Tag Archives: Teacher Quality

Urban teacher residencies

4 Mar

One of the huge issues in educating ALL children is how to attract high quality teachers to high needs areas and to retain those teachers. One program designed to address that issue is the “Urban Teacher Residency Model.” Barnett Barry and Diana Montgomery of the Center for Teaching Quality along with Jon Snyder of Bank Street College wrote an interesting 2008 paper, Urban Teacher Residency Models and Institutions of Higher Education: Implications for Teacher Preparation:

In brief, UTRs recruit teaching talent aggressively, with the supply and demand needs of local districts in mind. They also insist on extensive preparation, whereby recruits are paid a stipend while learning to teach in a full-year residency, under the watchful eye of expert K-12 teachers. Because the Residents are not fully responsible for teaching children, they have more quality time to take relevant pedagogical coursework ―wrapped around‖ their intense student teaching experience. While both AUSL and BTR are relatively new programs, early studies on their graduates’ effectiveness and their high retention rates of 90 to 95 percent suggest these models hold great promise for preparing and supporting teachers in high-needs urban schools.

We believe the time is now for the teacher education community to embrace UTRs —supporting the development of them while also using them to improve their current programs. The struggles of both traditional and alternative pathways to certification are well known. For example, many traditional university-based programs are challenged by:

Difficulty in attracting high academic achievers and teacher candidates of color;

Too few opportunities for prospective teachers to be taught by exemplary classroom teachers;

Failure to meet shortage area needs in subjects such as math, science, and special education, as well as the need for English Language Learners teachers;

Limited resources and structures to provide induction support for their graduates in a systematic way once they begin teaching; and

Lack of accountability for the effectiveness of their graduates.

On the other hand, alternate pathways, which often are touted for their ability to recruit high academic achieving candidates and to prepare teachers for specific districts, face challenges as well.

These include:

An abbreviated curriculum that leaves too few opportunities to learn how to teach diverse learners;

Insufficient clinical experiences prior to becoming the teacher of record;

Too few opportunities to learn content and how to teach it simultaneously;

An overemphasis on preparing teachers for a singular context (e.g., a particular district)

or a limited, prescriptive curriculum; and

Lack of accountability for the effectiveness of their graduates.

In fact, in a survey of both ―prominent‖ alternative certification recruits — including Teach for America, the New Teacher Project, and Troops to Teachers — and traditionally prepared novices, several stark findings have surfaced:

84 percent of traditional recruits rated their preparation in managing classrooms as excellent or good, compared to only 60 percent of the alternative certification recruits; 71 percent of traditional recruits rated their preparation in helping struggling students as excellent or good, compared to only 38 percent of the alternative certification recruits; and

77 percent of traditional recruits rated their preparation in providing individualized instruction to students as excellent or good, compared to only 49 percent of the alternative certification recruits. In addition, 34 percent of the alternative recruits who are teaching in high-needs schools reported they were planning to leave teaching within two years. In comparison, only 4 percent of the traditional recruits noted they were going to leave within the same time frame. These survey data do not suggest that traditional university-based preparation programs ―do teacher education right,‖ but for the most part, they are doing a better job than even the highly regarded

Teach for America program in getting new recruits ready for the immense challenges of teaching in high-needs schools. Researchers have shown teachers increase in effectiveness with teaching experience and high turnover among new recruits harms school improvement efforts. (footnotes omitted)

One of the key elements of “Urban Residency Models” is retention of teachers.

The Urban Teacher Residency Model:

Right now, roughly 50% of all urban public school teachers nationwide leave their positions in less than three years – not because they don’t want to teach, but because they’re not always ready.

By preparing a new kind of teacher inside the classroom – providing the practical learning, the hands-on experience and the support network they need to be effective right away – Urban Teacher Residency United (UTRU) and its local programs are building a real movement for education reform from the ground up.

Statistics show that 85% of all Residency graduates stay in their schools beyond those crucial first three years, reducing the high teacher turnover rates that cost districts millions and leave students in the dark.

Program Design

Giving Teachers the Tools to Make an Immediate Impact

It is an extensive focus on preparation that makes the Residency model different from any other program in education. From beginning to end, every aspect of the model is designed to provide teachers the knowledge, skills and disposition they need to make an immediate impact in the urban classroom — a difference every one of their students can feel.

Recruitment & Selection

Recruiting Residents

 Through a highly selective recruitment process, Residencies attract a diverse group of talented college graduates, career changers and community members. This targeted effort is driven by the unique needs and goals of each school district partner. Special attention is paid to attracting teachers of color and teachers in high-need areas, such as math, science and special education.

Selecting Mentors

 On a parallel path, Residencies select a cohort of experienced teachers within the district to be paired one-on-one with Residents for the duration of the school year. These expert mentors offer Residents a living, breathing model for success in the urban classroom. As the centerpiece of the Residency model, mentors receive ongoing support from the program to ensure the provision of time, resources and coaching skills necessary to lead an effective classroom apprenticeship.

The Residency Year

Residency programs offer a unique synthesis of theory and practice, combining a yearlong classroom apprenticeship with a carefully aligned sequence of master’s-level coursework. Residents receive a stipend for living expenses throughout their training year, and a subsidized master’s degree upon completion of the program.

Placement in Cohorts & Training Sites

 Residents train as part of a cohort — a peer group that provides ongoing support and collaborative learning throughout the Residency year and beyond. At the beginning of the school year, groups of Residents are placed in high-need, high-functioning public schools for their apprenticeship experience. Residents also complete their coursework as a cohort.

A Yearlong Classroom Apprenticeship

 Residents spend the full academic year in an urban public school, developing under the guidance of an experienced mentor teacher. Using a variety of coaching and conversation protocols, mentors provide valuable insight into effective teaching methodology, helping Residents develop the knowledge, skills and habits of mind that come from years of experience in the urban classroom. Over the course of the year, Residents move from a collaborative, co-teaching role in the classroom to an increasingly demanding, lead-teaching role.

Linking Theory to Practice

 In addition to their hands-on work in the classroom, Residents engage in master’s-level education coursework designed to inform and enrich the apprenticeship experience. This deep blend of theory and practice makes the Residency model a unique route into teaching, helping participants draw meaningful connections between their daily classroom work and the latest in education theory and research.

Post-Residency

Residency graduates commit to serving their district for at least three years after the completion of their apprenticeship. In return, they receive immediate assistance with job placement in one of the district’s schools, as well as access to an exemplary onsite induction program — one-on-one consultation that includes classroom observation and targeted feedback throughout their first two years of solo teaching.

