For teachers: in re impact

[Anonymous]

Idk OP, comes across as ungrateful and yes I’m jealous. I’d love to get the bonus, I was up for 5 pay skips this year and of course missed it by a point.

I hate it when people are like ‘I hate impact but I accept the bonus and benefits.’

I might be a unicorn here but I don’t hate all of Impact. It’s really just how much the EP score is worth and CSC. Why should be be forced to commit to our school outside of our jobs…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the impact lovers: would you still love it if you were not able to test your own students for TAS

NP and I am not an IMPACT lover, although I do think an evaluation system is important for growth and to ensure students are receiving quality instruction. I don’t think admins alone should determine your score (outside of TAS) because it is a subjective evaluation system and can be abused by admin.

In terms of TAS I’ve been IVA (Group 1 I think) and self created exam for TAS (Group 2?). While I got HE in both situations the IVA measure is so much more stressful. It’s really hard to understand the way the score is calculated and adds undue anxiety to the situation. A self created exam is so much easy to have as your TAS score (and no I don’t lie but getting a 4 is really easy depending on how you set the goals). I find that aspect of IMPACT incredibly unfair. Transparency is key in any system such as this, and IMPACT is really lacking.

[Anonymous]

I just hate that as a teacher in my 30s, I have more teaching experience than all four of my admin put together…

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:IMPACT and rewards are simply disgusting. It's long established that 'rewards' are an ineffective way to motivate students. Why different for teachers? It's bad pedagogy in skill development.
Teachers should practice reflective teaching within professional learning communities, and be measured against the reasonable and wonderful goals they set, a reflective piece in which they themselves discuss the strides they made and areas where they still seek to improve, and projects they enact. individual PD could be tied to their goal setting. Buddying up with another teacher for safe, productive and honest feedback etc. This whole system is so top down it makes me ill. It's sole goal is compliancy--something I would never make the center of my classroom teaching.

Actually reinforcement has long proven by behavioral psychology. What do you think a paycheck is?
And I don’t think impact is meant to develop a skill, it’s meant to reward teachers who already have the skills or professionally develop to have them.

You know an evaluation is used to measure where you are and then it’s YOUR job to get to a better place if you did badly on an evaluation. Teachers are adults or did someone hold your hand in college too?


What makes me sick is most teachers taking a 1.5 year break and still expect to be coddled. You can do all those things at your school and still be rewarded.
And oh? A 25k a year pay increase is definitely motivating to many people. Tired of teachers with this holier than thou attitude.

You are really behind on the times. Read "Punished by Rewards" and similar research on focusing on extrinsic motivation and how damaging it is to kids. Also, there are numerous recent studies on how clumsy and ineffective most topdown checklisty and formulaic workplace evaluations are. Not sure why IMPACt would be the exception. Read up!

You can just read about behavioral psychology. Some people do not have intrinsic motivation or do you assume all people are the same?
Also rewards do not have to have punishments. And I also called it reinforcement not a reward. If person A does x and gets something they like they’ll likely keep doing it.
Just like I am a teacher because I like kids and teaching, I deal with impact because I like the things money can buy. Simple.

And why tf are you talking about kids rn, are you one?


You also seem to think I’d like to keep impact, I like the reinforcement it gives me to continue dealing with it. Just like someone who hates their job continues for the paycheck.

Regardless impact could be leaving but I highly doubt the reward system will, most teachers do like that. Especially new teachers which we have a TON of. So I 100% think they’ll keep LIFT. And despite what you think teachers do need an evaluation tool that allows them to be fired after a certain amount of time of being poor at their jobs.

I am talking about kids because I have observed, as a teacher, that school systems employ methods with their faculty that they have banished (with good reason) with students. I find it fascinating. Second, an intentional and well managed culture can develop intrinsic motivation and there are evaluations that I detailed that actually develop teachers professionally in the process, and create a healthier workplace over all.

They have not banished reinforcement with children, it’s alive and well and used in every research based SEL program including Conscious Discipline.

I find it fascinating that this isn’t understood, student face consequences all the time. What happens if they continuously gets F’s? They are held back (well not always in DCPS but you know what I mean).


A more tangible example is if you go to the grocery store with your kid and set expectations and if they are met they’ll receive their cookie.

Let’s say they tantrumed like crazy.

A consequence is obviously no cookie. A punishment is hitting them, yelling at them, or maybe you get the cookie and eat it in front of them.

Now you may say why’d you have to offer a cookie in the first place?
1. Because the child wanted one and is motivated by one. Not all children are good or do well because it intrinsically makes them happy.

Even students who do well in school are not all motivated intrinsically, even wanting to see an A is not intrinsic, they are seeking a value.

Again, if you can’t handle the idea of someone NOT getting a bonus or a reward in a new system, NOT impact, when they have not earned it…that says a lot.

I want my job to support me finically and give me things I need to continue to grow as a teacher. You must work with older kids cause no kid in my upper elementary class is solely motivated intrinsically. Especially the ones dealing with trauma, have special needs, or just don’t find the idea of school as their job.

