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We hope our Frequently Asked Questions page helps you better understand TCRP. If you don't find an answer to your question in our FAQs, please feel free to contact the TCRP team at tcrp@pucschools.org and we will be happy to answer your questions.
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What exactly is The College-Ready Promise? |
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The College-Ready Promise (TCRP) is a partnership between four California CMOs (PUC, Alliance, Green Dot, and Aspire). These four high-quality CMOs were awarded a grant by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that gives the CMOs the resources needed to enhance and improve teacher effectiveness and support efforts. The goal of TCRP is to place a “highly-effective” teacher in every classroom. |
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What are the advantages of TCRP? |
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Here are some of the advantages of TCRP:
- Professional development opportunities that provide individualized, targeted support to help teachers improve their practice
- A fair, transparent, and meaningful evaluation system
- New Career Paths that reward highly-effective teachers
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So if I'm a good teacher, I’m going to get paid more? |
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Yes. This grant allows participating CMOs to implement a holistic teacher support, effectiveness and compensation model. Of course, it will take time to put all the pieces in place that allow us to treat all teachers fairly when it comes to compensation. We will keep you updated as the plans progress. |
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How are you going to fairly determine that I'm an "effective" teacher? |
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Through the use of a robust and transparent evaluation system. Teachers will be evaluated based on:
- Student Achievement
- Classroom Observations (using a research-based framework)
- Student/Family feedback
- Professional Contributions
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What if I fall short of being a "highly-effective" teacher, will I be fired? |
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The bottom line is that this is a Teacher Development System. The focus of TCRP is to identify teachers' strengths and growth areas and to provide support for teachers to address areas they can improve upon. One of the major strengths of the new evaluation system is that it will provide formative data. Teachers and principals will be able to pinpoint specific areas of strength and areas for growth. From there, principals will be trained on how to best support their teachers as they become more effective. In addition to the training, principals will be given tools to better differentiate professional development based on the needs of individual staff members. Following numerous opportunities to grow professionally, and based on multiple years of data, some teachers may be counseled to explore other options. |
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What if my evaluator catches me on a bad day and gives me a poor evaluation? |
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All teachers will be observed and evaluated on multiple occasions. Additionally, there will be a calibration process to ensure that principals at different school sites are consistent with their observations. |
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So my salary is determined by CST results now? |
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We have been and will continue to work closely with our teachers to design the new compensation structure. This will include four main components: student achievement, classroom performance, student/ family feedback and professional contributions. Teachers will not be able to advance without showing meaningful increases in student outcomes. Two years of student achievement data will be used to assess teacher impact on student outcomes. The CST will be used to measure student academic growth, but it will be weighted less heavily until we develop other value-added assessments, which will give us more accurate representations of teacher impact. For teachers of subjects without CSTs, we are collaborating to create value-added assessments. |
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What about me? I teach ____ (Spanish/Music/P.E./RSP, etc). Will I be able to take advantage of TCRP tools and career paths? |
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Absolutely. By using student achievement evaluation models that consider more than CST scores, every teacher will be effectively supported through TCRP. |
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So if TCRP uses student achievement as a significant part of the evaluation, then will teachers with the most accomplished students have an unfair advantage? |
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No. The student achievement tool will measure growth. The Student Growth Percentile model shows how individual students (and groups of students) progress from year to year toward state standards. Each student’s progress is compared to the progress of other students with a similar score history. Teachers who can consistently produce significant gains with their students will score the highest on the evaluation tool and be deemed "highly-effective." |
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When should I expect see this new evaluation and support tool, and more importantly, when will my salary be impacted by TCRP money? |
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The projected outline for the evaluation tool and compensation are as follows:
- 2009 – 2010: Collaboratively create evaluation rubric
- 2010 – 2011: Initial pilot – 3 full pilot schools, 9 partial pilot schools
- 2011 – 2012: Full pilot – provisional teacher effectiveness rating
- 2012 – 2013: Roll-out, Year 1 – teacher effectiveness rating counts as 1 year of data
- 2013 – 2014: Roll-out, Year 2 – teacher effectiveness rating counts as 2nd year of data; interim bonus based on 2012-2013 teacher effectiveness rating
- 2014 – 2015: Launch of career path & compensation – career path & compensation based on Year 1, 2 data
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