Residency programs also boast an active alumni network — a group that values ongoing training and collaboration, and serves as an invaluable resource as graduates pursue further professional development. Many Residents go on to become mentors, principals and senior administrators in their schools, a benefit their continued commitment earns them.

http://www.utrunited.org/the-residency-model

See, MSNBC video: Why Do Good Teachers Leave? http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46622232/#46622232

Quality Standards for Effective Residencies

The UTRU Quality Standards identify, define and describe the six program elements essential to the design of a high-performing Urban Teacher Residency.

Quality Standards for Teacher Residency Programs (436KB)

Position Papers

These documents provide an in-depth look at the development and design of the Urban Teacher Residency model.

From the limited data available, it appears that “Urban Teacher Residencies” are a promising tool.

Resources:

Urban Teacher Residencies: A Space for Hybrid Roles for Teachers http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_ahead/2011/10/urban_teacher_residencies_a_space_for_hybrid_roles_for_teachers.html

Urban Teacher Residencies http://www.teachingquality.org/utr

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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New Jersey may eliminate teacher tenure

16 Jan

People become teachers for many reasons. Among the top ten reasons to become a teacher are: 

1. Student Potential

2. Student Successes

3. Teaching a Subject Helps You Learn a Subject

4. Daily Humor

5. Affecting the Future

6. Staying Younger

7. Autonomy in the Classroom

8. Conducive to Family Life

9. Job Security

10. Summers Off 

Because of the recession, many are turning to teaching as a career that might have employment possibilities. Although there may be job cuts as states and some locales cope with diminishing tax revenue, the education sector still looks good in comparison with other sectors. Information about teaching requirements can be found at Education Week Career Community

The issue of teacher tenure is important because: 

There is no shortage of data that show a significant percentage of teachers leave just when they are becoming consistently effective. However, at the same time, too many teachers who have not become consistently effective achieve permanent status, also referred to as tenure. 

The question surrounding teacher tenure is how to protect quality teachers from unfair termination?

What is Teacher Tenure?

A good basic description of teacher tenure as found at teacher tenure. James gives the following definition:

WHAT IS TENURE?

Tenure is a form of job security for teachers who have successfully completed a probationary period. Its primary purpose is to protect competent teachers from arbitrary nonrenewal of contract for reasons unrelated to the educational process — personal beliefs, personality conflicts with administrators or school board members, and the like.

WHAT PROTECTION DOES TENURE OFFER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER?

The type and amount of protection vary from state to state and — depending on agreements with teachers’ unions — may even vary from school district to school district. In general, a tenured teacher is entitled to due process when he or she is threatened with dismissal or nonrenewal of contract for cause: that is, for failure to maintain some clearly defined standard that serves an educational purpose.  

Time has a good summary of the history of teacher tenure at A Brief History of Tenure

Education News is reporting in the article, Christie’s Reforms May End Teacher Tenure in New Jersey:

Under Governor Chris Christie’s proposed education reforms, New Jersey may soon see the end of teacher tenure. Administrative and legislative officials confirm that much of Christie’s reforms could become law in the first half of 2012, writes Jason Method at the Statehouse Bureau.

Christie is also looking for more charter schools or private-public schools in urban areas.

State Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz, head of the Senate Education Committee, believes there is growing momentum for an assortment of reform measures as many school districts could see an end to annual budget votes.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, as a union rep, from the principal’s association or a teacher, we’re all talking about what needs to get done to ensure we have great student outcomes,” Ruiz said.Christie declared 2011 as the Year of Education Reform. The governor said the kinds of reforms he wants have been heralded by President Obama and U.S. Education secretary Arne Duncan.

http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/christie%e2%80%99s-reforms-may-end-teacher-tenure-in-new-jersey/

What are the Pros and Cons of Teacher Tenure?

One of the best concise defenses of K-12 teacher tenure is from Cleolaf’s blog at Why K12 Teachers Need Tenure The reasons are: 

A) The teacher shortage is not evenly distributed. High performing schools don’t have the same problems attracting teacher. High paying district don’t have the same problems attracting teachers….

B) This really comes down to the question of why principals might want to be rid of a teacher. I would suggest that any manager would want to be rid of any employee who makes his/her job or life harder. Ideally, this would only be low performing teachers, but that is a fantasy view.

Any kind of rabble rouser can make a principal’s job harder. …Obviously, union activists are already protected by other labor laws.

C) Academic freedom in K12 is not like in higher education, that’s true. But it is still an issue.

A teacher who tries to raise the bar in his/her classes can create no end of problems for a principal. If standards in school have been too low, and a teacher demands more than students are accustomed to, students and their parents can demand enormous amounts of principal’s time. This is a different form of rocking the boat, but can still be enough for a principal to wish to be rid of the teacher.

Principals cannot be experts on everything. Once, when teaching high school English, my principal as a former middle school math teacher. He insisted that I as an English teacher, “not worry about critical and analytical thinking” and “just teach English.” Though he had no training or experience with high school English, he had ideas about what it meant. He did not approve of the fact that I was spending as much time on teaching my student how to reason as on the mechanics of writing. …

Another principal might be an old school traditionalist and insist that English classes only be about books. He might not approve of using film or video to teach about theme, plot, symbolism, character development, story arcs, allegory and any of the rest. But a teacher might feel that this would be the best way for students to learn these lessons….

No, we don’t need tenure if principals can be counted on to make good decisions in the best interests of children. But they are human, and therefore often make decisions in their own interests. Moreover, we have a real shortage of high quality principals, even as we are breaking up large schools into multiple small schools and opening up charter schools…. 

I do not suggest that there are not problems with our tenure system. A lot falls to principals, perhaps too much. Teacher observation and evaluation is not easy, and the tenure process in dependent on principals making good decisions about teachers during those first three years. …And that is why we still need tenure. It takes a series of bad decisions over a number of years for a poor teacher to get tenure. But without tenure, it only takes one bad decision for a good to be dismissed.  

Cleolaf points toward insufficient teacher assessment and evaluation as a prime cause of problems with teacher tenure. Research confirms that good principals are key to high performing schools. Good principals are also the key in Cleolaf’s view to making a tenure system work.

Another view of teacher tenure is found at Teacher Tenure: A Life Sentence for Kids This paper begins with the following case:

In 1986, after school administrators in the El Cajon School District in California

spent years documenting the more than 400 reasons for why high school English teacher

Juliet Ellory was an unfit teacher, the district finally succeeded in firing her. It cost the

district more than $300,000 and eight years of preparing and litigating the case.

