[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SUPPORTING AMERICA'S EDUCATORS: THE
IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY TEACHERS AND LEADERS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 4, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-60
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
Available on the Internet:
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice John Kline, Minnesota,
Chairman Senior Republican Member
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia California
Lynn C. Woolsey, California Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Carolyn McCarthy, New York Mark E. Souder, Indiana
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Judy Biggert, Illinois
David Wu, Oregon Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Susan A. Davis, California Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Tom Price, Georgia
Timothy H. Bishop, New York Rob Bishop, Utah
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
David Loebsack, Iowa Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Tom McClintock, California
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania Duncan Hunter, California
Phil Hare, Illinois David P. Roe, Tennessee
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania
Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio
Jared Polis, Colorado
Paul Tonko, New York
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Northern Mariana Islands
Dina Titus, Nevada
Judy Chu, California
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director
Barrett Karr, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 4, 2010...................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Castle, Hon. Michael N., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Delaware...................................... 5
Chu, Hon. Judy, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California:
Letters from the Indiana State Teachers Association...... 88
Questions submitted for the record....................... 94
Guthrie, Hon. Brett, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Kentucky, prepared statement of................... 93
Kildee, Hon. Dale E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan.......................................... 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
McMorris Rodgers, Hon. Cathy, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Washington, questions submitted for the
record..................................................... 95
Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and
Labor...................................................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Statement of Witnesses:
Ball, Deborah, dean, School of Education, University of
Michigan................................................... 15
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
Responses to questions submitted......................... 95
Bennett, Tony, superintendent, Indiana Office of Public
Instruction................................................ 65
Prepared statement of.................................... 67
Response to question submitted........................... 96
Burns, Jeanne M., associate commissioner for teacher and
leadership initiatives, Louisiana Board of Regents......... 59
Prepared statement of.................................... 60
Response to question submitted........................... 98
Kaplan, Jonathan A., president, Walden University............ 72
Prepared statement of.................................... 73
Parker-McElroy, Marie, cluster-based instructional coach,
Fairfax County Public Schools.............................. 43
Prepared statement of.................................... 44
Response to question submitted........................... 101
Salazar, Pamela S., associate professor of practice,
department of educational leadership, University of Nevada,
Las Vegas.................................................. 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 22
Response to question submitted........................... 102
Steinhauser, Christopher J., superintendent of schools, Long
Beach Unified School District (CA)......................... 50
Prepared statement of.................................... 51
Responses to questions submitted......................... 104
Thompson, Monique Burns, president, Teach Plus............... 46
Prepared statement of.................................... 47
Responses to questions submitted......................... 100
Weingarten, Randi, president, American Federation of Teachers 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 11
Additional submissions:
Editorial from the New York Times, May 3, 2010: ``The
New Haven Model''.................................. 10
Responses to questions submitted..................... 105
Winters, Marcus A., senior fellow, Manhattan Institute for
Policy Research............................................ 24
Prepared statement of.................................... 26
Response to question submitted........................... 106
SUPPORTING AMERICA'S EDUCATORS:
THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY
TEACHERS AND LEADERS
----------
Thursday, May 4, 2010
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC
----------
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in room
2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. George Miller
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Kildee, Woolsey, McCarthy,
Tierney, Kucinich, Wu, Holt, Davis, Loebsack, Hirono, Clarke,
Courtney, Polis, Chu, Petri, Castle, Biggert, Roe, and
Thompson.
Staff Present: Andra Belknap, Press Assistant; Calla Brown,
Staff Assistant, Education; Jody Calemine, General Counsel;
Jamie Fasteau, Senior Education Policy Advisor; Denise Forte,
Director of Education Policy; David Hartzler, Systems
Administrator; Liz Hollis, Special Assistant to Staff Director/
Deputy Staff Director; Sadie Marshall, Chief Clerk; Bryce
McKibben, Staff Assistant, Education; Charmaine Mercer, Senior
Education Policy Advisor; Alex Nock, Deputy Staff Director;
Lillian Pace, Policy Advisor, Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Elementary and Secondary Education; Kristina Peterson,
Legislative Fellow, Education; Alexandria Ruiz, Administrative
Assistant to Director of Education Policy; Melissa Salmanowitz,
Press Secretary; Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director; Stephanie
Arras, Minority Legislative Assistant; James Bergeron, Minority
Deputy Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Kirk
Boyle, Minority General Counsel; Casey Buboltz, Minority
Coalitions and Member Services Coordinator; Amy Raaf Jones,
Minority Higher Education Counsel & Senior Advisor; Brian
Newell, Minority Press Secretary; Susan Ross, Minority Director
of Education and Human Services Policy; Mandy Schaumburg,
Minority Education Policy Counsel; and Linda Stevens, Minority
Chief Clerk/Assistant to the General Counsel.
Chairman Miller. A quorum being present, the Committee on
Education and Labor will come to order.
Today is National Teachers Day, and this is a day and a
week when we honor amazing teachers and all teachers in this
country and all those who hopefully aspire to be teachers.
At today's hearing, we will explore the urgent issue of how
we can best support teachers and leaders in schools and, by
doing so, support students in our economic recovery. Of all the
factors involved in giving children a good education, none is
more important than their teachers. School leaders are a close
second. Yet despite its unique role of helping shape our future
generations, we still don't treat teachers as professionals.
We all know the stories of incredible teachers who are
having success in closing the achievement gap, keeping kids in
schools, and helping students excel, but 14 percent of the
teachers stop teaching after their first year. More than a
third leave after 3 years, and almost 50 percent leave within 5
years. It is clear that we have to do a much better job of
recruiting, retaining, rewarding, and supporting excellent
teachers and leaders.
We have to do a much better job of making the classroom
reflect a modern workplace, and we have to do a much better job
at ensuring that teacher talent is distributed equally in a
district so that students who need the best teachers have
access to them.
In almost every school district across the country, the
schools and students most in need of funding often get the
fewest resources. Children in the highest poverty, high
minority schools are assigned to teachers without strong
backgrounds in their subject matter at twice the rate as
children in wealthier schools. This leads us with an
embarrassing and persistent achievement gap in this country and
poses a real threat to our economic recovery and to our global
competitiveness.
Too often in this country, poor and minority students are
on a trajectory toward failure without access to great schools
or great teachers. On average, African American and Hispanic
students reach fourth grade 3 years behind their white peers.
Only slightly more than half the Hispanic and African American
students graduate high school on time compared to over three-
quarters of the white students.
High school drop-outs can have an enormous economic impact
on our local communities and on our Nation as a whole. In fact,
one high school drop out will cost the Nation more than a
quarter million dollars in lost wages, taxes and productivity
over the course of his or her lifetime. All together, drop-outs
in classes in the class of 2008 will cost this country nearly
$319 billion in wages over their lifetime.
