December 2008 Archives

If you haven't taken a look at Kevin Carey's recent musings on Finland's highly praised K-12 education system over at The Quick and the Ed, do so now: they're well worth reading and timely for those of you interested in teacher policy.

Why? Well, President-elect Obama, key adviser Linda-Darling Hammond, Arne Duncan and others have talked about improving assessment, offering more flexibility in assessment, etc. Though it's not entirely clear what that means policywise, Darling-Hammond for one is a fan of locally based, frequently non-standardized assessments that give richer information on student achievement. She often notes that Finland uses these locally based tests.

The danger with these cross-cultural comparisons, as Carey and colleagues point out, is that it isn't just one piece of the country's system that contributes to high achievement; it's the entire way teaching and assessment are structured, not to mention other messier factors (such as cultural attitudes toward teaching, equalized education funding, etc.) For example, although teaching is not extraordinarily highly paid in Finland, it is considered a prestigious and highly respected profession, and only the best of the best in that country become teachers. Here in the U.S., despite some successful efforts to make teaching selective and more exclusive (Teach for America comes to mind), on the whole it still isn't considered prestigious, doesn't routinely attract the smartest college graduates, and--as the career ladder debate shows--doesn't offer much variety in terms of professional opportunities for teachers. (See also my colleague Sean Cavanagh's article on Finland here.)

This does leave some big assessment/teacher quality questions for Obama. It's far from clear that portfolio assessments can be appropriately worked into an accountability system, and I agree with Tom Toch that this will be a big discussion for the next No Child Left Behind Act reauthorization. And despite a lot of attention paid to teacher quality during the campaign, it's equally unclear what Obama's teacher-quality policies will look like in detail and how they will help make teaching a more respected, professionalized career that attracts better candidates.

The famous choral piece Finlandia, a celebration of that country's national identity, takes 7-1/2 minutes to perform. But it's going to take a lot longer than that for Obama, Duncan, and their aides to figure out how best to learn from the country's successes.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 4:44 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

Hawaii wants to randomly test any of its teachers for drugs under a contract signed with the state teachers' union two years ago, but the union now says it will not play along.

The Hawaii State Teachers Association says the wording in the contract, which says the parties "agree to negotiate reasonable suspicion and random drug and alcohol testing procedures," is meant to apply only to teachers who go on field trips, work with disabled children, are frequently absent or have criminal records.

The Associated Press quoted Mike McCartney, executive director for the Hawaii State Teachers Association, saying "this is a huge distraction from how to make our schools better."

The union says it will agree to drug testing in cases where there's a reason to suspect drug use.

The matter is now awaiting a ruling from the Hawaii Labor Relations Board. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union has said it plans to sue the state because the program violates privacy rights, costs taxpayers too much money and does little to curb drug use.

One can't help but wonder why the education department decided to put the drug-testing program in place at all. Apparently, the impetus for Gov. Linda Lingle came after six education department employees were arrested in unrelated drug cases over a six-month period. But the state has over 13,000 teachers, and one cannot help but see the point when the teachers' union points out that the six arrested don't represent a majority nor do they indicate a trend of rampant drug use among Hawaii teachers.

But here's one good reason why the department of education could be mad at the teachers' union recalcitrance: they've already handed out 11 percent pay raises to the teachers, which the teachers were given in exchange for agreeing to the drug tests.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 2:31 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

The National Education Association has released its annual statistics on teacher salaries, and, as usual, the nation's largest teachers' union paints a grim picture.

According to the report, inflation continued to outpace teacher salaries last year, and over the decade from 1997–98 to 2007–08, average salaries for public school teachers declined 1 percent while inflation increased 31.4 percent.

Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia saw real declines in average teacher salaries over those years, adjusting for inflation.

The report says the average one-year increase in salaries for public school teachers was 3.1 percent, while inflation over that period increased 4.3 percent.

According to the report, the national average salary for a public school teacher in the 2007–2008 school year was $52,308. The higiest average salary was in California, $64,424, while the lowest was in South Dakota, which paid teachers $36,674 on average.

