May 2009 Archives

Andy Rotherham has the scoop on an e-mail that the NEA reportedly sent out to its affiliates. Here's a sampling:

"In all of the independent studies, more than 80 percent of TFA recruits have left teaching by year 4, just as they are beginning to become effective, costing districts about $20k apiece to replace them and adding to the high turnover rates in urban districts—which itself negatively affects school performance.

The only studies that have found TFA recruits to be as effective as other teachers (including the recent Urban Institute North Carolina study they are touting—which was conducted by the mother of a TFA employee, Jane Hannaway) are those that compare TFA recruits to other teachers who are even less likely to be certified and prepared—because they are teaching in schools that have generally become dumping grounds for underprepared teachers serving low-income and minority teachers."

Rotherham notes that the letter is selective in the research it describes, so I won't go into that here. More generally, it confuses the research on teachers' improvement trajectories with an absolute measure of effectiveness: Teachers do typically improve over their first three to five years in the classroom, but not all five-year veterans, even those who are maximally effective, are necessarily better than all first-year novices.

There are lots of politically interesting implications, and here's one that I find intriguing: The NEA presumably represents some of these TFA teachers, so why is it so negative about their abilities? Typically, unions don't like outsiders to point out generational differences between the baby boomer teachers and newbies like TFA-ers, since such distinctions work at cross-purposes to that whole solidarity thing. Yet internally, is NEA actively making these distinctions? Even in a union, are some people more equal than others?

Another question: The letter asserts that districts are letting go of teachers so that they can hire TFA grads. Am I missing something here? Since Reductions in Force are typically done by seniority, and the novices are usually the first to go, isn't this counterproductive?

If someone understands how this works, send me an e-mail or post a comment below.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 11:35 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

So reports The New York Times in this article.

The cuts apparently mean that young professionals who took out loans expecting them to be forgiven as they completed their first four or five years of teaching are basically stuck with them. The article also suggests that the Obama administration's move to end lender subsidies and to originate most student loans in-house could effectively shut down these types of teacher-loan programs.

As I read this story, I couldn't help but wonder about the federal TEACH grants, which I wrote about here. Although called "grants," some experts say they really ought to be called "loans," since these grants convert to a federal loan if a recipient doesn't fulfill the criteria, which include teaching in a "shortage" subject for four years in a high-need school. What is going to happen to TEACH grant recipients if states begin to eliminate positions in high-need fields? What if they can't secure a job?

Is your loan-forgiveness program being scaled back? Let us know.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 1:43 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Which of these two teacher-related stories is more bizarre: this gag one from the satirical paper The Onion, or this real-life one about Mary Kay Letourneau, who went to prison for the statutory rape of a student (whom she later married) hosting "Hot for Teacher" night at a Seattle nightclub?

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Over the last decade, the teacher practice of using "formative assessments" has become a huge topic of interest.

Though called assessments, in practice they're more like exercises teachers use to gather immediate feedback on whether a student is responding to an instructional technique, with reference to a particular curricular objective.

Proponents say the practice has a strong research base showing it can dramatically improve student achievement. (And now that testing companies are labeling a lot of products as "formative," it's a big moneymaking endeavor, too.)

But recently, some experts have suggested that it may be time to take a closer look at the practice and its research base. At an event held by the Educational Testing Service company earlier this month, ETS Distinguished Presidential Appointee Randy Bennett walked attendees through the research literature.

And like the child's game of telephone, something seems to have been lost in translation.

In 1998, two researchers from King's College London, Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black, published an article in the journal Assessment in Education based on a review of hundreds of studies on formative assessment. In the article, they noted that the studies were too diverse to be meaningfully summarized through a meta-analysis (a wonky term for a scientific research synthesis) into a single effect-size statistic. In fact, they noted that only a handful of the studies were quantitative ones that were rigorous.

But they went on to publish a second article in Phi Delta Kappan that alleged that the positive effect sizes of formative assessment ranged from 0.4 to 0.7 across 40 quantitative studies, a medium-to-large gain.

Subsequently, the biggest experts in the testing industry have referenced this article to support the practice of formative assessments. But they haven't gotten the details of the review right. They have called the review a meta-analysis. (It wasn't.) The effect sizes suddenly sprang up to as high as 1.0. And the number of quantitative studies supposedly reviewed jumped to 250.

And a handful of more recent studies, Mr. Bennett indicated, suffer from selection bias and other methodological issues.

"The research is not as unequivocally supportive of the effects of formative assessment as it is sometimes made to sound," he said.

What does this mean for teachers? In essence, it means formative assessment, though promising, isn't necessarily a silver bullet.

