Vol. 3, Issue 1 January 2006    Bringing urban P-16 education resources to policymakers, parents, advocates, and district and school staff in the District of Columbia    Education News Research on DC Schools National Lessons Learned New Ideas   The State Education Office does not endorse the views expressed in the resources and reports contained in the SEO Ed Digest.	Related Links DCDOCS Subscribe to the digest. Education Center Find local information and resources. React! Share your thoughts about the digest. Research 101 Learn how to judge the quality of research. SEO_Ed_Digest@dc.gov Contact us.

 

This issue of the SEO Ed Digest covers recent research on the topic of teacher quality.  The research in this digest focuses on: the definitions and implications of having highly qualified teachers, strategies used to increase the number of highly qualified teachers, and ways to more effectively retain and equitably distribute highly qualified teachers to schools and students who are most in need.  Reports listed with an asterix* have been discussed in previous issues of the SEO Ed Digest, but are included due to this month’s focus on the topic of teacher quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This report focuses on the contractual staffing rules governing “voluntary transfer” and “excessed teachers.”  Voluntary transfer teachers are incumbent teachers who want to move between schools in a district whereas excessed teachers are those cut from a specific school, often due to a decline in budget or student enrollment.  In order to understand the impact of voluntary and excess transfers, the New Teacher Project studied five representative urban districts – Eastern, Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, Southern, and Western – and analyzed internal teacher movements and new teacher hires.  The study authors found that transfer and excess rules undermine effective staffing in urban schools in four ways.  First, urban schools are forced to hire large numbers of teachers they do not want and who may not be a good fit for the job or the school.  Second, poor performers are passed from school to school instead of being terminated.  Third, new teacher applicants, including the best, are lost to late hiring.  Finally, novice teachers are treated as expendable regardless of their contribution to their school.  These four effects significantly impede the efforts of urban schools to staff their classrooms effectively and sustain meaningful schoolwide improvements.  School administrators are forced to hire teachers who may be poor performers or ill suited for the specific school context and culture.  They are prevented from hiring many of the best new teacher applicants and cannot protect teachers they hope to keep.  Among their recommendations, the authors state that voluntary transfers and excessed teachers receive an early preferential review for available positions and numerous opportunities to receive satisfactory placements.  However, at the same time, the reforms ensure that the placements of voluntary transfers and excessed teachers are based on the mutual consent of the teacher and receiving school, permit the timely hiring of new teachers, and provide better protection for novice teachers who are contributing to their current school.

 

 

Section 207 in Title II of the Higher Education Act, as amended, requires each state receiving funding under the Act to report annually on the quality of teacher preparation in the state.  This includes: standards for teachers and their alignment with standards for students; requirements for an initial teaching certificate or license through either an alternate or regular route; pass rates on each assessment used by states in certifying or licensing teachers; state standards for evaluating the performance of teacher preparation programs; teachers in the classroom on waivers, that is, teaching without an initial regular certificate or license from any state; and state efforts in the past year to improve the quality of teaching.  Reports by states using assessments include pass rates on tests disaggregated and ranked by teacher preparation program in the state. As required by Title II, institutions of higher education with teacher preparation programs submitted these pass rates and other information in their reports to states in April 2005. The law also requires institutions to include the information in their reports in publications such as college catalogs and promotional materials sent to potential applicants, secondary school counselors, and prospective employees of an institution's graduates.  The state reports on this website incorporate the information and data submitted by the states in October 2005.

 

 

The Secretary's Fourth Annual Report on Teacher Quality: A Highly Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom presents the most current information on the quality of novice teachers entering the education field in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas. The report, required by the Title II accountability provisions of the Higher Education Act, was released on July 27, 2005. The 2004 data show that states continue to make gains in strengthening teacher education standards and accountability in teacher certification, as well as in expanding alternative pathways to the teaching profession. The report also highlights innovative projects across the U.S. that are helping to meet our national No Child Left Behind goal of a highly qualified teacher in every classroom by the end of the 2005-2006 school year.

