a brief look at our most popular topics of 2015:
Layoffs: The most
read Trendline of 2015
All the way back in January, we took a look at the policies
that govern teacher
layoffs. Almost half of all districts in the Teacher Contract Database require
that non-tenured teachers be laid off before tenured teachers; after that, 42
percent of districts lay off tenured teachers by seniority, 40 percent lay off
tenured teachers by performance and 10 percent of districts use multiple
measures.
Movement in
evaluation policies
Perhaps one of the most talked about policy
areas in education, teacher performance evaluations,
covered in the March Trendline, proved to be another highly-read topic. Just
under 75 percent of districts require that objective student growth data count
towards a teacher’s evaluation rating, with more districts having plans to
include student growth in the future. Forty-one districts counted student
growth as 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation in the 2014-2015 school year.
As the recent November Trendline illustrates, more districts are not only including student growth in teacher evaluations but are also connecting evaluation ratings to other personnel policies. In 2014-2015, 44 percent of districts connected teacher salaries and evaluation in some way, up from only 28 percent of districts in 2012-2013.
Contract length and
health insurance premiums
Two other popular topics this year were length of teacher
contracts and health
insurance premiums. The average length of collective bargaining agreements
in the Teacher
Contract Database is 2.82 years, with the most common length being three
years.
Frequently a topic in contract negotiations, health
insurance is one important benefit for teachers. Of the districts that specify
the maximum portion that the district must pay towards employees’ health
insurance premiums, about two thirds pay at least 90 percent of the full
premium, with many paying the entire premium.
For complete coverage of these trends, plus all of our other 2015 topics, use the links below. Is there a topic we missed in 2015? Make sure we don’t miss it in 2016! Send your ideas for future editions to teachertrendline@nctq.org.
January: Layoffs
February: Health insurance
premiums
March: Teacher evaluations
April: Transfers and excessing
May: Substitute teachers
June: Planning and
collaboration time
July: Teacher leave
September: Lifetime earnings
October: Length of contracts
November: The role of student
achievement and teacher performance in evaluations, compensation and dismissal