According to the overwhelming evidence against her, Ms. Ellory “hardly ever lectured,

gave baffling assignments, belittled students and ignored repeated efforts by the high

school principal to get her to improve.”1 Ellory’s tenure status had protected her from

automatic dismissal. Though stories such as this one do not depict the average K-12

teacher, they are sufficiently widespread to provoke criticism and concern about the state

of our public schools, as well as skepticism regarding the actual benefits of teacher

tenure.

A key component of reforming teacher tenure is an improved evaluation system for teachers, which focuses on improving traits that produce student achievement.

Teacher Evaluation

The Center has produced a report, which focuses on teacher evaluation. Teacher Evaluation  Proper evaluation seems to be key to both addressing many problems teacher tenure was developed to protect from faulty evaluation of a teacher and to improve the quality of those in the teaching profession. Evaluation is just one component, however. New teachers need a proper induction into the profession and mentors to help them hone their skills and methods of teaching. If problems emerge, teachers need proper training and coaching to progress.

No matter where a teacher is in their career lifecycle, they will be confronting the issues of elimination of teacher tenure and more rigorous teacher evaluation. Increasingly, one component of teacher evaluation will focus on whether students are showing academic achievement gains. The point of contention, which may provoke disagreement between the evaluator and the teacher is how student achievement is measured.

In times of recession, all jobs become more difficult to find and often job seekers do not have the luxury of finding the perfect job. New teachers may find jobs in schools often considered less desirable or schools led by principals who are not considered to be leaders or supporters of their staff. Not all learning occurs during the academic portion of your life’s journey. If one finds that the first job is not the perfect opportunity, then prepare for the time you will find the perfect opportunity. Look for a teacher(s) you admire and who are successful and model what has made them successful. People who are skilled and become expert at their craft or profession will weather whatever change comes along, whether it is an elimination or modification of tenure and changes to the way evaluations are conducted.

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New Idaho education law: ‘Students Come First’

12 Jan

High quality teachers are teacher who produce academic achievement in THEIR POPULATION of kids. Kids arrive at school at different points on the ready to learn continuum. High quality teachers are able to work with THEIR POPULATION of children and move them along the continuum of academic achievement. Idaho has passed a new law with the intent of putting more high quality teachers in the classroom. AP is reporting the story, Idaho teacher evaluations to include parent input which was printed in the Idaho Statesman.

At least half of an Idaho teacher’s job evaluation will be based on student achievement starting July 1, and what parents think will count too.

The state Department of Education plans to ask lawmakers Wednesday to clarify when parental involvement will factor into the evaluations of educators and school administrators. The change was part of an education overhaul signed into law last year.

Under the plan introduced by public schools chief Tom Luna, at least 50 percent of all teaching evaluations performed after June 30 will be tied to the academic performance of students. But to some, the law was unclear as to when the parents become involved.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/01/11/1948842/idaho-teacher-evaluations-to-include.html?story_link=email_msg#storylink=cpy

Parent involvement is just one change in a ambitious new Idaho education law.

The Idaho Department of Education has information about the new law, “Students Come First” at its site.

Among the highlights of the new law, “Students Come First” which can be found at the following Link to Idaho Department of Education: http://www.sde.idaho.gov/   are new

Teacher and Principal Evaluations

We know that the most important factor in a student’s education is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Why leave this to chance? Students Come First ties at least 50% of a teacher and administrator’s evaluations to growth in student achievement. To read more about Idaho’s framework for teacher evaluation, please click here.

Students Come First also requires parent input on teacher and school-based administrator evaluations.

http://www.sde.idaho.gov/site/teacherEval/

http://www.studentscomefirst.org/evaluations.htm

Teacher Evaluation Forms, Templates and Resources

Daneilson – Interview Protocol for a Postconference

Danielson – Informal Classroom Observations

Danielson – Evaluation Schedule

Danielson – Formal Classroom Observation Form

Danielson – Handout Cover Sheet

Danielson – Identifying the Domains Handout

Danielson – Individual Professional Development Plan

Danielson – Notes from Observation

Danielson – Responsibilities within the Formal Observation Process

Danielson – Sample Evaluator Letter

Danielson – Sample of Artifacts

Danielson – The Placemat Quadrant of Four Domains

Comparison of State Adopted Standards to Danielson’s Framework

There is also a new provision, “Pay for Performance,” which is found at: http://www.studentscomefirst.org/performance.htm

Pay for Performance

Currently, teachers have little or no control over how much money they make each year in the State of Idaho. Teachers are paid based on where they fall on the Instructional Salary Grid, based on their level of education and years of experience. This makes it difficult for Idaho to reward excellence in the classroom or to attract and retain the best and the brightest in the classroom. Now, every teacher has the opportunity to make money above and beyond their base salary.

The goal of the pay-for-performance plan is not to force our current educators to work harder. We already know teachers and principals across Idaho are working hard for students each and every day. The goal is to reward them for the work they already do. Idaho’s pay for performance system would add to the current salary schedule, not replace it.

The pay-for-performance plan was agreed to by all stakeholders in 2009, including the Idaho School Boards Association, Idaho Association of School Administrators, Idaho Education Association, and representatives of the Idaho Business Coalition for Education Excellence.

Under this pay-for-performance plan, all teachers (including physical education teachers, special education teachers, alternative high school teachers, etc) are eligible to receive performance bonuses in three different areas.

·    Teachers can receive bonuses for working in hard-to-fill positions, as determined at the local level.

·    They can receive bonuses for taking on leadership responsibilities, such as mentoring new teachers or developing curriculum. These are things many teachers already do, but do not get paid for.

·    Teachers and administrators will also receive bonuses for working in schools that meet student growth targets set at both the state and local levels. At the state level, we will distribute bonuses based on academic growth in a whole school. At the local level, districts will have the flexibility to set their own student growth measures. It is important that these academic growth bonuses be awarded to the whole school, rather than individual teachers, because every teacher contributes to a student’s success in the classroom, whether it is in math, physical education, or art. Additionally, it is important that teachers continue to collaborate and share ideas, rather than pitting teacher against teacher.

Why is the student achievement portion of this plan based on academic growth? Because we know education is a process, not a destination. We are never done learning. So we shouldn’t assume that a child who is at grade level is done learning, either. Therefore, we should measure educators in a school based on the growth that the students in that school make in the year they have those students. This is the only fair way to measure academic performance.