 

 

This paper draws on an array of research evidence and recent data gathering in four urban communities with large representations of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) – Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami).  The authors also utilize the voices of accomplished teachers from the Teacher Leaders Network, most of whom are NBCTs, with a number of them working in or considering work in hard-to-staff, low performing schools.  The paper discusses how to recruit and retain NBCTs in hard-to-staff, low performing schools.  The authors describe three major issues policymakers and practitioners much face in solving the problem of the maldistribution of accomplished and expert teachers: 1) salary and other financial incentives are necessary, but not sufficient, to recruit and retain accomplished teachers for hard-to-staff schools; 2) the strategy of importing accomplished teachers into low-performing schools is not nearly enough to solve teaching quality problems found in such schools; and 3) the National Board assessment process can be a powerful professional development tool, but states and districts must create specific strategies if NBCTs are going to help improve low-performing schools.  The authors conclude that in efforts to build teaching capacity in hard-to-staff, low-performing schools, policymakers and schools leaders need to keep in mind what accomplished teachers require to move to a low-performing school, and what the system needs to provide in order for them to be effective and have a school-wide impact. 

 

 

This paper summarizes the contents of the book, A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom? Appraising Old Answers and New Ideas (Harvard Education Press, 2004).  The book offers a comprehensive look at the teacher quality debate.  Its 10 chapters consider the history and politics of teacher licensure, examine the data on teacher licensure and hiring, present new data regarding the preparation and training in schools and colleges of education, and sketch four alternative models for meeting the teacher quality challenge.  The book is intended as an introduction and overview to the debates over teacher preparation and licensure, providing practitioners, policymakers, and parents with the background they need to weigh competing calls for reform.  The research examined falls into three categories.  The first assesses the political, policy and research landscape of teacher quality.  The second poses new questions that can help extend the research beyond the long-running debate over the qualifications of licensed teachers and can help us think more systemically about teacher preparation and teacher hiring.  The third section proposes new models for how states might seek to ensure teacher quality.

 

 

This paper analyzes promising new research about teacher quality and the incentives for teachers to do better.   The authors look at current teacher quality approaches and offer recommendations to help policymakers modernize the process through which teachers are prepared, hired, evaluated, and compensated. Recommendations include: carefully designing systems of performance-based teacher pay; rewarding teachers who choose to work in the schools that need them most; and streamlining certification requirements to expand the pool of individuals who can be hired as teachers.

 

Spring 2005
Rewarding Teachers for Students’ Performance: Improving Teaching through Alternative Teacher Compensation Programs, Center for Evaluation & Education Policy Education Policy Brief, Volume 3, Number 5 (Spring 2005)

 

This Education Policy Brief examines alternative teacher compensation programs and career ladder programs aimed at recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers.  The alternative teacher compensation programs that this brief discusses includes: the Milken Teacher Advancement Program, the Professional Compensation System for Teachers (ProComp) that is used by the Denver Public Schools, the South Carolina School Incentive Reward Program, and the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System.  The brief also highlights performance-based compensation programs in use in Indiana and other states across the country. 

 

 

This article discusses the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification process.  Contrary to the claims of some critics, research suggests that nationally certified teachers are at least marginally more effective than both average teachers and teachers who sought, but failed to earn national certification.  However, in terms of addressing the inequities in teacher distribution, the dispersion of board-certified teachers between high- and low-poverty schools is abysmal. A 2004 study by SRI International examined distribution in the six states with the most board-certified teachers -- California, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. The researchers found that only 12 percent of nationally certified teachers teach in schools with more than 75 percent of their students receiving free or reduced-price lunch; only 16 percent teach in schools with more than 75 percent minority student populations; and only 19 percent teach in a school in the bottom third in terms of performance for its state.  This is not surprising; in fact, nationwide, only three states -- California, Illinois, and New York -- offer robust salary incentives for board-certified teachers to work in low-performing or high-poverty schools.  The author offers two changes that will allow states to better align incentives for national certification with efforts to help high-poverty schools. First, states should make the maximum pay differentials and bonuses for nationally certified teachers more substantial than they are now.  Second, states must link these incentives to their efforts to help hard-to-staff schools meet the No Child Left Behind law's highly-qualified-teacher mandate, or to otherwise help struggling schools improve. Ideally, states should tie bonuses and salary increases to service in high-poverty or low-performing schools.