But research shows that given the right resources, we can
change the fortune for many of these students. In Los Angeles,
for example, a study shows us that if the district were to
replace the least effective teachers with the most effective
teachers for 4 years, it would completely close the achievement
gap. That is stunning. And we will examine whether or not it is
true. These studies, you gotta love them.
Excellent teachers are the key to success in our schools.
But we won't be able to resolve the many challenges facing our
schools unless we change the way we treat teachers, talk about
teachers, and think about teachers. To help attract and retain
bright teaching talent, we need to make the teaching workplace
more like what other young workers expect, to be treated like
professionals, with respect, recognition, resources to do their
job and to be able to collaborate with their peers.
Other countries have recognized this. In Finland, as we
heard here recently in this city, teachers are recruited from
the top 10 percent of their graduating class. Teaching is the
most sought-out profession for the highest-achieving college
students, more so than law and medicine. But none of this
happens on its own. It has to be part of a comprehensive and
seismic shift in our discussions about the future of our
education system in this country, and we need our teachers to
help us shape that discussion.
We already made great progress with some of these reforms
in the Recovery Act in the Race to the Top, and districts are
now being challenged to make progress in turning around the
lowest-performing schools, implementing data systems linked to
better assessments and fairly and equally distributing teacher
talent.
These reforms will only be successful if they are done with
teachers, not done to teachers. At every step of the way,
teachers must have a seat at the table. We need to reward
teachers whose students are making significant gains in the
classrooms. We need to provide teachers with the means and the
time to help share their skills with less experienced teachers.
And we need to encourage team effort in the schools.
We also need to be smarter about where principals are
placed in the district. Research shows that a leader's skills
should be set to match the needs of a school, especially if it
relates to turning around schools. If we are serious about
closing the achievement gap and ending the high school drop-out
crisis, about regaining our global competitiveness in the
world, then we will have to take a serious look at supporting
teachers.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about
what we can do to create modern teaching workplaces that will
help every teacher and every student succeed. And I thank all
of them for being here today.
But I just want to add a note that if you review the
testimony, in the beginning of almost every set of testimonies
today, you have all told us that the teacher is the most
important person in this scheme of education that we have in
this country. And those very same people now are looking at a
series of layoffs due to a financial situation and economic
condition that was not of their making. The financial scandals
of Wall Street have stripped local communities of the tax
revenues that they historically rely on to finance schools;
local taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, as do the States. But
because of the down turn in the economy, sales taxes are down,
properties are being reassessed, revenues are being lost, at
the State level and at the local school district level.
So I think we also have to be very cognizant of that. I
have introduced legislation. Senator Harkin has introduced
legislation to try and stem to the extent that we can those
layoffs. It is estimated that somewhere between 250,000 to
300,000 teachers, really school personnel, not just teachers,
but others who are so important to the support and the running
of our local schools, are facing layoffs at the beginning of
the budget year this June.
And so I just think that that should be a backdrop because
our response and our support for teachers isn't just about
being in the classroom. It is about also the environment in
which they are called upon to work and the situations that they
are cast into, not only for themselves but many of their
students, obviously their families are suffering these same
kind of upsets because of the economic downturn. So I just
think it is important. I would hope that the Congress would
respond by providing assistance to districts to forestall these
layoffs this year, and I would also hope for next year, but we
shall see.
With that, I would like to recognize Congressman Castle,
the senior Republican at today's hearing, and the subcommittee
chair--ranking member to the Chair.
[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. George Miller, Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor
Good afternoon.
Today is National Teacher Day--a day when we should all be honoring
the amazing teachers in this country. But nationwide, almost a quarter
million educators are set to lose their jobs in the upcoming school
year.
In my district, close to one thousand education jobs are set to be
eliminated.
We won't be able to educate our way to a better economy, as
Secretary Duncan says, if our students are losing a year of learning in
the wake of these layoffs.
I've introduced the Local Jobs for America Act to help save
education jobs. The bill would invest $23 billion to support education
jobs, like teachers, janitors, cafeteria workers, guidance counselors
and principals.
I hope my colleagues on both sides of this committee room will
support this bill because the most important support we can give a
teacher, is to help them keep their jobs.
Today we'll explore the urgent issue of how we can best support
teachers and leaders in schools and, by doing so, support students and
our economic recovery.
Of all the factors involved in giving children a good education,
none is more important than their teacher. School leaders are a close
second.
Yet, despite their unique role in helping shape our future
generations, we still don't treat teachers as true professionals.
We all know stories of incredible teachers who are having success
in closing the achievement gap, keeping kids in school and helping
students excel.
But 14 percent of teachers stop teaching after their first year.
More than a third leave teaching after three years. Almost 50 percent
leave within five years.
It is clear we have to do a much better job at recruiting,
retaining and rewarding excellent teachers and leaders.
We have to do a much better job of making the classroom reflect a
modern workplace.
And we have to do a much better job at ensuring that teacher talent
is distributed equally in a district, so that the students who need the
best teachers have access to them.
In almost every school district across the country, the schools and
students most in need of funding often get the fewest resources.
Children in the highest poverty and high minority schools are
assigned to teachers without strong backgrounds in their subject matter
at twice the rate as children in wealthier schools.
This leaves us with an embarrassing and persistent achievement gap
in this country--and poses a real threat to our economic recovery and
our global competitiveness.
Too often in this country, poor and minority students are on a
trajectory toward failure without access to great schools or great
teachers.
On average, African American and Hispanic students reach fourth
grade three years behind their white peers.
Only slightly more than half of Hispanic and African American
students graduate high school on time compared with over three quarters
of white students.
High school dropouts can have an enormous economic impact on our
nation as a whole.
In fact, one high school dropout will cost the nation more than a
quarter of a million dollars in lost wages, taxes and productivity over
the course of his or her lifetime.
Altogether, dropouts from the class of 2008 will cost this country
nearly $319 billion wages over their lifetimes.
But research shows that given the right resources, we can change
this fortune for these students.
In Los Angeles, for example, one study shows that if the district
were to replace the least effective teachers with the most effective
teachers for four years, it would completely close the achievement gap.
That's stunning.
Excellent teachers are the key to success in our schools.
But we won't be able to solve the many challenges facing our
schools unless we change the way we treat teachers, talk about teachers
and think about teachers.
To help attract and retain bright teaching talent, we'll need to
make the teaching workplace look more like what other young workers
expect: To be treated like professionals, with the respect,
recognition, and resources needed to do their jobs.
Other countries have already recognized this.