·         Local PFP Submission Form and Waiver

·         MEMO PFP submission

·         Pay for Performance Webinar

·         PFP Calculation Template (2)

·         Master Agreement PFP Template – Small District

·         Master Agreement PFP Template – Large District

·         Local PFP Share Awards Template 2011-2012

·         Archived Pay for Performance Webinar

·         Pay-for-Performance Plan Fact Sheet

·         Leadership Awards

·         Student Achievement Measures

The legislation has some very ambitious goals:

What does this bill mean to you?

Students

  • Every student will have a highly effective teacher every year they are in school.
  • School will no longer be the least technological part of a student’s day. Classrooms will be interactive and engaging as well as educational.
  • Every student will have access to high-quality courses no matter where they live in Idaho.
  • If students meet state graduation requirements early, they can take dual credit courses paid for by state.
  • Students will take a college entrance exam, such as the SAT, ACT or Compass, free of charge before their senior year.
  • Student achievement will be a factor in teacher and school administrator performance evaluations.

Parents/Families

  • Every high school will receive more funding for math and science
  • The state will make unprecedented investments in effective classroom technology to aid students in the learning process.
  • High school students can take dual credit courses and earn college credit while still in high school at no cost to parents, if they meet state graduation requirements early.
  • The state is paying for all students to take college entrance exams, such as the ACT, SAT or Compass, before their senior year.
  • All parents will have input on teacher and principal performance evaluations.
  • Student achievement will be a factor in teacher and principal performance evaluations.
  • Locally elected school boards will have more local control than they have had in decades.
  • The state will phase out tenure for new teachers.
  • The state will make unprecedented investments in technology for every classroom, including the implementation of a one-to-one ratio of students to computers in high school over the next five years.
  • Every Idaho student will have access to high-quality courses no matter where they live in Idaho.

Link to Idaho Department of Education http://www.sde.idaho.gov/

There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important.

Idaho is embarking on a huge education experiment.

Realted:

New Harvard study about impact of teachers          https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/new-harvard-study-about-impact-of-teachers/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Could newest teaching strategy be made in Japan?

11 Jan

Amy Hetzner and Becky Vevea of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have written the article, How Best to Educate Future Teachers which is part of a series

Alverno College, the small women’s college on Milwaukee’s south side, has been widely cited as a national model for training teachers, thanks to its combination of clinical and classroom experience and use of video and other tools to evaluate whether graduates are meeting the standards for what makes a good teacher….

Key elements of an excellent teacher education program:

  • Strong content knowledge, teaching skills. Future teachers gain a solid grounding in the content to be taught as well as how to teach it.

  • Flexible methods. Emphasis is placed on teaching diverse learners – knowing how to differentiate teaching to reach a broad range of students.

  • Fieldwork. Coursework clearly is connected to fieldwork. The clinical experience, like in medical school, consists of intensive student-teaching, preferably for a semester or entire year, under the supervision of an experienced mentor.

  • Professional mentors. Mentors observe future teachers in the classroom – sometimes videotaping for later analysis – and work with them on everything from lesson-planning and creating assignments to monitoring student progress and grading.

  • Designated “learning schools.” Mentors and school sites for student-teaching are well-chosen. There are close relationships and a sense of joint responsibility among the school sites at which future teachers train, the local district and the teacher-education program.

  • Escalating teaching responsibilities. Future teachers gradually take over a full classroom, first teaching short segments on a single topic with a small group of students, then co-teaching with the mentor before assuming full responsibility for a class.

  • Feedback. Feedback from multiple sources (mentors, professors, peers) is routine.

  • Selective admission standards. Admission to the program is selective; not everyone has the necessary skills or demeanor to be an effective teacher.

Sources: National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education; faculty at Columbia University Teachers College, Stanford and Harvard Universities.

Compiled by Justin Snider of The Hechinger Report

These are the elements that have made the graduates of one education school successful.

Linda Lutton has written the article, Japanese strategy for improving teachers is catching on in Chicago for the Hechinger Report:

In the sunlit library at Jorge Prieto Elementary on Chicago’s’ northwest side, an experiment is under way.

A provisional classroom has been set up. A white board sits at the front of the room, and 20 eighth-graders are seated at library tables. Math teacher Michael Hock is giving a lesson about the distributive property.

Scattered throughout the room are some 30 other teachers. They aren’t wearing lab coats—but they might as well be. They clutch clipboards and carefully monitor kids’ reactions to the teacher’s explanations, peering over students’ shoulders as they write answers.

“What is the area of the garden?” Hock asks students as he points to an illustration on the white board. “Nestor, I haven’t heard from you today.”

Listen to the audio story

Nestor answers the question, and the 30 adults, including visiting teachers from Japan, scribble notes.

The exercise is called “lesson study.” It’s a professional development strategy used extensively in Japan that essentially dissects a teacher’s lesson and the way it’s delivered.

Here’s how it works: teachers come up with a detailed lesson plan and explain ahead of time to colleagues the goals of the lesson. Then, one teacher tries the lesson out on a group of students, while dozens of other teachers watch what happens.

Finally, the observers offer feedback and ideas for improvement.“[We’ve been] doing lesson study more than 100 years in Japan,” says Toshiakira Fujii, a premier professor of math education in Japan who was among those teachers observing at Prieto. “But lesson study in the United States is quite new.”

Fujii says Japanese teachers see lesson study as a proving ground, a way to shine in front of their colleagues.

“You can see [it] everywhere in Japan,” says Fujii. “In Tokyo in the case it’s Wednesday. Wednesday [we] usually finish at lunch time. Then one class stays, and the other classes dismiss. And then every teacher comes to that one class and observes. Even the school nurse and school counselor also join to watch the lesson—that’s our traditional way.”

There’s been lots of talk about how Chicago should evaluate teachers. Lesson study is being billed as a way to help teachers improve.

The strategy is one both teachers unions and school districts say they like. The head of instruction in Chicago Public Schools says she’s a fan of lesson study.  The Chicago Teachers Union helped organize the lesson study at Prieto—and convenes other sessions on holidays like Pulaski Day, when students and teachers volunteer to participate. http://hechingerreport.org/content/japanese-strategy-for-improving-teachers-is-catching-on-in-chicago_7350/

See, ‘Lesson Study,” Japanese Strategy For Improving Teachers, Catching On In U.S.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/10/lesson-study-japanese-str_n_1197229.html

Teachers also have some thoughts about effective teaching. Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post has a guest column written by teacher Larry Ferlazzo. In Teachers: What We Need to Do to Fix the Schools Ferlazzo writes:

Evaluating Students and Teachers Using Fair, Valid and Reliable Measures
We need to reduce our dependence on standardized testing as the primary method of assessing students and teachers. Using multiple measures, including portfolios of student work, allows us to evaluate students based on work they have constructed themselves, as opposed to their skill in selecting the one right answer from a list of possibilities on a multiple choice test….