 

Under the leadership of Governor Mike Easley, North Carolina became the first state in the nation to study teacher working conditions by surveying teachers themselves.  First in 2002, and again in 2004, teachers were asked questions about time, facilities and resources, empowerment, leadership and professional development; all shown to have an impact on whether teachers stay in schools and whether students learn.  This report presents the analysis of the data, and it demonstrates that working conditions are critical to increasing student achievement and retaining teachers.  Teachers’ responses on the Working Conditions Survey were significant and powerful predictors of whether or not schools made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and performed well on the state’s school accountability model both in terms of growth and school designation.  Working conditions responses were also connected to teacher retention.  Six primary findings from the analysis of the teacher working conditions data are included in this report: 1) teaching working conditions are important predictors of student achievement; 2) teacher working conditions make a difference in teacher retention; 3) teacher perceptions of working conditions reflect actual school conditions; 4) leadership is critical to improving working conditions, but principals and teachers perceive these conditions very differently; 5) teachers, regardless of their background and experience, view working conditions similarly; and 6) many aspects of working conditions have “ripple effect.”  From these findings, recommendations for schools, districts and the state of North Carolina are offered to enhance efforts to improve working teacher conditions.

 

2005
The Distribution of Teacher Quality in Illinois, Illinois Education Research Council Policy Research Report IERC 2005-1

 

This study examines the distribution of teacher quality attributes across schools within and across geographic regions in Illinois.  The authors looked at the distribution of all 140,000 teachers in 2002-2003 among Illinois public schools using five teacher attributes that have been shown in previous research to be related to student performance and for which they were able to obtain data – college competitiveness, years of experience, type of credential, performance on the Basic Stills test, and ACT scores.  The authors found that teacher quality is distributed unevenly across schools in Illinois.  However, most of the variation is found across schools within districts, suggesting that differences in the attractiveness of schools as workplaces are largely responsible for the systematic sorting of teachers.  It was found that students in high minority and high low-income schools throughout the state typically face teachers with lower quality attributes than their peers in other schools.  Further, there was substantial variation in the quality of the teachers within these school-type categories, indicating that other characteristics of schools also affect teachers’ decisions about where to work.  The authors state that the results of this study suggest that more of the oft-used one-size-fits-all policies aimed at improving overall teacher quality, such as raising teacher salary levels for all teachers, will fail to address the systematic sorting of teachers among schools within districts in Illinois.  Rather, policies must be targeted to attract the highest quality teachers in a district or region to the neediest schools, particularly in areas like Chicago that contain high concentrations of disadvantaged students.  While such policies might include monetary incentives, such as signing and retention bonuses and/or tax credits for teachers to work in specific schools, policies aimed at improving teachers’ working conditions are likely to have positive impacts as well.

 

Inside the Black Box: School District Spending on Professional Development in Education Lessons From Five Urban Districts

 

This report represents a snapshot of work in progress: a first step to getting inside the “black box” of professional development.  The researchers set forth to conduct and review work to identify professional development spending and the return on investment those expenditures provide in five urban districts.  They find that districts have more resources for professional development than they think and that the first priority is making strategic use of them.   Their findings also include framework and coding schemes, which provide a system that district practitioners and researchers can use that is detailed enough to allow district leaders to pinpoint and grab hold of resources that do not address their most important professional development priorities.  These schemes also allow leaders to being to array all of the resources in the system against a coherent strategy.  It shows where funds are being spent and categorizes the purposes of the spending, prompting district leaders to think strategically about targeting resources purposefully to align with the districts’ needs and goals.  The report also looks broadly to capture spending on efforts to build instructional capacity and considers the range of resources under district control. 

 

 

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is an organization whose mission is to advance the quality of teaching.  Upon extensive research, NBPTS defined the attributes of an excellent teacher and began a certification program to enable teachers to meet a certain set of standards.  Limited research has been undertaken to determine the effectiveness of this certification process.  This report compares the academic performance of students in the elementary classrooms of 35 National Board Certified (NBC) teachers and their non-Board certified peers in 14 Arizona school districts.  When analyzing the test scores of both groups, the researchers determined that in three quarters of the comparisons, the students of NBC teachers scored higher than their non-Board certified peers, and one third of these differences were statistically significant.  When the students of non-Board certified teachers outperformed students with NBC certified teachers, none of the differences were found statistically significant. The researchers calculated that the gains made by students with NBC teachers were one month more than the gains made by non-Board certified teachers.  This report concludes that teachers identified through the assessments of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards are, on average, more effective teachers in terms of academic performance.