In Finland for example, teachers are recruited from the top 10
percent of their graduating class. Teaching is the most sought out
profession for the highest achieving college students--more so than law
or medicine.
But none of this can happen on its own. It has to be part of a
comprehensive and seismic shift in our discussions about the future of
our education system in this country. And we need our teachers to help
shape this discussion.
We've already made great progress with some of these reforms in the
Recovery Act and Race to the Top. States and districts are now being
challenged to make progress in turning around the lowest-performing
schools, implementing data systems linked with better assessments and
fairly and equally distributing teacher talent.
These reforms will only be successful if they are done with
teachers--not to teachers. At every step of the way, teachers must have
a seat at the table.
We need to reward teachers whose students are making significant
gains in the classroom. We need to provide teachers with the means and
the time to help share their skills with less experienced teachers. And
we need to encourage a team effort in schools.
We also need to be smarter about where principals are placed in a
district. Research shows that a leader's skill set should match the
needs of a school, especially as it relates to turning around schools.
If we're serious about closing the achievement gap, about ending
the high school dropout crisis, about regaining our global
competitiveness in the world, then we have to be serious about
supporting teachers.
I look forward to hearing from witnesses today about how we can
create a modern teaching workplace that will help every teacher and
every student succeed. Thank you for being here today.
______
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was shocked at your--a couple of comments that you had
concerning the studies that we get up here. I always thought
they were all perfect, and we were supposed to just assume that
when we got them. But you are right; they are not.
I would like to also welcome the witnesses in both panels
here today and offer my thanks for your participation at this
hearing today.
We are here today, as the chairman set forth, to look at
the importance of quality teachers and explore ways to support
the best educators for our kids.
No one denies the success of our education system depends
largely upon the quality of classroom instruction. Students
deserve the most effective teachers because their future
achievement may well depend upon the caliber of men or women
standing before them in the classroom. Academic research has
confirmed that students with excellent teachers excel, while
those assigned to teachers who are less effective sadly lag
behind.
As Federal policy makers, we have a responsibility to help
ensure teachers are equipped and trained to perform well in the
classroom. This is a responsibility we share with State and
local leaders, who stand at the forefront of education policy.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how we
can support the efforts already underway that work and reform
those that do not.
For years, Republicans in Congress have championed
programs, such as the Teacher Incentive Fund, to improve
teacher effectiveness in the classroom and reward effective
teachers. Republicans also believe in letting teachers teach,
which means trusting the wisdom of the educators on the front
lines and not the wisdom of bureaucrats in Washington.
The administration has included a number of proposals in
their blueprint for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act that touch upon teacher performance, and I am
sure those proposals will be a part of our discussion today as
well.
We need to look into these issues more closely so we can
move forward with reauthorization in a way that is responsible
and that serves the best interest of students.
In closing, let me say, there is no one-size-fits-all
Federal solution to ensuring an effective teacher is in every
classroom. But there are ways that Congress can learn from our
partners at the State and local level, encourage innovation
around the country, and remove harmful barriers at the Federal
level that stand in the way of student achievement.
We must ensure that our efforts in Washington, DC, do not
undermine the ability for teachers and principals to make
decisions that best suit their students' unique needs.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing.
And thank you to the witnesses for being with us this
afternoon.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
I would like now to introduce our witnesses--excuse me. Mr.
Kildee has a statement.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I really thank you for calling this hearing today. Today's
hearing comes at a critical time in our work to reauthorize the
elementary and secondary education. I still hold hope that we
can finish this, this year. I know that there is much work to
be done, and those that are testifying today will play a very
major role.
We really need to talk to our teachers, and I do that
regularly, those individuals that work on the front lines of
our education system and care about the success of the
students. I am pleased to see a number of those professionals
here today participating in the hearing. I have met with
countless teachers since I left teaching myself 45 years ago. I
got my master's degree at the University of Michigan, and I
appreciate all the work that is done at the University of
Michigan.
Many of these teachers are frustrated by the conflict
between the mounting Federal requirements and shrinking
budgets. We certainly are seeing that this year. I see programs
being level funded, even though more students are
participating, which means less per student. You can't really
justify level funding when there is an increase even in the
customers who come in. We have to give our teachers the tools.
We have to give them the education.
That is why we have people like yourself in this panel here
who are involved in the education of teachers.
There are two things you have to look at in educating a
teacher: First of all, that they know the various methods of
communicating to those students and also that they know well
the subject matter. I know when I got my master's degree at the
University of Michigan from the Rackham School, I was teaching
Latin. So I learned some things about teaching, great things
about teaching, but I also, under Dr. Sweet, who was chairman
of the Classical Language Department, dug deeper into Latin, so
I would know my subject matter.
And I think those two things, I think, Dr. Ball, you will
have something to say about that.
So I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Kildee follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Dale E. Kildee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Michigan
Thank you Mr. Chairman for calling this important hearing.
Today's hearing comes at a critical time in our work to reauthorize
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. A large part of the debate
so far has centered on the role of our teachers and leaders. As a
former teacher, I could not agree more.
However, we cannot expect our teachers and leaders to reform our
schools alone. They will need resources, quality professional
development, the support of community partners, and above all--our
respect.
As we talk about turning around low-performing schools, developing
teacher and leader evaluation systems, and closing the achievement gap,
we should listen to the ideas of our education professionals.
These individuals work on the front lines of our education system
and care about the success of the students they serve. I am pleased to
see a number of these professionals participating in the hearing today.
I have met with countless teachers and leaders since the last
reauthorization of ESEA and the messages are often the same.
They are frustrated by the conflict between mounting federal
requirements and shrinking budgets. Many feel they lack proper pre-
service training and on-the-job professional development to make a real
difference in the classroom. And nearly all report unsatisfactory
working conditions; whether it's crumbling facilities, outdated
technology, a dangerous school climate, or all of the above.
Instead of a system that appears to work against them, these
teachers and leaders need help developing a system that works for them,
and the students they serve.
Through collaboration, I believe we can establish an education
system based on continuous improvement. A system that empowers these
professionals to turn their schools around together and a system that
ensures educators are ready when they enter the classroom and receive
real-time feedback and targeted professional development to grow in the
field.
This may take some time and significant resources, but I think we
all agree--the stakes are too high to fall short of this goal.
As today's discussion will show, the time has come for change. We
must embrace this together and strive for solutions that improve the
teaching and learning environment for all.
I want to join my colleagues in thanking the witnesses for their
time today. I am sure your insights will inspire a productive
discussion.
With that, I now yield back my remaining time.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Thank you very much Mr. Kildee.
I would like now to introduce our witnesses, and again,
welcome and thank you for your time and your expertise.
