The 2011 reforms also prohibited districts from negotiating over how teachers would be evaluated. Prior to reform, school districts and unions would often agree to terms that provided little incentive for administrators to conduct thorough evaluations, were highly favorable to teachers and allowed them to challenge their ratings. A common practice was to agree to rate teachers as effective by default, even if no evaluation had been conducted. How often teachers were evaluated was often restricted, creating a situation in which teachers might receive years of effective ratings without undergoing any job performance evaluation. Taken together, these restrictions led to fewer evaluations and less accountability.
In our review, 6% of contracts contained illegal terms about evaluations. Another 10% contained terms that were questionably related to performance evaluations or that could be interpreted as limiting a district’s discretion. About 83% appeared compliant with the law by either not discussing a prohibited subject, carving out teachers subject to tenure or expressly acknowledging that the term was a subject to be left to the district’s complete discretion. Overall, 38% of contracts contained language that either automatically revived a district’s old evaluation practices or could easily be adapted to do so.
Lakeview Public Schools in St. Clair Shores provides an example of this type of contract. The contract requires the district and union to mutually agree on an evaluation framework for employees not subject to the teacher tenure law. Evaluations are limited to a single review each year. Employees must be notified in advance of any observation or monitoring of the employee’s performance. An employee who is found to be ineffective can demand a conference with the administration and rebut the rating with the help of a union official. Employees cannot be reevaluated from an effective rating to an ineffective rating outside the annual evaluation unless new evidence is discovered or there is a significant change in the employee’s performance. Underperforming employees are given a performance improvement plan, but that plan is limited to no more than three areas of improvement, regardless of whether more areas of improvement are needed. This agreement also specifically indicates that “the performance of all [employees] is presumed to be effective.”[25]
It is highly likely that terms similar to those in the Lakeview contract will be the default bargaining position for unions now that the 2011 reforms have been repealed. In fact, some of these terms are specifically required by law. Public Act 224 of 2023, signed into law in November 2023 and effective in July 2024, sets the default rating for a teacher who is not formally evaluated as “effective.” That law makes it harder to identify the best teachers by reducing the number of rating classifications from four to three: teachers can only be effective, developing or needing support. There are no more “highly effective” or “ineffective” teachers in Michigan, per state law.[26]
These changes are problematic because they may both conceal areas where teachers can improve and allow poorly performing teachers to carry on teaching without creating a plan for them to improve. If this system were to be partnered with contract terms that allow a teacher with an effective rating to be evaluated only once every three years, a single missed performance review could result in a sub-standard teacher being retained for at least three years, with the district having little opportunity to remove him or her.
Districts, particularly those with overspending problems, may be tempted to agree to more flexible evaluation terms, as they require less administrative overhead and a smaller investment of staff time to administer. But school administrators should not lose sight of the importance of regularly and accurately rating teachers. A teacher’s performance directly impacts how effectively children in the classroom can learn. If administrators’ ability to measure teacher performance is hindered, districts cannot provide the accountability needed to rid themselves of underperforming teachers. None of those outcomes is beneficial to ensuring Michigan’s public schools are fulfilling their role of properly educating children. School administrators should be mindful of this primary concern.