Enhancing Collaboration Between Teachers
Making time for peer learning is a critical step toward improving instruction and—as studies have shown—reducing teacher turnover. Providing strong administrative support for weekly meetings and engaging teachers in discussions about the kind of professional development we want and need is necessary to help move us beyond our “egg crate” model that limits professional collaboration. …

Shared Leadership and Accountability in Schools
Schools that include substantial teacher input across many levels of school decision-making—or that are actually run by lead teachers rather than principals—are being launched in Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles and other urban districts nationwide. Teacher-led learning organizations may not be a good fit for every school system, but the emerging models suggest some best practices that translate well to nearly any school environment….

Building Bridges Between Schools and Communities
We understand and embrace the idea that teachers are the most powerful in-school predictor of student achievement. But there are many factors outside of the traditional scope of schools’ work with children that must be addressed—health care, job training, affordable housing, etc.—that have an enormous impact on student achievement….

Rather, he writes, schools are actually complex systems filled with constantly moving parts that require constant adjustments. He questions the wisdom of “grafting” complicated procedures onto complex organizations.

Really, it comes down to each population of kids should have solutions tailored for their needs. There really should not be a one size approach to education.

Kids know good teaching when they see it. Donna Gordon Blankinship of AP reports in the Seattle Times article, How Do You Find An Effective Teacher? Ask A Kid

Adults may be a little surprised by some of the preliminary findings of new research on what makes a great teacher.

How do you find the most effective teachers? Ask your kids. That’s one of four main conclusions of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its research partners after the first year of its Measures of Effective Teaching Project.

Preliminary results of the study were posted online Friday; a more complete report is expected in April, according to the foundation….

The first four conclusions of the study are as follows:

-The average student knows effective teaching when he or she experiences it.

-In every grade and every subject, a teacher’s past success in raising student achievement on state tests is one of the strongest predictors of his or her ability to do so again.

-The teachers with the highest value-added scores on state tests, which show improvement by individual students during the time they were in their classroom, are also the teachers who do the best job helping their students understand math concepts or demonstrate reading comprehension through writing.

-Valid feedback does not need to come from test scores alone. Other data can give teachers the information they need to improve, including student opinions of how organized and effective a teacher is….

See, Students Know Good Teaching When They Get It, Survey Finds

Bottom line, education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), teacher(s), and school. All parts of the partnership must be involved. Students must arrive at school ready to learn. Parents must provide an environment which supports education and education achievement. Teachers must have strong subject matter knowledge and pedagogic skills. Schools must provide safe environments and discipline. Communities are also part of a successful school system and outcome for community children. Education is a partnership.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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New Harvard study about impact of teachers

8 Jan

The Guide to Teacher Quality lists several key attributes of a quality teacher:

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT TEACHER QUALITY

• Experience is very important. The ability of a new teacher to support student learning

increases greatly during his/her first year of teaching and continues to grow through at least the

first several years of teaching (Clotfelter, Ladd & Vigdor, 2007; Clotfelter, Ladd & Vigdor, 2004;

Hanushek et al., 1998).

• Teacher attrition matters. Districts and schools with relatively high rates of teacher

attrition are likely to have more inexperienced teachers and, as a result, instructional quality

and student learning suffer (Alliance for Quality Teaching, 2008).

• Ability matters. Teachers with higher scores on college admission or licensure tests as well

as those from colleges with more selective admission practices are better able to support student

learning (Gitomer, 2007; Rice, 2003; Wayne and Youngs, 2003; Reichardt, 2001; Ferguson

& Ladd, 1996; Greenwald, Hedges & Laine, 1996).

• Teachers’ subject matter knowledge helps students learn. Students learn when their

teacher knows the subject, particularly in secondary science and mathematics (Floden &

Meniketti, 2006; Rice, 2003; Wayne and Youngs, 2003; Reichardt, 2001).

• Preparation and training in how to teach makes a difference. Knowing how to teach

improves student learning, particularly when a teacher is in his/her first years of teaching (Rice,

2003; Allen, 2003; Boyd, Grossman, Lankford, Loeb & Wyckoff, 2005).

• Teacher diversity may also be important. There is emerging evidence that students learn

better from teachers of similar racial and ethnic background (Dee, 2004; Dee, 2001; Hanushek

et al. 1998).

One of the important attributes is the subject matter knowledge of the teacher. These findings are particularly important in light of the study, The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: TeacherValue-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood by Raj Chetty, Harvard University and NBER , John N. Friedman, Harvard University and NBER, and Jonah E. Rockoff, Columbia University and NBER .

Here is a portion of the executive summary:

Many policy makers advocate increasing the quality of teaching, but there is considerable debate about the best way to measure and improve teacher quality. One method is to evaluate teachers based on their impacts on students’ test scores, commonly termed the “value-added” (VA) approach. A teacher’s value-added is defined as the average test-score gain for his or her students, adjusted for differences across classrooms in student characteristics such as prior scores. School districts from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles have begun to use VA to evaluate teachers. Proponents argue that using VA can improve student achievement (e.g. Hanushek 2009), while critics argue that test score gains are poor proxies for a teacher’s true quality (e.g. Baker et al. 2010).

The debate about VA stems from two fundamental questions. First, does VA accurately measure teachers’ impacts on scores or does it unfairly penalize teachers who may systematically be assigned lower achieving students? Second, do high VA teachers improve their students’ long-term outcomes or are they simply better at teaching to the test? Researchers have not reached a consensus about the accuracy and long-term impacts of VA because of data and methodological limitations.

We address these two questions by tracking one million children from a large urban school district from 4th grade to adulthood. We evaluate the accuracy of standard VA measures using several methods, including natural experiments that arise from changes in teaching staff. We find that when a high VA teacher joins a school, test scores rise immediately in the grade taught by that teacher; when a high VA teacher leaves, test scores fall. Test scores change only in the subject taught by that teacher, and the size of the change in scores matches what we predict based on the teacher’s VA. These results establish that VA accurately captures teachers’ impacts on students’ academic achievement and thereby reconcile the conflicting conclusions of Kane and Staiger (2008) and Rothstein (2010). These methods provide a simple yet powerful method to estimate the bias of value-added models in any district; interested readers can download computer code to implement these tests from this link.

In the second part of our study, we analyze whether high VA teachers also improve students’ long-term outcomes. We find that students assigned to higher VA teachers are more successful in many dimensions. They are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, live in better neighborhoods, and save more for retirement. They are also less likely to have children as teenagers.