Our first witness will be President Randi Weingarten, who
is the president of the 1.4 million member American Federation
of Teachers, a long-time voice for America's teachers. She also
served as AFT's vice president and was for 12 years the
president of the United Federation of Teachers. She will talk
to us about how to support teachers, professional learning
environments, and working conditions.
And our next witness will be Dr. Deborah Ball, who I
believe Mr. Kildee is going to introduce.
Mr. Kildee. Yes. Thank you.
Deborah Ball is Dean, Mr. Chairman, of the School of
Education and the William H. Payne Collegiate Professor at the
University of Michigan, where President Obama was just
Saturday, as another President had been I think 50 years
before.
She has received national attention for helping overhaul
the University's teaching education program. The new initiative
aims to improve teacher effectiveness by giving teacher
candidates more training in the field. Dr. Ball is also the
founder of the U. Of M. Mathematics Teaching and Learning to
Teach Project, which focuses on mathematics instruction and
interventions designed to improve its quality and
effectiveness.
Dr. Ball has authored or coauthored over 150 publications
and has lectured or made numerous major presentations around
the world. Her research has been recognized with several awards
and honors, and she has served on several national and
international commissions and panels focused on policy
initiatives and the improvement of education, including the
National Mathematics Advisory Panel. And I welcome her today.
Chairman Miller. Welcome.
Our next witness will be Dr. Pamela Salazar, who is
associate professor in the Educational Leadership Department at
the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She specializes in
research on principalship and instructional leadership,
professional development and school improvement. She also has
authored the book, ``High Impact Leadership for High Impact
Schools,'' which has been adopted by many school districts
throughout the country for principal leadership training
programs. Today she will talk to us about her research,
including which leaders work well in what schools and
leadership teams.
Mr. Marcus Winters is a senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute and conducts research and writes extensively on
education policy, including topics such as school choice, high
school graduation rates, accountability, and special education.
He has performed several studies on high stakes testing,
performance pay for teachers, and the effects of vouchers on
the public schools system, and his research has been published
in many educational journals.
Welcome to all of you. Those of you who have been here
before know that when you begin your testimony, a green light
will go on; about 4 minutes into your testimony an orange light
will go on; and 5 minutes, a red light will go on, and we
suggest that you wrap up your testimony.
We have two panels today. I am going to try to get through
both panels inside of 3 hours. I don't know how many members
will be coming and going. We have some other briefings later
this afternoon that I am worried about on the oil spill and
some other activities going on.
And what I will do is, we will go for a period of time, and
if others come, we will try to go through the first panel, have
everybody have a question. But if we aren't able to do that,
then we will pick up with a question with the people who
haven't had a question on the first panel with the second
panel.
I think you will see that this focus of these two panels on
teaching is really about how we support teachers in the
broadest sense but coming from a number of different angles.
And so, obviously, we will make witnesses available for written
questions or follow up that members want to do, but I just want
to make sure we can fit both panels in prior to other
interruptions that we may have later this afternoon.
With that, President Weingarten, welcome, thank you for
your time, and we look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION
OF TEACHERS
Ms. Weingarten. Thank you, Chairman Miller.
Thank you, Congressman Castle.
Thank you other committee members for the invitation to
testify on the reauthorization of the ESEA, particularly as it
relates to teachers. And I know that Chairman Miller has
already said this, but I need to commend him and the House for
the leadership and commitment to passing the Local Jobs for
Main Street Act, because the bill will counter the staggering
cuts we are seeing to education budgets across the Nation.
We can't move forward with reform when we are in this kind
of dire economic downturn as it is affecting schools and
teachers and kids. And what we are seeing is as many as 300,000
educators nationwide will probably be laid off because of this
economic downturn. So, towards this end, in Teacher
Appreciation Week, today, and Teacher Appreciation Day, we have
launched the campaign of ``Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips'' to
draw attention to these layoffs and the devastating impact they
will have on our students and schools. And we have many, many
buttons for anyone in this room, particularly Members of
Congress, who may want to wear them.
So, look, let me get back to the matter at hand. Every
child should have access to a great public education. But
students will not do well in school if they are not taught by
well prepared and engaged teachers. At the same time, neither
students nor their teachers can succeed unless, one, teachers
are supported by competent administrators who understand not
simply the value but the necessity of collaboration; two, the
environment in which they are asked to learn and teach is safe,
appropriately staffed and well equipped; and three, there is
shared responsibility, not simply top-down accountability.
It is often said that great teachers are not born; they are
made. However, our Nation's approach to teacher quality
suggests that we actually believe the converse is true, that
great teachers are fully born, ready, willing, and able, and
forward prepared for that role.
The truth of the matter is that good teaching is an art
built upon a firm foundation. We have to begin, and I know that
there are several others on this panel who will talk to this
issue, but we have to begin by making sure that teachers get
good preparation in the schools they attend. High quality
induction programs for new teachers should be required for all
districts and should be developed collaboratively by teachers
and administrators.
Once teachers are in the classroom, they should receive
ongoing, embedded, relevant professional development that is
part and parcel of a valid evaluation system. As you see, the
AFT has been now trying to merge both development and
evaluation together in a continuous development and evaluation
system, so that we don't simply provide snapshots, but that
systems can be used to inform teaching and learning.
Now, ultimately, these factors, meaning ensuring that we
support good teaching, are obviously not divorced from what
students need to succeed. But I would also press upon looking
at the out-of-school factors because we know that they are
relevant as well in terms of how a child performs.
Now, you know we have focused on ways to improve teacher
development and evaluation programs. We know we have to focus
on out-of-school environment issues. We know that there are
ways to help ensure that teachers come to hard-to-staff
schools. We know how to do a lot of this.
So let me, before my time is up, let me just focus on two
little things, or two things that we have just done. Take the
contract and the evaluation system that the teachers and school
system just bargained in New Haven. What it demonstrates
through collaboration and collective bargaining, that you can
use those to secure tools to create systemic and transformative
change. And we have asked for the editorial about the New Haven
contract that just showed up in yesterday's New York Times to
be part of the record.
[The information follows:]
[From the New York Times, May 3, 2010]
The New Haven Model
To improve the quality of schools, districts need a rigorous system
for evaluating the quality of teaching--rewarding teachers who do their
jobs best and retraining or removing those who fail their students. The
city of New Haven and the American Federation of Teachers deserve high
praise for the new teacher training and evaluation system they unveiled
earlier this week.
The proposal, which deserves swift approval from the board, shows
what can go right when school districts and unions work together.
In most schools today, teacher evaluations are not worthy of the
name. An administrator typically observes the teacher at work once or
twice during the year. Nearly every teacher passes--even at the most
dismal schools. Struggling teachers rarely get the help they need to
improve. Once they are tenured, it is nearly impossible to dislodge
them.