The report also has interesting statistics on gender diversity in teaching. Men, it says, make up just 24.5 percent of the teacher workforce, and the highest percentage of male teachers could be found in Alaska, Indiana, Kansas, and Oregon. States with the fewest male teachers were Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia.

You can find the full report on the NEA Web site here.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 9:30 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

There's at least one district where some teachers are getting more money instead of having to worry about losing their jobs or pay.

Austin this week handed out $1 million in cash bonuses to teachers under its pilot performance-pay program for teachers whose students did better on state tests. Teachers at six schools will get $4,000 extra each in their paychecks.

But, as this story points out, of the six schools where staff will get bonuses, all but two had shown similar improvement in previous years. Which, of course, begs the question: did they really even need a performance-pay plan in the first place?

David Lussier, director of Austin's performance-pay program, thinks so. He is quoted in the story as saying that it's worthwhile to reward staff at schools that show improvement, even if they have improved in the past without the promise of performance bonuses.

"We're incentivizing that growth," he said.

Utah, meanwhile, has decided to delay $20 million in performance-pay funds for teachers. Read more on this here.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Arne Duncan to lead the U.S. Department of Education is drawing lots of praise from just about everyone in education circles, and the teachers' unions are not to be left behind.

Although Linda Darling-Hammond had appeared to be the unions' top choice for the job, the two national unions today were quick to celebrate the presumptive new education secretary.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, praised Duncan for collaborating with the teachers' union in his home turf, Chicago, and with other community partners "on various reform programs to help students with the greatest needs."

"Duncan has shown a genuine commitment to what we see as the essential priorities for an incoming education secretary," she added in a statement.

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel told the Washington Post that he was hopeful "Duncan could use his new position to move beyond ... failed [federal] policies, and provide every child with 21st-century skills."

Even so, not all teachers in Chicago were celebrating. In fact, some told the Associated Press they were disappointed with Obama's pick.

"I don't believe Mr. Duncan's model is a model for America," Deborah Lynch, a former president of the Chicago Teachers Union and a high school teacher, said, taking issue with Duncan's strong support for charter schools. She also accused him of dismantling the public school system on which many poor children depend.

Lynch's criticism notwithstanding, it is true that Duncan has built a reputation of working collaboratively with teachers. But in the coming months, it should be interesting to see if indeed the national teachers' unions and the reform-loving schools chief who supports charter schools and performance pay will make a happy team.

For more coverage of Duncan, read the Campaign K-12 blog.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Over at Politico, Ben Smith reports that 40 of the nation's education schools have signed a letter backing Linda Darling-Hammond for the EdSec position. Given that Darling-Hammond is a supporter of innovative ed school practices, such as the teacher-residency preparation model, and critical of some alternative routes, such as Teach For America, this isn't a tremendous surprise.

He also reports that the NAACP has weighed in on behalf of Darling-Hammond. This, it seems to me, is a bit more of a surprise, given the NAACP's unusual relationship to the No Child Left Behind Act. Minorities, according to polls, tend to show stronger support for the law than do other groups; Ms. Darling-Hammond is a vocal critic of NCLB.

The NAACP, though, has never been entirely clear about its feelings on the law. The national office supported "multiple measures" for school accountability last year, something that groups like the Education Trust argued would gut that part of the law. On the other hand, the NAACP's Connecticut chapter sided with the federal government, not the state, in the state's "unfunded mandate" lawsuit against NCLB.

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A while back, Teacher Beat predicted that states were likely to pull the brakes on merit-pay plans, given the economic freefall. And we hate to say it, but we were right.

Out of Utah comes news that the state board of education is considering delaying $20 million in promised performance-pay funds for teachers, because of looming budget cuts.

Teachers in participating districts and charter schools would have received an average of $500 each under the merit-pay program.

Teachers, of course, are not so happy about the news, since it comes after they've spent a year working for the bonuses.

Utah Education Association spokesman Mike Kelley told the Deseret News that teachers have been participating "in what they thought would be a compensation plan and working toward what they thought would be a bonus."

"There are teachers who have been counting on it," he added.