It's an old theme, but there is still a lot more work to be done to make sure that such assessments are valid, well designed, and yield useful results for teachers.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 2:20 PM | Permalink | 5 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Over at Flypaper there's a bit of a debate going on about the presence of teachers' unions and student achievement.

I've been to enough education policy discussions to recognize two common tropes on this topic. One argument runs along these lines: Student achievement tends to be lowest in the South, which has many right-to-work states that don't allow collective bargaining for public employees. The other argument, which is at the center of the Flypaper debate, notes that the nation's highest-performing state on national tests, Massachusetts, has laws and policies that are generally favorable to unions.

Although such observations make for good talking points, the actual research on these questions is slim and inconclusive at best. That shouldn't really come as a surprise, given that so many social factors play into student achievement that are hard to separate out from the presence of the union.

Personally, I find that tropes typically shut down substantive conversations about how specific policies—both those that are supported and those that are opposed by teachers unions (and districts, and parents, and principals, and community groups)—operate and how they affect student achievement and other factors related to teaching and learning. And that's a shame, because if we are ever to move education policy beyond ideology to evidence, then the nitty-gritty really matters.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 10:39 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

That's basically what American Federation of Teachers prez Randi Weingarten indicates in this letter to the district, reports Elizabeth Green at Gotham Schools.

Although principals are supposed to be hiring new teachers from the Absent Teacher Reserve pool of excessed teachers, schools can hire from other sources if they can't find a teacher of a high-need field from the ATR. In her letter, Weingarten intimates that the district is prioritizing teachers trained through alternative routes such as Teacher For America and New York City Teaching Fellows over traditional ed. school graduates.

But a source just passed along an e-mail the district sent to the city's colleges of education. (It's a long one, so you'll have to click below to read the whole thing.) In sum, it encourages the teacher colleges to make sure their graduates are aware of openings.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 3:16 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

So what does the Obama administration's prioritization of the Teacher Incentive Fund in the FY 2010 budget request over the other federal teacher programs say about its strategies for improving the quality of teaching and learning? And how likely is Congress to follow his lead?

You heard Randi Weingarten's take in my last post, but for some additional reaction, I interviewed a few local sources.

Several experts pointed out that the administration chose to put new teacher-quality funding into the tightly written incentive-pay program rather than the $3 billion Title II teacher-quality state grants, a program with much more flexibility.“It seems clear that the Obama administration is more interested in a targeted approach to improving teacher quality through differential pay... than it is in the more generally applied funds,” said Cynthia Brown, the director of education policy at the Center for American Progress.

Others, while generally supportive of the move, think it'll be scaled back somewhat during the upcoming appropriations battles. Since TIF has never received more than $100 million during the appropriations process, a proposed increase likely will face some additional scrutiny, said EdSector's Andy Rotherham.

“TIF gets into trouble during appropriations perennially now,” he said, ”so someone’s got it in for the program.”

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 11:51 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

AFT President Randi Weingarten said yesterday that she wants federally financed performance-pay grants to be bargained collectively as part of contracts.

Although Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have said that incentive-pay programs should be developed with teachers, they've so far been tight-lipped on how far they would take that idea. Now, with a $517 million request on the table for the Teacher Incentive Fund, Weingarten is basically calling their bluff.

"This can't be about a thousand flowers blooming," Weingarten told me. "There are things we know are based upon research and practice as well as President Obama's core principles, and that includes working together collaboratively."

In a nonbargaining state, she said, districts should take their cues from models such as the Teacher Advancement Program. That school-reform model, run by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, requires 75 percent of teachers to vote in favor of adoption.

Weingarten added that the application criteria should require the plans to contain a strong, embedded professional-development program so that the pay creates a structure for teacher improvement.

"You can't do differentiated pay without alignment to instruction. If you do, it just feels like the old-tie favoritism that was always so bad about merit pay. ... If it's simply a matter of looking at outcomes, not creating the stairs to success, it won't work."

And that would be bad for Obama, who's staked out his education legacy on using data to reform instruction, she said.

"Instead of the federal Education Department and Duncan just challenging other groups to do things differently, this is their challenge too—enforcing the program, enforcing the key ingredients," she concluded.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 10:00 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

As I was walking down 14th Street in Washington this past weekend on the way to the gardening store, I noticed a placard in a shop window promoting the Washington Teachers' Union and the American Federation of Teachers. "Good for students, fair to teachers," it read, apparently echoing Randi Weingarten's press club speech from last year, in which she promised to entertain reforms that met both criteria.

Then yesterday, I got a press release from the New York City AFT affiliate announcing a series of TV advertisements promoting the union's advocacy in that city.