The New Haven system would completely rebuild the evaluation
process. Instructional managers, mainly principals and assistant
principals, will be assigned to teachers to help them lay out academic
goals and development plans. These managers will then meet with the
teachers throughout the year to give detailed feedback.
At the end of the year, teachers will receive a rating, on a 1-to-5
scale, based on how much students learn, how well teachers do their
jobs and how well they collaborate with colleagues.
Teachers rated a 5, or exemplary, will be eligible for promotion to
leadership positions, in which they share their skills with colleagues.
Teachers who are rated at the 2 level, which means they are
``developing,'' must improve within a reasonable but limited span of
time if they wish to keep their jobs. Teachers who are rated at the 1
level will receive intensive guidance and coaching. If they do not
improve they can be dismissed as soon as the end of the school year.
New Haven will need to reallocate resources for this system to
work. It will need to start by shifting some of the burden for school
operations from principals to lower-level administrators, so that
principals can invest more time in novice or struggling teachers.
Many high-performing charter schools have already adopted similar
systems, with measurable success. If New Haven moves ahead, it could
quickly find itself at the forefront of the national effort to improve
the caliber of instruction in the public schools.
______
Ms. Weingarten. In terms of professional development, we
think that if we have grant programs for teacher centers that
provide comprehensive professional development, information on
research and curricula, assistance for new and veteran
teachers, and an opportunity for teachers to direct their own
professional growth, that will help hugely.
Lastly, I want to focus on evaluation systems. The ESEA
reauthorization should establish a pilot program for LEAs that
allow for the collaborative development and implementation of
transparent and fair teacher development and evaluation
systems. The goal of such a pilot is to develop more dynamic
evaluation systems and learn from them. Instead of relying on
inadequate measures, like a single student test score, we have
to take the time to develop these systems.
And ultimately, again, I go back to what we just did in New
Haven. This is the best model that I have seen. We have used
collective bargaining in a way to transform an entire district
through the transformation of their development and evaluation
system. And I know if you create the opportunity for us to
create those pilots to do that, we will transform teaching and
learning in this Nation.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Ms. Weingarten follows:]
Prepared Statement of Randi Weingarten, President,
American Federation of Teachers
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Kline and committee members, I am
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers
(AFT). Thank you for inviting me to testify on the reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), particularly as it
relates to teachers.
Before I begin, I would like to thank Chairman Miller for his
leadership and commitment to passing the Local Jobs for Main Street
Act, a bill that will help local communities preserve jobs for
educators, avoid increasing class sizes and shortening school days, and
maintain core academic programs that help the students who need them
most. The school budget cut situation is devastating, the worst it has
been in anyone's memory. Current projections show that by the end of
this school year as many as 300,000 educators nationwide will be laid
off because of the dire financial situation facing states and
localities. We are doing all that we can to reverse this, and I know
many of you are, too. Toward that end, and as part of Teacher
Appreciation Week, the AFT is launching a campaign--``Pink Hearts, Not
Pink Slips''--to draw attention to these layoffs and the devastating
impact they will have on our students and on our schools and
communities.
``Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips'' is our way to raise awareness among
parents, the public and the media about what school districts and
colleges are facing now and will continue to face in the next school
year. We are encouraging as many people as possible to wear a pink
heart on May 4 to help spread our message. I have brought a bag of
buttons--enough for everyone on the committee.
I can tell you firsthand that these cuts are serious. I recently
visited California, where the cuts will be nothing short of
catastrophic for the state's public school students. I visited El
Dorado Elementary School in San Francisco, where 13 of 20 teachers
received layoff notices in March. The teachers there were most
concerned about what will happen to the school and its students who are
low-income, if it loses so many teachers. I was also proud to join more
than 10,000 teachers, school employees, parent and community groups on
the last leg of their 48-day, 365-mile ``March for California's
Future.'' Like the teachers at El Dorado, the marchers weren't thinking
about themselves, they were marching for children's futures. Finally,
during a visit to New Mexico in early April, I participated in a town
hall meeting in Albuquerque. Our leaders and members there echoed many
of the fears and concerns expressed in California about budget cuts and
their impact on teachers and students.
There's another point I'd like to make. Every child should have
access to a great public education. And all public schools--whether
they are charter schools (where 3 percent of our public school children
are educated) or non-charter public schools (where 97 percent of these
children are educated)--should have high standards and real
accountability. But it seems to me that the weight of our efforts, our
resources and our support should be on the schools that educate 97
percent of our kids.
Students will not do well in school if they are not taught by well-
prepared and engaged teachers. At the same time, neither students nor
their teachers can succeed unless (1.) the teachers are supported by
competent administrators who understand not simply the value but also
the necessity of collaboration; (2.) the environment in which they are
asked to learn and teach is safe, appropriately staffed and equipped;
and (3.) there is shared responsibility--not top-down accountability.
The AFT firmly believes in and is committed to the proposition that
high standards and expectations must be set for students and teachers.
We know, however, that it makes no sense to simply set standards. We
have to provide students and teachers with the tools they need to help
meet those standards. That is why the last movement to create high
standards and expectations didn't work as well as any of our leaders
and members would have wanted. And as the agreements in the District of
Columbia and New Haven, Conn., suggest, collective bargaining can be an
important vehicle to securing these tools.
It is often said that great teachers are not born, they are made.
Despite the frequency with which this is said, our nation's approach to
teacher quality suggests that we believe the converse is true--that
great teachers are born fully prepared for the role. The truth of the
matter is that good teaching is an art built upon a firm foundation. We
must begin by making sure teachers receive good preparation in the
schools that they attend. This is something the AFT addressed more than
12 years ago in our report, ``Building a Profession.'' Graduation from
teacher education or alternative certification programs should not be
considered the end of teachers' training. New teachers need time to
develop the skills and experience necessary for independent practice in
their initial teaching assignments, including the skills necessary to
work effectively with paraprofessionals and other support staff. To do
this, high-quality induction programs for new teachers should be
required for all districts and should be developed collaboratively by
teachers and administrators.
These induction programs should provide for a reduced workload, to
allow time for professional development activities--activities such as
observing master teachers, talking with colleagues about teaching and
learning, and responding to the guidance offered by mentors who review
the novice teachers' practice and recommend strategies to improve their
classroom performance. Such programs should include a high-quality
selection process to identify and train mentor teachers; adequate
training and compensation for these mentors; and time for them to
genuinely teach, support and evaluate beginning teachers.
And once teachers are in the classroom, they should receive
ongoing, embedded professional development that is part and parcel of a
valid evaluation system. We have proposed the overhaul of existing
systems so they don't simply provide snapshots but can be used to
inform teaching and learning.