SEL and Responsive Classroom reinforce through practice, discussion and reflection . Not 'gold stars and stickers', or in teachers cases punishments and bonuses. You literally have zero idea what you are talking about .

You likely work at a 1-3 star school huh…you lack simple comprehension skills. Probably never get HE either, but I’m sure you’ll lie and say you do lol. This is why our black and brown students continue to stay behind, get suspended and expelled the most. It’s sad that you can’t gauge the difference between a consequence and a punishment, reinforcement and bribery.

You sound very uninformed. I'm sorry you consider yourself the be all end all for black and brown kids. This worries me.

And I’m sorry you consider yourself to be so worthless…is that why you can’t move kids academically or socially/emotionally enough where it makes a difference.

The conclusions that you are reaching about me based on a discussion of different kinds of evaluation systems are illogical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Idk OP, comes across as ungrateful and yes I’m jealous. I’d love to get the bonus, I was up for 5 pay skips this year and of course missed it by a point.

I hate it when people are like ‘I hate impact but I accept the bonus and benefits.’

I might be a unicorn here but I don’t hate all of Impact. It’s really just how much the EP score is worth and CSC. Why should be be forced to commit to our school outside of our jobs…

I get that. And it stinks.
Fwiw once you opt into the bonus you can’t opt out. So when I was young I thought ‘why not- this is fun’. And now I’m older/wiser. I’ll give you my bonus- not kidding. But I left bottom 40 schools so it’s not huge.
To me getting highly effective is like getting a thumbs up from a passerby on the street. I don’t value the rubric so getting a good score means nothing. Plus- it’s a game, but one that hurts kids and adults. When we incentivize lying it hurts kids. I teach self contained and a parent came to me one year because her daughter (who didn’t know her letter sounds) had tested @ 2nd grade level in TRC @ end of the previous year. That was a wretched IEP meeting- where we had to tell mom- no, your daughter isn’t on grade level… and the teacher who fed you that lie is now an IC.
We all deserve better

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the impact lovers: would you still love it if you were not able to test your own students for TAS

TAS is only 10% or 15%. Even if I score a perfect 40/60 points, my 'bad' observations will bring me down and out of HE status. If you think a teacher is HE, they will score HE in all the categories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just hate that as a teacher in my 30s, I have more teaching experience than all four of my admin put together…

That must be hard. This year my admin was understanding when it came to observing virtual learning lessons and hybrid lessons. I hope your admin was also understanding.

[Anonymous]

I'm no IMPACT lover either, but it is here to stay until a new evaluation system comes along. It needs to be tweaked, but even then it will still be used and abused by admin and teachers alike because it will still be a game.

[Anonymous]

So for IVA its really tricky. IVA takes alot of things into consideration, such as (attendance, FARM status, SPED,ELL, and a few others). All of these things play along with students previous test scores play a role in predicting scores for the new year. Students with perfect or near perfect scores wont negatively impact you if they stay at the same score or only slightly drop. To get your IVA results, they take the difference between actual scores and predicted scores and get an average. The average score that you have will then be looked at vs the table they create for each score range. I know I missed something, but this is the best I could do in explaining it quickly. Below are my scores and the predicted scores. Most of my students preformed above their predicted scores and this showed on i-ready as well.
I struggled with understanding IVA, so I reached out to central office and they gave me detailed spreadsheets on my students. I would encourage anyone else who also would like to know more to reach out and get this information. It doesnt answer all the questions, but it gives you better insight.

Oh and this is from a Title I school with really high needs! All of our kids can be successful if we put the right things in place.

Student Observed and Predicted Scores for 2017 PARCC . IVA
Created 5-24-2018
The table below contains observed and predicted scores for the 2017 PARCC for your students. Please remember this is student sensitive information and should not be shared.


Student Name Test Score Predicted Score Teacher Name Year
Math Gr. 4 752 727.41 2017
Math Gr. 4 796 776.81 2017
Math Gr. 4 771 755.84 2017
Math Gr. 4 739 725.79 2017
Math Gr. 4 776 781.37 2017
Math Gr. 4 784 752.89 2017
Math Gr. 4 748 738.06 2017
Math Gr. 4 787 736.20 2017
Math Gr. 4 751 740.90 2017
Math Gr. 4 771 760.06 2017
Math Gr. 4 763 743.38 2017
Math Gr. 4 703 697.65 2017
Math Gr. 4 722 723.20 2017
Math Gr. 4 765 745.97 2017
Math Gr. 4 771 733.71 2017
Math Gr. 4 724 722.94 2017
Math Gr. 4 776 761.73 2017
Math Gr. 4 787 779.08 2017

[Anonymous]

That was a really great explanation, thanks PP. I feel like there are some transparency issues with IVA in that you had to email central office for the data. They should want teachers to have a better understanding of their scores and shouldn’t just provide that info to teachers.

[Anonymous]

*should just provide