"Who makes sure kids have the resources they need? Who works to put and keep great teachers in the classroom, and for smaller classes so every child gets a quality education? Who ensures students get the help they need from homework assistance to scholarship programs? Who is 200,000 strong with just one goal: preparing our children to succeed? The United Federation of Teachers. The UFT. We have 'teachers' in our name but children and their families in mind," an announcer says during the ad.

The unions are no stranger to such advertising, of course. Legendary AFT leader Al Shanker's "Where We Stand" column in The New York Times and in Education Week was actually a paid advertisement, for instance.

And both D.C. and New York City have done their own recent advertising blitzes promoting their schools.

But it is interesting that such advertising appears to be more and more commonplace these days, especially in big cities where union and management alike have had their fair share of critics. And I'm not entirely sure I understand what the point of this advertising is.

In the UFT statement, Weingarten said it was to reassure parents, during the economic downturn, that the union would continue to be a "fierce advocate" for students. (And, one assumes, their members' jobs and benefits.)

Per Kevin Carey's post here, is there a relationship to the notion that parents truly have some other schooling options both in D.C. (where nearly a quarter of students are in charters) and in N.Y.C.? Is it to counteract all the drama about charter schools and stuck contracts and mayoral control?

What do you make of it?

Tell us.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 2:35 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

If you think the federal stimulus package is going to be a cure-all for the thorny issues of staffing flexibility, you need look no further than Seattle to see that's probably a pipe dream.

According to the story in the link above, Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson sent a letter saying that teachers' contracts wouldn't be renewed unless they agreed to one fewer paid staff-development day. The district apparently doesn't have the money to cover it anymore.

The local union says the letter amounts to firing all 3,300 teachers in the district and is pushing back. It argues that such changes need to be approved through the collective bargaining agreement.

I'm not that familiar with the Seattle contract, and elements such as paid staff training are sometimes set by states and sometimes by contracts. But as some experts, like Marguerite Roza of the Center on Reinventing Public Education have noted, contracts generally include language allowing parties to reopen bargaining in times of financial strain.

I haven't heard any instances of that occurring, but it will be interesting if Goodloe-Johnson tries to go that route here.

Have you heard of any districts reopening bargaining? If you have, why not hit the comment button and let us know?

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 10:50 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

From Guest Blogger Liana Heitin

In an effort to trim the budget and avoid layoffs, New York City schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein placed a ban on hiring teachers from outside the school system, reports The New York Times. Instead, principals must hire from within the teacher reserve pool—a group of 1,100 educators who have been kept on payrolls to be used as substitutes and temporary replacements after losing their permanent positions.

The reserve pool has been the subject of much discussion throughout the ebb and flow of New York’s hiring practices. Teachers end up in the pool most often because of school closings or downsizing, though a report by the New Teacher Project states that these teachers are six times as likely to have unsatisfactory evaluation ratings. Timothy Daly, the president of the New Teacher Project, explains that this is in part because the concentration of u-rated teachers increases over time as the highest-rated teachers in the pool get hired out more quickly. Teachers left in the pool can remain there—earning salary, benefits, and tenure—indefinitely.

The hiring ban raises concerns for principals, who may see the pool as a subpar sample of talent. Up to this point, Klein’s reform efforts have focused on teacher quality and encouraged principals to recruit and hire teachers who best fit the needs of their schools.

As Daly sees it, hiring from the reserve pool is a more sensible option than layoffs, which would necessarily be based on seniority, or forced placements. "Among the choices they have available, this is best,” he said. "Is this a good blanket policy? It would be better for kids and schools to be able to hire the best teachers every time."

The chancellor’s willingness to stray from his emphasis on free-reign hiring for quality is surprising, but indicates, above all else, the dire straits of the fiscal situation in New York.

Needless to say, the unions are happy that current teachers will remain employed and that the teacher reserve pool will be viewed as an essential resource. It will be interesting to see how AFT President Randi Weingarten balances her support of limited-pool hiring with her calls for "innovation" and reform, so stay tuned. . .

Posted by Liana Heitin at 3:18 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

I got a few moments yesterday to chat with Dennis Van Roekel, the head of the National Education Association, about the huge proposed increase to the Teacher Incentive Fund.

He said he hopes the administration will allow states that have cut back on stipends for teachers who earn national-board certification to restore those bonuses through the program.

I keep bugging Duncan's peeps about whether they're going to require these incentive-pay plans to be collectively bargained. Jo Anderson, a senior adviser at the Education Department, said that issue hasn't been worked out or decided on yet. It'll definitely be something to pay attention to when the funding announcement shows up in the Federal Register.

Van Roekel said he hasn't talked to the administration about the collective bargaining implications, but he did say that policymakers, unions, and management all have a role to play in the development of the plans. "It really takes all three to make that system work," he told me.