These requirements are not divorced from what students need to
succeed: They are an integral part--along with out-of-classroom
factors--in determining how well our students perform.
This reauthorization of ESEA presents an opportunity to improve
teacher development and evaluation programs; to appropriately address
school-environment issues that limit efforts to attract teachers to
hard-to-staff schools and impede teaching and learning; and to help
narrow the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged
students.
ESEA should also help ensure that teachers have the tools, time and
trust they need to succeed, including offering teachers and students an
environment that sets everyone up for success. Professional learning
environments should include small classes, solid curriculum, healthy
and adequate facilities (incorporating the most current technology),
and opportunities for parental involvement. These are components that
school systems should be held accountable for providing teachers and
students so they can succeed. Indeed, as the New Haven contract and the
evaluation systems that the teachers and school system just bargained
demonstrate, that combination of collaboration and collective
bargaining can create systemic and transformative change.
It is also critically important that teachers have the time to
share, grow and work together so they can resolve student issues, share
lesson plans, analyze student work, discuss and replicate what works,
and avoid replicating what isn't working. We need to create a school
environment that allows students to be supported by a team of teachers
and administrators, not just the one teacher standing in front of the
classroom.
One AFT priority (others are included in our formal
recommendations), is to establish through ESEA a discretionary grant
program for teacher centers that provide comprehensive professional
development, information on research and curricula, and assistance for
new and veteran teachers. Teacher centers also would provide an
opportunity for teachers to direct their own professional growth, as
well as to collaborate with their colleagues, community groups,
foundations and universities on school improvement efforts. Programs
would be funded through local education agencies (LEAs) and developed
in collaboration with teachers unions. In New York City, teacher
centers were a crucial part of the Chancellor's District, a program
that resulted in significant gains in student achievement.
The reauthorization also should refocus the law on improving the
quality of instruction by incorporating research-based professional
development as well as curricular supports for teachers and
paraprofessionals. In addition, a separate class-size reduction program
with a concentrated formula for sending funds to high-poverty schools
should be restored. This is important to students and their parents--as
well as to teachers. Teachers will tell you this is critical to help
them differentiate instruction for students and, in general, to help
them know their students and their needs.
Much has been written about how to staff schools that struggle.
Attracting and retaining qualified teachers for low-performing schools
cannot be accomplished simply by forcing teachers to transfer or
offering to pay them more. Report after report--including those that
survey teachers, such as the recent Gates study--makes this point
abundantly clear. Instead, ESEA should provide federal funding to help
districts make the schools attractive places in which students can
learn and teachers can teach. How can this be accomplished? First,
physical plant and other working conditions need to be addressed,
including creating a safe environment for employees and students.
Second, meaningful professional development with ongoing instructional
supports must be in place. Finally, ESEA should guarantee that teachers
have a voice and an established role in developing and implementing
policies that affect their students, profession and schools.
In addition to supporting efforts to attract and retain qualified
teachers, the AFT believes we need to take a serious look at how to
improve teacher evaluation systems. There is general and widespread
agreement that these systems do not work as currently constructed. The
AFT has spent a great deal of time on this, working with a task force
of our members and local and state leaders. We were helped in this
effort by an advisory group of top teacher-evaluation experts. The AFT
task force concluded, as outlined in a speech I gave earlier this year,
that the common ground on teacher quality is to create systems that
continuously develop and accurately evaluate teachers on an ongoing
basis. Unfortunately, poorly constructed evaluation systems miss a
prime opportunity to systematically improve teacher practice and
advance student learning. In addition, the current systems, despite
their deficiencies, too often form the basis for many consequential
decisions, such as whether a teacher is deemed to be performing
satisfactorily, receives tenure, or is dismissed for what is determined
to be poor performance.
To begin to develop adequate teacher development and evaluation
systems, the ESEA reauthorization should establish a pilot program for
LEAs that allows for the collaborative development and implementation
of transparent and fair teacher development and evaluation systems.
These models should aim to continuously advance and inform teaching as
a means to improve student learning. The focus of such systems should
be on developing and supporting great teachers, not simply on
evaluating them. Investing in teachers and providing them with
requisite supports must go hand in hand with the development and
implementation of evaluation systems. These systems should be
negotiated with the collective bargaining representatives or exclusive
recognized representatives of teachers, and should include multiple
measures of teaching practice as well as multiple measures of student
learning. The key--as was the case in New Haven--is to bargain the
systems, and if no bargaining exists, to ensure that teachers' voices
are heard. To do otherwise means that once again these systems will
devolve to pro forma checklists or ``gotchas''--essentially the status
quo. And these systems should drive support for teachers throughout
their careers by including induction, mentoring, ongoing professional
development and career opportunities.
The goal of such a pilot is to develop more dynamic evaluation
systems and learn from them. Instead of relying on inadequate measures
like a single student test score, the goal must be to develop systems
to help promising teachers improve, enable good teachers to become
great, and identify those teachers who shouldn't be in the classroom at
all. To adequately do this, we must take the time, with teachers, to
develop a system of professional growth and evaluation that reflects
the sophistication and importance of their work. Any valid evaluation
pilot will consider both outputs (test data, student work) and inputs
(school environment, resources, professional development). And it must
deconstruct what is working and should be replicated, as well as what
isn't working and should be abandoned.
Let me give you a firsthand example of why developing such pilots
is so important. Recently, the New Haven Federation of Teachers and the
New Haven school district were able to negotiate a breakthrough
contract that sets out a new teacher evaluation system.
The contract establishes a labor-management committee to determine
what constitutes ``student progress'' and how much weight it should be
given in evaluations. The contract also establishes high-quality
intervention through a peer assistance and review program staffed by
full-time, union-selected educators, and reaffirms tenure and the
principle of fair dismissal for educators.
To provide the flexibility that supports innovation, the contract
also establishes a process for compensated changes to school working
conditions, such as extended school hours, if 75 percent of building
staff approve the change. And it authorizes conversion of up to three
underperforming schools into union-represented charter schools, with a
guarantee of no layoffs and full transfer rights for staff who wish to
work in other buildings.
ESEA should also provide a clearinghouse so that best practices
gleaned and implemented in the pilot projects can be disseminated
broadly, with the goal of widespread replication throughout America's
public schools.
We know that a natural outgrowth of teacher evaluation systems will
be differentiated compensation systems. We know from the firsthand
experience of our affiliates that differentiated compensation systems
developed and implemented with the full support and collaboration of
teachers can succeed. We have seen too many top-down plans fail because
they lacked teacher buy-in and collaboration.