 

 

This article discusses what is known about finding and keeping teachers in an effort to better understand what it takes to staff schools, especially those that serve the neediest students. The author argues that in order to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers for hard-to-staff schools, it is necessary to address the following factors: teacher pay and working conditions, early outreach and paraprofessional pathways, new teacher induction support, and alternative routes for nontraditional recruits. Teachers will teach and stay in the hardest-to-staff schools if they are recruited from a larger pool of traditional and nontraditional candidates and if they are paid well. Furthermore, they will stay if they are sufficiently prepared to teach in these schools and if their working conditions include a supportive principal, opportunities for teacher leadership, influence in key decision making, more time to learn from colleagues, and the chance to work more closely with fewer numbers of students and their families.

 

 

In this report, The New Teacher Project provides an in-depth study of urban district hiring practices and their effect on applicant attrition and teacher quality by analyzing data from four hard-to-staff urban districts.  The authors found that in these districts, when implementing targeted, high-impact recruitment strategies, all districts received hundreds of applications, many more than they needed to successfully fill their existing vacancies.  However, each of the four districts failed to make job offers until mid-to-late summer.  This left applicants hanging in limbo for months, not knowing if or where they would teach.  Fed up with waiting, anywhere from 31 percent to almost 60 percent of applicants withdrew from the hiring process, often to accept jobs with districts that made offers earlier.  Many of the best candidates, who had the most options, were the most likely to abandon hard-to-staff districts in the face of hiring delays.  This forced these districts to fill their vacancies from an applicant pool with higher percentages of unqualified and uncertified teachers.  The initial findings of the study reveal that applicants who withdrew from the hiring process had significantly higher undergraduate GPAs, were 40 percent more likely to have a degree in their teaching field, and were significantly more likely to have completed educational coursework than new hires.  The authors observed three widespread hiring policies that tie the hands of the human resources department.  They include: 1) vacancy notification requirements, which allow retiring or resigning teachers to provide very late notice of their intent to depart; 2) teachers’ union transfer requirements, which stall hiring by giving existing teachers the first pick of openings before any new teacher can be hired; and 3) late budget timetables and inadequate forecasting, which foster chronic budget uncertainties and leave administrators unsure about which positions will be funded in their schools.  These three policy barriers seriously undermine efforts by urban school systems to turn quality applicants into teachers.

 

 

In this paper, the National Board presents its view of what teachers should know and be able to do – its convictions about what it values and believes should be honored in teaching. This expression of ideals guides all of the National Board's standards and assessment processes.  The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards seeks to identify and recognize teachers who effectively enhance student learning and demonstrate the high level of knowledge, skills, abilities and commitments reflected in their five core propositions.  The five core propositions are: 1) teachers are committed to students and their learning; 2) teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students; 3) teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning; 4) teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience; and 5) teachers are members of learning communities.

 

2002
Framework for Improving Teaching and Learning, Montgomery County Public Schools

 

Montgomery County Public Schools produced the Framework for Improving Teaching and Learning instrument in order to provide a research-based framework for quality conversations around the practice of teaching for improved student learning.  This document provides a framework for teaching on the following topics: instruction, professional learning communities, expectations, curriculum, and evidence of student learning.    

 

 

Good teachers are the backbone of any education system. That is why governments are constantly seeking teacher policies that will help them recruit and retain the best. This book provides a comprehensive international analysis of trends and developments in the teacher workforce in 25 countries around the world; research on attracting, developing, and retaining effective teachers; innovative and successful policies and practices that countries have implemented; and teacher policy options for countries to consider. The book also provides positive examples of where policies are making a difference. It spotlights countries where teachers’ social standing is high, and where there are more qualified applicants than vacant posts. Even in countries where shortages have been a concern, there are recent signs of increased interest in teaching, and policy initiatives appear to be taking effect.  At a time when many countries are facing an aging teaching workforce and having trouble attracting new recruits, this book provides insights into how governments can successfully deal with these issues.

 

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