Teachers’ impacts on students are substantial. Replacing a teacher whose true VA is in the bottom 5% with a teacher of average quality would generate lifetime earnings gains worth more than $250,000 for the average classroom. VA estimates are less reliable when they are based on data from a small number of classes. However, even after observing teachers’ impacts on test scores for one year, estimates of VA are reliable enough that such personnel changes would yield large gains on average.

Teachers have large impacts in all the grades we analyze (4 to 8), implying that the returns to education remain large well beyond early childhood. Teachers’ impacts on earnings are also similar in percentage terms for students from low and high income families. As a rough guideline, parents should be willing to pay about 25% of their child’s income at age 28 to switch their child from a below-average (25th percentile) to an above-average (75th percentile) teacher. For example, parents whose children will earn around $40,000 in their late 20s should be willing to pay $10,000 to switch from a below-average to an above-average teacher for one grade, based on the expected increase in their child’s lifetime earnings.

Overall, our study shows that great teachers create great value – perhaps several times their annual salaries – and that test score impacts are helpful in identifying such teachers. However, more work is needed to determine the best way to use VA for policy. For example, using VA in teacher evaluations could induce undesirable responses that make VA a poorer measure of teacher quality, such as teaching to the test or cheating. There will be much to learn about these issues from school districts that start using VA to evaluate teachers. Nevertheless, it is clear that improving the quality of teaching – whether using value-added or other tools – is likely to have large economic and social returns.

See, Annie Lowrey’s New York Times article, Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain

Teachers also have some thoughts about effective teaching. Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post has a guest column written by teacher Larry Ferlazzo. In Teachers: What We Need to Do to Fix the Schools

Citation:

Executive Summary of National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 17699, December 2011

THE LONG-TERM IMPACTS OF TEACHERS: TEACHER VALUE-ADDED AND STUDENT OUTCOMES IN ADULTHOOD

Raj Chetty, Harvard University and NBER

John N. Friedman, Harvard University and NBER

Jonah E. Rockoff, Columbia University and NBER

Executive Summary

Manuscript (NBER         WP17699)

Presentation Slides

STATA Code

Every child has a right to a good basic education. In order to ensure that every child has a good basic education, there must be a quality teacher in every classroom.

See:

Is it true that the dumbest become teachers?

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/is-it-true-that-the-dumbest-become-teachers/

A Review of the Literature Regarding Teacher’s Subject Matter Knowledge

The Importance of Teacher Disposition

The Guide to Teacher Quality

Teacher Quality

What Comprises High Quality Teacher Education?

Educational Testing Services’ Where We Stand on Teacher Quality

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

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Washington D.C. rolls out merit pay

2 Jan

All politics is local.

Thomas P. O’Neill

Moi would like to modify that quote a bit to all education is local and occurs at the neighborhood school. We really should not be imposing a straight jacket on education by using a one-size-fits-all approach. Every school, in fact, every classroom is its own little microclimate. We should be looking at strategies which work with a given population of children.

A Healthy Child In A Healthy Family Who Attends A Healthy School In A Healthy Neighborhood. ©

Teachers and schools have been made TOTALLY responsible for the education outcome of the children, many of whom come to school not ready to learn and who reside in families that for a variety of reasons cannot support their education. All children are capable of learning, but a one-size-fits-all approach does not serve all children well. Different populations of children will require different strategies and some children will require remedial help, early intervention, and family support to achieve their education goals. There should also be different strategies about teacher compensation. Washington D.C. is trying out a merit pay system.

Sam Dillion reports in the New York Times article, In Washington, Large Rewards in Teacher Pay:

During her first six years of teaching in this city’s struggling schools, Tiffany Johnson got a series of small raises that brought her annual salary to $63,000, from about $50,000. This year, her seventh, Ms. Johnson earns $87,000.

That latest 38 percent jump, unheard of in public education, came after Ms. Johnson was rated “highly effective” two years in a row under Washington’s new teacher evaluation system. Those ratings also netted her back-to-back bonuses totaling $30,000.

“Lots of teachers leave the profession, but this has kept me invested to stay,” said Ms. Johnson, 29, who is a special-education teacher at the Ron H. Brown Middle School in Northeast Washington. “I know they value me.”

That is exactly the idea behind what admirers consider the nation’s most advanced merit pay system for public school teachers. This fall, the District of Columbia Public Schools gave sizable bonuses to 476 of its 3,600 educators, with 235 of them getting unusually large pay raises.

“We want to make great teachers rich,” said Jason Kamras, the district’s chief of human capital….

“The most important role for incentives is in shaping who enters the teaching profession and who stays,” said Eric A. Hanushek, a professor of economics at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. “Washington’s incentive system will attract talented teachers, and it’ll help keep the best ones.”

Under the system, known as Impact Plus, teachers rated “highly effective” earn bonuses ranging from $2,400 to $25,000. Teachers who get that rating two years in a row are eligible for a large permanent pay increase to make their salary equivalent to that of a colleague with five more years of experience and a more advanced degree.

Those rewards come with risk: to receive the bonuses and raises, teachers must sign away some job security provisions outlined in their union contract. About 20 percent of the teachers eligible for the raises this year and 30 percent of those eligible for bonuses turned them down rather than give up those protections.

One persistent critic of the system is Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers Union, who argues that the evaluations do not adequately take into account the difficulties of working in poor neighborhoods. He also says that performance pay inappropriately singles out stars.

“This boutique program discourages teachers from working together,” Mr. Saunders said. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/education/big-pay-days-in-washington-dc-schools-merit-system.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

It is interesting that some eligible teachers decided not to participate in the program.

Dave Eggers and NÍnive Clements Calegari have a provocative article in the New York Times, The High Cost of Low Teacher SalariesThe Center for American Progress has a report by Frank Adamson and Linda Darling Hammond which discusses the importance of teacher pay.

In the report, Speaking of Salaries: What It Will Take to Get Qualified, Effective Teachers In All Communities Adamson and Darling- Hammond write:

As Education Trust President Kati Haycock has noted, the usual statistics about teacher credentials, as shocking as they are, actually understate the degree of the problem in the most impacted schools:

The fact that only 25% of the teachers in a school are uncertified doesn’t mean that the other 75% are fine. More often, they are either brand new, assigned to teach out of field, or low-performers on the licensure exam … there are, in other words, significant numbers of schools that are essentially dumping grounds for unqualified teachers – just as they are dumping grounds for the children they serve….

Download this report (pdf)

Download the executive summary (pdf)

Teacher compensation is important to retaining quality teachers.

