INDIANAPOLIS – All but two percent of Indiana’s teachers are effective at their jobs. Less than half a percent are ineffective.

Those may sound like statistics from a few years back, before the state implemented what was supposed to be a more rigorous teacher evaluation system.

But that’s not the case. Those unrealistic statistics result from the first round of teacher and principal evaluations under a new system Indiana lawmakers put in place in 2011, and they’re virtually the same as before: almost all educators were rated either effective or highly effective.

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The analysis of the most recent ratings makes for some very interesting comparisons.

For instance, not a single teacher was rated as ineffective in the Zionsville school district, one of the best in the state. But the same can be said for Wayne and Decatur township schools, which are both D-rated districts, the Indy Star reports.

Even schools rated as failing by the state, like Chamberlain Elementary School in Goshen, reported all teachers as either effective or highly effective, according to the news site.

Indianapolis Public Schools, which is home to some of the state’s worst schools, rated only five out of 2,672 teachers as ineffective.

Obviously, when only a slight sliver of teachers is rated ineffective when roughly a quarter of the state’s students flunk their state exams, something is not right.

“Does it seem plausible that one school in Lawrence Township, a B-rated school in fact, has more ineffective teachers than all of Indianapolis Public Schools, where more than half the schools were rated D and F last year?” Chalkbeat.org, an Indiana education reporting website, questioned.

Indiana’s business and legislative leaders think not.

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“I’m not sure there’s any industry or business setting or any work setting or any kind where you have 100 percent of workers not needing improvement,” Indiana Chamber of Commerce Vice President Derek Redelman told the Associated Press. “That just seems unrealistic.”

Indianapolis Superintendent Lewis Ferebee was far from pleased with the overly positive results.

“There’s a misalignment with how we are evaluating our teachers if you look at the student outcomes,” said Ferebee, who was recently hired to turn around the dysfunctional district after years of mismanagement.

“We have among the most schools struggling and yet most of our teachers are being rated effective or highly effective,” he told Chalkbeat.

House Education Committee Chairman Bob Behning is now looking for ways to improve the system.

“We didn’t think it was possible for a D or F school to say all teachers are effective or highly effective,” Behning told the AP. “We thought (the school ratings) would keep schools somewhat a little more honest.”

The state’s teachers union, and the state superintendent it helped to elect, both seem to have their head stuck in the sand, and allege the results reflect reality.

Indiana State Teachers Association President Teresa Meredith told Chalkbeat.org “the data seems to be accurate to what I’ve always thought.

“If anything, I thought there would be more highly effective teachers,” she said.

Indiana state Superintendent Glenda Ritz essentially parroted Meredith.

“I am encouraged by these numbers. For the most part, they confirm what we already knew: that public schools throughout Indiana are filled with effective and highly effective teachers,” she wrote in a statement.

More logical explanations

While the unions would like the public to believe all teachers are excellent, common sense suggests otherwise. There are, however, several possible reasons Indiana’s new teachers evaluations aren’t producing the more accurate results lawmakers were hoping for.

In 2011, the state’s Republican-led General Assembly overhauled the evaluation process for teachers and principals with the aim of making it more objective using student performance data. They also required teachers and principals to earn “effective” or “highly effective” status to be eligible for salary increases.

Lawmakers required school districts to base a “significant” percentage of the new evaluations on students’ standardized test results, but let districts decide for themselves how to craft the evaluations and the exact weight to apply to student test results.

That may be the source of the problem.

Chalkbeat.org reports that of the 249 districts that reported their evaluation results to the state Department of Public Instruction, about 71 percent used the RISE system created by the state. About 62 districts created their own evaluations, while a few others used nationally recognized models.

The evaluation overhaul was one of several elements of the state’s application for President Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative in which states enacted suggested reforms for a shot at billions in additional education funding.

Many states required schools to base up to 50 percent of educator ratings on student test score growth, but Indiana let local districts decide for themselves and most chose to factor in test scores as 15 to 20 percent of evaluations, Chalkbeat reports.

“We may have let there be too much local control,” Rep. Behning told the site. “There’s obviously too much subjectivity.”

Another factor potentially swaying the evaluation results is the fact that about 67 school districts didn’t report any data. That’s because the 2011 law didn’t apply to districts until their union contracts expired, and many schools were under multi-year contracts that stipulated the old evaluation model of prearranged classroom visits.

Other education experts, meanwhile, believe there are also problems with principals not receiving the proper training to effectively evaluate their staffs.

“Principals are put in a very difficult position when they have to make high-stakes decisions in regards to teacher evaluations when they don’t have the time,” David Dresslar, head of the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning at the University of Indianapolis, told the Indianapolis Star.

“What are you going to default to? You’re going to default to excellent. You’re not going to have the kind of training and time to document ‘improvement necessary’ or ‘ineffective’” teacher ratings, he said.

Speedway High School English teacher Jacob Pactor pointed out that principals who identify weak teachers on their staff also run the risk that it will reflect badly on them, and they may have to work harder to help those teachers improve.

“You are admitting you did a poor job of hiring,” he told the Star. “That is admitting you have not done your job as a principal.”

The ISTA, the statewide teachers union, also suggested another plausible reason why so few teachers earn ineffective ratings, although it seems like it would have less of an influence than the other explanations.

Meredith pointed to 10 percent of teachers statewide who were not rated because they did not complete the school year for a variety of reasons, from maternity leave to early retirement. She suggests many ineffective educators may have opted to retire because they feared a bad rating.

Behning also wanted to look into the 10 percent who didn’t receive a rating before suggesting changes to correct the system.

“We may want to drill down into the data more first,” he told Chalkbeat.org.