If the goal of differentiated compensation systems is simply to
compensate teachers differently, systems can be easily developed that
sort teachers into ``effective'' and ``ineffective'' categories and
compensate them accordingly. But if the goal is to improve teaching and
learning, compensation systems must be one component of comprehensive
teacher development and evaluation that supports and nurtures
educators' growth as well as evaluates their performance and affects
their compensation.
As president of a labor union, it is my job to represent our
members, and I succeed in that job only when I help them do their jobs
well. They make it easy because of their extraordinary commitment to
providing their students with the best education possible.
Last summer, we asked our members the following question: When your
union deals with issues affecting both teaching quality and teachers'
rights, which of these should be the higher priority--working for
professional teaching standards and good teaching, or defending the job
rights of teachers who face disciplinary action? By a ratio of 4-to-1
(69 percent to 16 percent), AFT members chose working for professional
standards and good teaching as the higher priority.
No one should ever doubt that teachers want to do what's best for
their students, and they want to be treated as professionals. No
teacher--myself included--wants to work alongside ineffective teachers.
Schools are communities where we build on each other's work. When a
teacher is foundering, there are not only repercussions for the
students, but also for the teachers down the hall. When it comes to
those teachers who shouldn't be in the classroom, it is other teachers
who are the first to speak up.
They--and the AFT--want a fair, transparent and expedient process
to evaluate teachers so that those who need help receive it, and those
who don't improve after being provided with help can be counseled out
of the profession. Simply talking about ``bad teachers'' may give
comfort to some, or be a rhetorical response to the terrible budget
situation we now all face, but it does nothing to build a teacher
development and evaluation system that will support and strengthen good
teaching and great teachers. And that is why we will continue to speak
out against those who believe that simply subjectively removing
teachers is the answer, while they ignore the tough but important work
required to develop a more comprehensive teacher development and
evaluation system.
Imagine a system in which teachers have time to work together to
tackle issues around student learning, share lesson plans, analyze
student work, discuss successes and failures, and learn through high-
quality professional development. Imagine a system in which students
can't fall through the cracks--because they're backed by a team of
teachers, not just the one at the front of the room. I just saw that at
a school in Albuquerque, N.M.--Ernie Pyle Middle School--which is
turning around through collaboration among not just teachers but all
stakeholders.
In addition to tools and time, we must also foster a climate of
trust. Teachers must be treated as partners in reform, with a real
voice. Trust isn't something that you can write into a contract or
lobby into law. Trust is the natural outgrowth of collaboration and
communication, and it's the common denominator among schools, districts
and cities that have achieved success.
Teaching isn't magic. It's hard, rewarding work that requires
skill, patience, experience, love of children and support from others.
It can't be done well without all of the things I've talked about here,
nor can it be done well if students don't have their needs met outside
the classroom. It can't be done unless we invest in broad, deep and
engaging curricula that are aligned with the well-respected common core
standards and the yet-to-be-developed assessments. And it cannot be
done unless we provide wraparound services, where needed, to help
ensure that all students can perform on a level playing field that
allows them to compete with and overcome the negative impact of
poverty. We must have a system of 360degree accountability--real
demonstrable responsibility, reciprocity and collaboration--for all
those with an interest in the enterprise of education. We can't wish
our way to high-quality teaching and an education system that gives all
children, no matter their ZIP code, a great education. We have to
legislate, implement and support our way to those goals. This
reauthorization is an opportunity to do just that.
Thank you again for this opportunity to present the views of the
AFT and our more than 1.4 million members on this important matter.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Dr. Ball.
STATEMENT OF DEBORAH LOEWENBERG BALL, PH.D., DEAN, SCHOOL OF
EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ms. Ball. Good afternoon, Chairman Miller, Congressman
Castle, committee members, thank you very much for inviting me
to testify today. My goal this afternoon is to explain to you
what it would take to get effective teaching, teaching at scale
in all our Nation's classrooms. And although my argument
applies to the teaching portion in general, I am going to focus
my remarks this afternoon on beginning teachers.
I hope you will remember just two things from my testimony.
First, we let people into classrooms in this country without
knowing that they can perform, and the students who most need
good teaching are the least likely to get those teachers. This
is unethical.
Second, we actually do know how to change this, so I am
going to concentrate on explaining to you what the elements are
of what it would take to change this.
Let me make the problem as clear to you as possible.
We want to improve the learning of U.S. students, but we
don't have a system to supply skilled teachers to every
classroom. Right now, teachers are considered qualified simply
by participating in an approved program or completing an
academic major. This means that being qualified does not depend
on demonstrating that you can teach. Imagine if we allowed
pilots to earn licenses without assessing whether they could
fly or granted medical licenses to people who had merely
excelled in biology. What we currently do to supply teachers to
classrooms is dangerous for our Nation's students. It is not an
overstatement to tell you that this is a problem of crisis
proportions.
We must stop wasting energy debating whether teachers
recruited one way or another are more effective. My argument is
not an argument for or against either so-called traditional or
alternative pathways into teaching. What matters most is that
graduates of any pathway be capable of effective practice.
Many people have ideas about how to improve teaching. Some
think we should make it easier for people to enter the
classroom. Some propose that we fire bad teachers, pay good
ones more, or create incentives to recruit better teachers. And
although all of these may sound sensible to you, none of them
is sufficient to solve the core problem that ensuring that
every teacher in every classroom can do the work we are asking
of him or her.
There are two reasons why training--training--is crucial.
One has to do with the nature of the work of teaching itself,
and the other has to do with what I am going to call the scale
problem. First, despite how commonsense, commonplace it may
seem, teaching is far from simple work. I did it myself for
over 17 years, and so I speak from experience as well as from
the research I have done. Doing it well requires, as
Congressman Kildee said, detailed knowledge of the domain for
which you are responsible for teaching the students and a lot
of skill in making it learnable.
In my written testimony, I provided you with a simple
example of a math problem to give you some experience of the
difference between doing a math problem and knowing it well
enough so that you could teach fourth grade.
Teaching also requires good judgment and a tremendous
capacity to relate to a wide range of young people. It involves
a few other really important things, too, such as the ability
to manage a classroom, to interpret data on student
performance, to use appropriate instructional tasks, to conduct
a productive discussion with a group of 30 sometimes unwilling
young people, and to communicate with their parents.
By the way, it may be important for you to realize that
raising standards for K-12 education, which many States are
doing, will make teaching still more demanding. Teaching
complex academic skills and knowledge, not to mention preparing
students for working collaboratively in an increasingly
networked world, is considerably more difficult than teaching
basic skills.
So my first point is that teaching is complex work and
requires more than being smart and caring about kids.