Melanie Smollin has an excellent post at Take Part, Five Reasons Why Teacher Turnover Is On The Rise

With approximately 1.6 million teachers set to retire in the next decade, replenishing America’s teaching force should be a top priority. But filling classrooms with new teachers is only half the battle. Retaining them is equally important.

Numerous studies show that teachers perform best after being in the classroom for at least five years. According to a McKinsey study, 14 percent of American teachers leave after only one year, and 46 percent quit before their fifth year. In countries with the highest results on international tests, teacher turnover rates are much lower—around 3 percent.

This constant cycling in and out of new teachers is a costly phenomena. Students miss being taught by experienced educators, and schools and districts nationwide spend about $2.2 billion per year recruiting and training replacements.

Why are so many new teachers fleeing the profession after so few years in the classroom? Here are the top five reasons teacher turnover is an ongoing challenge:

5. BURNOUT: A recent U.C. Berkeley study of Los Angeles charter schools found unusually high rates of teacher turnover. At the 163 charter schools studied, teacher turnover hovered around 40 percent, compared to 15 percent at traditional public schools.

Since demands on charter school educators are seemingly boundless, including extended hours, researchers theorized, burnout is a viable explanation for the teacher exodus. “We have seen earlier results showing that working conditions are tough and challenging in charter schools,” explained U.C. Berkeley’s Bruce Fuller. “Charter teachers wear many hats and have many duties and are teaching urban kids, challenging urban kids, but we were surprised by the magnitude of this effect.”

4.THREAT OF LAYOFFS: In response to annual budget shortfalls, districts nationwide have sent pink slips to tens of thousands of teachers each spring for the past four years. In 2011, California sent out 30,000.

Retired teacher and author Jaime O’Neill believes this ongoing threat to job security has a destabilizing effect. As a new teacher, he wrote, you can expect your job “threatened each and every year when the annual state budget reveals once more that big cuts to education are coming, that you’ve been pink slipped until or unless there’s a last-minute reprieve. That yearly panic will cause you to wonder why you ever went into teaching in the first place, and you will surely make plans to seek other employment with each mention of just how precarious your employment is.”

3. LOW WAGES: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said that teachers should earn between $60,000 and $150,000 per year. That’s a far cry from the current national average starting salary for teachers, which is $35,139.

Linda DeRegnaucourt, an accomplished high school math teacher, told CNN that after working for five years without a raise, and taking home an annual salary of $38,000, she simply cannot afford to continue doing the job she loves. DeRegnaucourt, like many other teachers, will leave the profession to pursue a more lucrative career.

2. TESTING PRESSURE: Since the No Child Left Behind Act was introduced in 2001, standardized test scores in math and reading have become the most important accountability measure used to evaluate schools.

Studies show that pressure to raise student test scores causes teachers to experience more stress and less job satisfaction. Many educators resent narrowing curriculum and stifling creativity in favor of teaching to the test.

On the National Center for Education Information’s “Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2011,” the majority of comments submitted by survey respondents were “expressions of strong opposition to the current emphasis on student testing.”

As states increasingly rely on standardized test scores to evaluate individual educators, determine teacher pay and make lay-off decisions, testing pressure will only increase.

1. POOR WORKING CONDITIONS: When the Gates foundation polled 40,000 teachers about job satisfaction, the majority agreed that supportive leadership, time for collaboration, access to high quality curriculum and resources, clean and safe buildings, and relevant professional development were even more important than higher salaries.

But working conditions in many public schools remain far from this ideal—especially for beginning teachers, who are most likely to be assigned to the highest-need schools. Despite the added challenges they face, these teachers are often given few resources and little professional support.

Marguerite Roza and Sarah Yatsko from the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Education have an interesting February 2010 policy brief.

In Beyond Teacher Reassignments: Better Ways School Districts Can Remedy Salary Inequities Across Schools Districts Roza and Yatsko report:

Inside nearly all large school districts, the most experienced and highly paid teachers congregate in the more affluent schools. The opposite takes place in the poorer schools, where teachers tend to be more junior and lower paid, and teacher turnover is higher. Financially, this maldistribution means that a larger share of the district’s salary dollars are spent on the more affluent schools, and conversely, the poorer schools with lower salaries draw down less funds per pupil. The problem, of course, is that the resulting dollar allocation patterns work to reinforce achievement gaps, not address them….

This brief addresses this concern by demonstrating that districts would NOT need to mandatorily reassign teachers. It shows that there are other ways to restructure allocations that do not systematically shortchange the neediest schools. Discussed here are four options that districts could pursue to remedy school spending inequities created by uneven salaries:

  • Option 1: Apply teacher salary bonuses to some schools to balance salaries

  • Option 2: Vary class size across schools to level spending

  • Option 3: Concentrate specialist and support staff in schools with lower-salaried teachers

  • Option 4: Equalize per-pupil dollar allocations

Download Full Report (PDF: 736 K)

The goal of putting a quality teacher in every classroom depends upon preserving the ranks of quality teachers during times of tight budgets.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

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Is it true that the dumbest become teachers?

9 Dec

There is a quote attributed to H.L. Mencken:

Those who can — do. Those who can’t — teach.

People often assume that if a person could do anything else, they probably wouldn’t teach. Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. has an interesting article in the Washington Post.

In Do teachers really come from the ‘bottom third’ of college graduates? Di Carlo writes:

The conventional wisdom among many education commentators is that U.S. public school teachers “come from the bottom third” of their classes. Most recently, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took this talking point a step further, and asserted at a press conference last week that teachers are drawn from the bottom 20 percent of graduates.

All of this is supposed to imply that the U.S. has a serious problem with the “quality” of applicants to the profession.

Despite the ubiquity of the “bottom third” and similar arguments (which are sometimes phrased as massive generalizations, with no reference to actual proportions), it’s unclear how many of those who offer them know what specifically they refer to (e.g., GPA, SAT/ACT, college rank, etc.). This is especially important since so many of these measurable characteristics are not associated with future test-based effectiveness in the classroom, while those that are are only modestly so.

Still, given how often it is used, as well as the fact that it is always useful to understand and examine the characteristics of the teacher labor supply, it’s worth taking a quick look at where the “bottom third” claim comes from and what it might or might not mean.

Most people who put forth this assertion cite one of two sources, both from the McKinsey & Company consulting organization. The first is an influential 2007 report , which simply notes that “we are now recruiting our teachers from the bottom third of high school students going to college.” The authors fail to specify how “bottom third” is defined, or whether their data refer to graduates who planned to teach versus those who actually got a job (the latter method is, of course, far preferable).