While one can understand the teachers' disappointment, some would argue it is better to hold back on bonuses than lay off teachers and cut essential school programs. Besides, who knows, this could be great ammunition for teachers' unions, which have always questioned the sustainability of performance-pay programs.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 11:39 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

National-board teachers have gained a weighty reputation over the years, and many states now offer teachers who go through the rigorous process to get the credential attractive bonuses. Not surprising then that the numbers of board-certified teachers continues to grow each year.

In its latest figures released this week, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards says 9,600 teachers achieved board certification in 2008: a 12 percent increase over 2007 and a record high. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia had at least a 20 percent increase from 2007 to 2008 in the number of teachers who became board-certified.

According to the NBPTS, the number of teachers achieving the credential has more than doubled in the past five years, from more than 32,000 in 2003 to nearly 74,000 in 2008. And states with the highest number of teachers achieving national-board certification were Florida with 1,826 teachers, North Carolina with 1,453, Washington with 918, South Carolina with 754, and Illinois with 703.

The credential seems especially popular in the Carolinas: In North Carolina now, 15 percent of the total teaching force has the credential. In South Carolina, 14 percent does. Interestingly, South Carolina had last year considered axing bonuses for board-certified teachers, although the proposal was later shelved.

While even teachers' unions back increased pay for board-certified teachers as a form of merit pay, the jury never has been unequivocal on how effective these teachers are. A long-awaited report from the National Research Council earlier this year found that board-certified teachers are more effective, but the committee struggled over the question of whether the test-score impact, which had an overall effect size of .04 for studies of students in Florida and North Carolina, should be characterized as "small" or "as large as possible."

An earlier study, released in 2006, found that board-certified teachers were actually no more effective than their counterparts who did not have the credential.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 11:57 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond is quickly becoming a polarizing figure for Democrats and the source of much debate, with news articles on her ranging from Tom Toch's take on assessment over at the Quick and the Ed to this New Republic piece that questions her credentials as a school reformer.

My colleague Alyson Klein and I got to chat with Darling-Hammond briefly today after her keynote speech at the National Staff Development Council conference. As Alyson notes, Darling-Hammond couldn't give many specifics about the transition process. Her speech, though, highlighted a number of the ideas that are more likely than not to make their way into various Obama administration policy proposals.

Many of them are drawn from case studies of OECD countries and from a report Darling-Hammond is working on. (Keep reading below for more on that.) In sum, she said, professional development is more effective when it's sustained, comprehensive, and embedded in the school day; when it incorporates peer coaching, observation, modeling, and feedback; and when it is explicitly tied to higher-order content and skills.

Good professional development, Darling-Hammond said, "is not a mystery. What is a mystery is how we will get policy to support this kind of [teacher] learning routinely... so that it can become the norm, not the exception."

To her point, changing around school schedules and teacher working hours is not an easy task. It's not hard to imagine why districts favor "spray-and-pray" professional-development workshops even if they know they aren't particularly effective, given that they are easier and probably cheaper to do than reorganizing school schedules, extending the school day or hiring additional staff to free up the common time for this type of PD.

At the federal level, NSCD has been pushing for a new federal definition of professional development in the No Child Left Behind Act that would require federal dollars to support on-site professional development for teachers and better mentoring. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., introduced S. 1979, a bill that incorporates the NSCD definition. I asked Darling-Hammond about this bill, and while she didn't endorse it, she did say its ideas were in line with the team's conversations.

Much of Darling-Hammond's speech was keyed to a report she's spearheading with NSCD analyzing the research on professional development. The report, the first part of which will be released early next year, contains data from a survey of 40,000 educators conducted as part of the Education Department's Schools and Staffing Survey; data from a survey of 50,000 educators conducted by the NSCD; and a review (thought not a formal meta-analysis) of the most methodologically sound research studies on professional development.

The report will outline not just the relationship of PD to teachers' attitudes and behaviors, but whether the PD practices studied improved student achievement, Darling-Hammond said.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

There could be a silver lining to the cloud of economic gloom, after all. And the education department folks over in Kansas say they've found it.

The struggling economy, officials in the state's education department say, could bring more people into teaching and cause fewer to leave the profession.