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Teachers didn't comment on the TIF in their news release. Instead, they knocked the Obama administration's proposal to allow students already enrolled in the D.C. voucher program to continue their educations in private schools.

"The foundations that have championed vouchers all these years easily could have raised the funds to ensure the children already participating in this program would not have their education disrupted. What is equally disappointing is that they are using these children, who are blameless, as pawns in their ideological battle."

Given the high marks parents give to the program, I'd bet a lot of those parents are not going to care whether or not their kids are pawns. They are probably just going to be happy that their kids don't have to transfer back to DCPS.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 11:05 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Lots of interesting teacher details in the Obama administration's newly released FY 2010 budget request.

The biggest surprise here is a $517 million request for the Teacher Incentive Fund, which would give the program more than $700 million in all for next year if you include the stimulus funds. That's way more than the Bush administration was ever able to secure for the program.

It looks like Obama is pretty serious about his calls for paying higher salaries to what he defines as excellent teachers. And the actual budget language contains a few additional tidbits. For one, it would expand the program to performance-based compensation to all staff in a building, not just teachers and administrators. And two, it says that the systems should be developed in concert with teachers, but it doesn't explicitly mention collective bargaining.

TIF would also include a $30 million set-aside for the "National Teacher Recruitment Campaign" to reach out to new candidates, including nontraditional ones, through nonprofits and other avenues. The details are kind of sketchy, but it appears Obama wants to make good on his campaign promise to "recruit an army of great teachers" into the profession.

The Title II state grant program would get about $2.9 billion, which is the same it got last year. Again, though, the important stuff is in the details: The administration would reserve about $15 million of that money for evaluations and studies to "develop the knowledge base on teacher effectiveness."

The Teacher Quality Partnership grants, which can be used to support teacher-residency training programs, would get a small boost, up to $50 million. That would support the existing grantees and four new partnerships, the budget indicates.

And in what is likely to really annoy critics of the 21st-century-skills movement, the budget states that the $400 million for the Enhanced Assessment Instruments should be used to craft assessments to measure "whether students possess 21st-century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, entrepreneurship, and creativity. " (That scream you just heard was Diane Ravitch.)

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 2:29 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Ed Week is beginning a new service: Packages of articles, commentaries, and chats on some of the top issues in education. The first one is on the hot-button topic of teacher performance pay. For $4.95, you'll get seven articles and two commentaries that our staff who are most knowledgeable about the subject put together.

There's a great variety of material included. You can read about the latest research on whether performance pay works; what teachers think a good plan should incorporate; and what features proved successful for the Teacher Incentive Fund grantees as they set up their programs.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 10:35 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Questions about teacher tenure and the removal of ineffective teachers in Los Angeles are heating up, following this weekend's Los Angeles Times story.

The story found that removing ineffective teachers in California is lengthy and extraordinarily costly (upwards of six figures in some cases), and that much of the time, a panel reversed decisions to let go of teachers anyway. Most teachers were fired only for egregious conduct, the story found.

Now, school board officials are renewing efforts to get state legislators to review the laws that govern teacher removal. They face some opposition from Sacramento, where lawmakers say such proposals are politically motivated.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 11:17 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Wow! There's no reason to watch "Lost" when you've got the D.C. contract situation, which is quickly becoming as byzantine and bizarre as the popular TV program.

DCPS officials have detailed Washington Teachers' Union Vice President Saunders back to his school over some kind of paperwork snafus with the leave of absence union officials take when they work full time for the union. The rumors are flying fast and furious about who's to blame, with Saunders and others claiming that WTU President George Parker and D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee are both behind the transfer.

Though you wouldn't know it from most of the mainstream media coverage, the debate about this contract isn't really about the union vs. the management, but about a divide within the WTU. Saunders has basically accused Parker of being willing to give away the farm in the contract negotiations. Where Parker was at least initially receptive to the pay plan proposed by Rhee, Saunders has accused Rhee of trying to "gentrify" the schools.

The two men differ on other issues, too: Parker has acknowledged that administrative D.C. rulings have greatly reduced the importance of seniority. Saunders disagrees.

One can only imagine how irritating this must be to AFT leader Randi Weingarten, who's apparently been looped into a lot of this. Both she and Rhee say they're trying to establish a premier education system in D.C.

What's next? A polar bear?

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 10:42 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

Arne Duncan weighs in on unions and charter schools. From his speech at the Education Writers Association:

"Twenty-six states cap the number of charters and 10 other states have no charters. The President has called on every state to lift charter caps. And where unions are behind these efforts to impede charters we should certainly call them out but we shouldn’t demonize unions or blame them for all of the problems in education."

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 9:37 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)