The citation for this claim is a 2007 report from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, which was issued by the National Center on Education and Economy (NCEE). The full report is not freely available online, but it turns out (thanks to the work of California teacher Larry Ferlazzo) that its source is the National Center for Education Statistics’ annual “Condition of Education” (CoE) report (2002 edition).

There don’t seem to be any breakdowns in the cited report that permit one to examine precisely how many teachers come from the “bottom third,” but the CoE does include a few tables on the SAT/ACT scores of teachers who received a bachelor’s degree in 1992-93 and had actually taught by the time 1997 rolled around (and for whom such data were available).

One table lists directly the percent of teachers who scored in the top half – 40.9 percent. Using figures in a different table to very roughly ballpark the proportion of 1992-93 graduates-turned-teachers in the bottom quartile (lowest 25 percent), it would be a little under 30 percent.*

Overall, then, 1992-93 graduates who chose teaching were somewhat overrepresented in the bottom of the distribution, and underrepresented in the top. The blanket characterization of these results by McKinsey (via NCEE) – that we are “recruiting our teachers from the bottom third” – seems more than a little misleading.

The second standard source for the “bottom third” claims is more clear and well-documented. It is a subsequent McKinsey report (2010), one which doesn’t rely on questionable interpretations from indirect sources, but rather its own analysis. That report claims, “The U.S. attracts most of its teachers from the bottom two-thirds of college classes, with nearly half coming from the bottom third.”

According to a footnote, these data are “derived from the U.S. Department of Education, NCES, 2001 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Survey.” The appendix to the report confirms that the “top-“ and “bottom” third figures are also based on SAT/ACT scores, specifically those of 1999 graduates whose first job (at least by 2001) was teaching. The breakdown for these graduates is as follows: 23 percent came from the “top third;” 47 percent from the “bottom third;” and 29 percent from the “middle third.” This presents a somewhat more negative picture than the CoE data discussed above.

Why the differences? Because these studies are looking at different groups of teachers. In the CoE data, it’s 1993 graduates who had taught by 1997 (four years later), while the data used in the second McKinsey include 1999 graduates who, in 2001 (two years later), said their first job was (or is) teaching. In other words, each set of results is based on two different cohorts of college graduates, who are also identified in different ways, at different points after graduation….

Neither sample is necessarily representative of the teacher workforce as a whole, or of prior and subsequent cohorts.

Overall, then, the blanket assertion that teachers are coming from the “bottom third” of graduates is, at best, an incomplete picture. It’s certainly true that, when the terciles are defined in terms of SAT/ACT scores, there is consistent evidence that new teachers are disproportionately represented in this group (see here and here for examples from the academic literature).

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/do-teachers-really-come-from-the-bottom-third-of-college-graduates/2011/12/07/gIQAg8HPdO_blog.html

There isn’t really a definitive answer.

Three articles examine teacher effectiveness from the perspective of students training to become teachers, teachers, and students. The first article examines a very effective teacher training program. Amy Hetzner and Becky Vevea of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have written the article, How Best to Educate Future Teachers which is part of a series

Dave Eggers and NÍnive Clements Calegari have a provocative article in the New York Times, The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries

At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.

So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?

We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.

The Center for American Progress has a report by Frank Adamson and Linda Darling Hammond.

In the report, Speaking of Salaries: What It Will Take to Get Qualified, Effective Teachers In All Communities  Adamson and Darling- Hammond write:

In looking at states that have successfully boosted student achievement in conjunction with hiring and retaining better qualified teachers, we find strategies that:

  • Improve and equalize salaries to improve the pool of teachers and level the playing field across districts
  • Simultaneously raise teacher standards and teachers’ knowledge and skills through strengthened preparation and licensing standards, strengthened evaluation for teachers and school leaders, and extensive professional development
  • Improve beginning teacher retention in order to improve effectiveness and lower the wasteful costs of high attrition by developing high-quality mentoring and performance-based induction systems

Federal policy can leverage strong steps toward ensuring every child has access to adequate school resources and quality teachers. To address the inequities outlined in this paper, we recommend that Congress should:

  • Equalize allocations of ESEA resources across states so high-poverty states receive their fair share of funding and inequities across states are lessened
  • Enforce existing ESEA comparability provisions to ensure equitable funding and equally qualified teachers to schools serving different populations of students
  • Assess progress on resource equity in state plans and evaluations under the law, and require states to meet standards of resource equity—including the availability of well-qualified teachers—for schools identified as failing.

Download this report (pdf)

Download the executive summary (pdf) 

A good comparative study is A Comparative Study of Teacher Preparation and Qualifications in Six Nations by the Consortium for Policy Research In Education.

Richard M. Ingersoll, et. al. found :

Our study suggests at least three possible sources of the problem of underqualified teachers. One possible cause lies in the pre-employment requirements and standards

themselves. The depth, breadth and rigor of college or university teacher training and preparation requirements and of government licensing and certification standards are possible sources of inadequacies. In these cases, remedies must look to reform of institutional preparation programs or of government licensing requirements.

A second possible source of underqualified teachers lies in the failure of the teaching force to meet existing requirements and standards. This could be for a variety of reasons–including deficits in candidates’ ability, education, preparation or training. Falling into this category are candidates who have not completed a required degree, lack adequate professional training, have not had adequate practice teaching, have not obtained a certificate or license, have not completed sufficient coursework in their major area of concentration, or are unable to pass required tests. Remedies must address the source of noncompliance with the standards and the reasons for gaps between rule and reality. Do those entering preparation institutions lack the ability to meet the requirements? Is the problem due to a qualification gap where an earlier generation of veteran teachers do not meet newly upgraded standards? Does the problem lie with the adequacy of preparation programs and institutions themselves? Do they offer inadequate curricula or support for their students? Does the source of the problem lie at the point of hiring and employment? Do schools hire candidates who do not meet theexisting standards? If so, is this because of an inadequate supply of willing and able applicants at the prevailing wage, or because of inadequacies in the hiring process itself?

The answer to why there are not more quality teachers is not simple.

Resource:

A Comparative Study of Teacher Preparation and Qualifications in Six Nations

Consortium for Policy Research In Education

By Richard M. Ingersoll, United States  With

Ding Gang and Sun Meilu, People’s Republic of China (PRC)
Kwok Chan Lai, Hong Kong
Hidenori Fujita, Japan
Ee-gyeong Kim, Republic of Korea
Steven K. S. Tan and Angela F. L. Wong, Singapore
Pruet Siribanpitak and Siriporn Boonyananta, Thailand 

http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/sixnations_final.pdf

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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