A teaching license is like a safety valve for many, Alexa Posny, Kansas' education commissioner, told the Topeka Capital-Journal. Existing teachers, she feels, will likely will be slower to leave the profession to retire or pursue another career, and more college students may see teaching as a dependable profession to pursue.

Sounds plausible. But I do wonder about this, Kansas: Aren't more districts worrying right now about having to lay off teachers, rather than finding new ones to hire?

Go, figure.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

There have long been rumors about the high-level of American Federation of Teachers' involvement in the contentious District of Columbia teacher-contract negotiations. Now the union's cards are out on the table: This weekend, the Washington Teachers' Union passed a motion to officially partner with the AFT in developing contract proposals.

Readers of this blog can scroll through our archives to read more about the contract. One of D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee's controversial proposals would give teachers opportunities to earn six-figure salaries if they agree to forgo tenure for a year and be evaluated based on their students' achievement growth.

AFT President Randi Weingarten recently said at a big speech at the National Press Club, in Washington, that everything short of school vouchers should be on the table for education reform, including teacher-tenure provisions. She's about to face her first test of her commitment to that principle right here in the nation's capital: Will tenure reform remain in the set of proposals she and the AFT will bring to Rhee?

Stay tuned as we bring you more on this.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The New Teacher Project is considered by many to be one of the best alternative teacher- preparation routes out there today. But there have been very few studies so far that demonstrate the effectiveness of the teachers it prepares.

Now, new data in Louisiana show that TNTP teachers outperform beginning and experienced teachers in math, reading, and language arts.

The Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program of the New Teacher Project certified more than 800 teachers in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and the study, led by George Noell of Louisiana State University, gave it the highest ranking in each of these subject areas.

The study says the program produces teachers who make “a positive contribution to student achievement from the point of entering the classroom.”

You can read more about the value-added model used by Louisiana State University to measure the effect that teachers from the state’s preparation programs have on student achievement here.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Has anyone heard about the teacher who's selling ads in his test papers?

Yes, it's true. John Farber, a teacher at a suburban San Diego school, says he is doing so to cover the costs of printing the papers, after the school district scaled back his printing budget. Since cutting back on the tests was not an option for Farber, he decided to come up with a creative solution.

Of the seven ads he has run so far—one per test or quiz—five were inspirational quotes from parents at the school, and two were ads from local businesses connected to parents or someone close, according to this report.

This story makes me wonder how the rest of you out there are coping with district cutbacks and their effects on your classrooms. We'd love to hear your stories, so feel free to share them here.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Feeling the need for some R & R? Well, the dynamic duo of Robin Chait and Raegen Miller over at the Center for American Progress have written what amounts to a primer on the issue of teacher tenure, the job protection granted to teachers who fulfill the terms of a probationary period.

It couldn't come at a better time: Teacher tenure seems poised to emerge as one of the big teacher-quality issues in 2009, with D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee trying to overhaul it as part of her district's contract negotiations, New York City confronting the use of test scores in tenure decisions, higher education increasingly doing away with tenure, and reformers in the arena of strategic management of human capital scrutinizing its place in the teacher-quality continuum, since teacher evaluation is frequently linked to tenure practices.

Here's the key quote from the report.

"Most conversations about tenure are short ones. Opponents of tenure assert that it makes firing lousy teachers impossible. Proponents counter that tenure is essential to protect teachers from arbitrary dismissal. Advocates on either side tend to be passionate, leaving little room for a rational debate, much less policy innovation."

That pretty well sums up where we are. And, as the report makes clear, this is one of those teacher-quality elements that has grown increasingly complex given the state-local nature of teacher policies. States, the paper notes, set many of the basic parameters around tenure, such as the length of teachers' probationary periods. But these can be supplemented by local policies, such as in Baltimore, which grants tenured teachers more sick time; or overwritten, as is the case in Wisconsin. Courts have also taken different points of view on what constitutes "cause" for removing teachers who have been granted tenure.

The report calls for more research on how tenure policies affect the quality, distribution and turnover of teachers.

Once you're done with the paper, read my colleague Vaishali's take on the tenure issue here, in which she poses the all-important question: If there are problems in our current tenure system, how the heck do we reform it?

Post your ideas here...

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