Here is my second point. Building teaching quality is a
problem of massive scale. The teaching force numbers over 3.6
million. No other occupation in the United States even comes
close to that size. This means that we have to help large
numbers of regular Americans develop the ability to teach
effectively. Even if super smart and highly educated people
could teach effectively without training--and a few do, but
most don't--there simply aren't enough such people to fill
every classroom in this country. And in this next 5 years, we
are going to need many, many new teachers due to a massive wave
of retirement. Some estimates go as high as 1.7 million new
teachers in the next 7 years.
But there is hope. We do actually know what to do to fix
this. We must establish specific standards for teaching
practice and build a professionally valid licensure system.
Assessments would focus on teachers' content knowledge of the
kind I described a moment ago, their actual skill with working
with the instructional practices most important for students'
learning, and their persistence in working to make sure that
every one of their students learns. These assessments would be
substantially different from the ones we currently have in this
country which do not, for the most part, focus on the ability
to teach.
To prepare teachers for these standards, we would need to
design a system of high-quality rigorous training that is
centered on practice. This system would have three key
components: A curriculum focused on the highest leverage
instructional practices, and the specialized knowledge of the
academic domain that teachers are responsible to teach; second,
close practice and feedback in clinical settings so that
teachers can be deliberately taught and explicitly coached with
the skills to reach a wide range of learners; and third, highly
credible and predictive professional assessments of knowledge
and skill, so that no one enters a classroom without
demonstrated capacity for effective performance as a beginning
teacher.
In conclusion, students must have teachers who are prepared
to help them learn, not beginners who are struggling with their
responsibilities. Allowing teachers to learn on our young
people is unethical. Teaching is intricate work that can be
learned to high levels of skill with appropriate training. We
have not done that yet in this country through any approach. It
is time to mobilize the expertise, knowledge and will to build
a system that can supply skilled teachers to our Nation's
classrooms. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Ball follows:]
Prepared Statement of Deborah Ball, Dean, School of Education,
University of Michigan
My name is Deborah Ball. I am a former public school elementary
school teacher and currently professor and dean of the School of
Education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I
conduct research on mathematics teaching and learning. Every summer I
also teach mathematics to fifth grade students who are struggling in
school.
My goal is to provide you with an overview of the problem that is
often called ``teacher quality'' and to explain what it would take to
get high quality teaching at scale in our nation's classrooms.
I hope you will remember two things from my testimony:
First, what we are doing in this country is unethical. We let
people start teaching who have not yet demonstrated that they can
perform. And, further, the students who most need skillful and highly
effective teachers are least likely to get them.
Second, we know how to change this and must do so deliberately and
without delay. I will explain the key elements of what it will take.
Let me begin by explaining the problem that we must urgently try to
remedy: We do not have a coherent system to supply skilled teachers to
every classroom and to every student in this country. This is a problem
of crisis proportions when we consider the persistent underachievement
of American young people, and of schools that lack the resources and
expertise to prepare our youth for this rapidly changing global
society.
Every profession has this problem. There is a difference between
reading about how to put in an intravenous line and the first time one
tries to do it on a patient. Or landing an airplane in fog, rain, or
blowing snow using only the instrument panel. These skills take both
head knowledge and hand knowledge, and they take time to develop. In no
other profession in this country do we presume that people who are
trying something for the first time, or second, or third, can be given
full responsibility for the task or left alone to figure it out.
Many people have ideas about improving ``teacher quality.'' Some
proposals focus on how to identify and fire incompetent teachers.
Others seek to increase the pay of teachers who are effective in
producing student learning. Still others create incentives to attract
more bright people to the teaching profession. And some focus on
restricting the programs through which teachers may be prepared for
practice. Not one of these is sufficient to solve the core problem:
that of ensuring that every teacher, in every classroom, can do the
work we are asking of him or her. What we need is quality teaching.
This is a problem of training, both initial and continuing, and not
merely one of sanctions, rewards, or other incentives.
There are two reasons why: First, despite how commonplace it may
seem, teaching is far from simple work. Doing it well requires detailed
knowledge of the domain being taught and a great deal of skill in
making it learnable. It also requires good judgment and a tremendous
capacity to relate to a wide range of young people, understand culture,
context, and community, and manage a classroom. It requires
interpreting and using data to improve the effectiveness of
instruction. And as we seek to increase the academic standards and
demands that we want our young people to meet, the challenges of good
teaching will only escalate. Teaching complex academic skills and
knowledge, not to mention skills of collaboration, interaction, and
Second, building teaching quality is a problem of massive scale. The
teaching force numbers over 3.6 million--a staggering size. No other
occupation even comes close. This means that it is crucial that we
create high quality teacher education and professional development that
will help large numbers of regular people develop the ability to teach
effectively, whoever their students are. Simply recruiting bright
people to the profession or providing incentives to effective teachers
cannot come even close to solving the problem.
One problem is that although one needs to know the domain really
well, accomplished experts and very smart people are not automatically
good at making their expertise explicit to others. And they can have a
really hard time figuring out how someone else is thinking.
The following simple example illustrates my point. Compute the
basic multiplication problem 49 times 25. The answer? 1225.
Can you figure out why a fourth grader might think the answer was
1485? Try to figure out what steps would produce this result:
49
x 25
------
405
108
------
1,485
(If you cannot figure it out, I provide an explanation at the
end.\i\ Don't worry: Interestingly, most mathematicians are stumped by
this, too.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\i\ 9 x 5 = 45. If someone ``carries'' the 4 and places it above
the 4 in 49, and adds the 4's together (4 + 4 = 8) and then multiplies
8 x 5, the result is 40; hence, 405 on the first row. Similarly, if
someone multiplies 5 x 2 = 10, writes the 1 above the 4 in 49, and then
adds 1 + 4 = 5, and multiplies 5 x 2 = 10, the result is 108. In this
multiplication, the ``carried numbers'' must be added after
multiplying, not before. Can you explain why, beyond saying that you
were taught to do it that way? Teachers not only need to be able to
figure out, swiftly, what processes might lead to difficulties, but
they must also be able to explain or remedy in ways that students can
understand. Being able to do this is more than simply knowing how to
multiply.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This example helps to show the kind of insight about the subject
that teachers must have in order to help others learn the subject. Even
if very smart and highly educated people could teach effectively
without training, there are just not enough such people to fill every
classroom in this country. And skilled teaching requires much more than
being ``good at math'' or being a good writer. To achieve high levels
of learning for all our nation's students, good professional training
and assessment of teaching are essential.
We need to build a system so that all beginning teachers can
perform competently from their first day in the classroom, no matter
how they enter teaching. Right now, teachers are considered
``qualified'' simply by virtue of graduating from an accredited program
or completing a major in the subject that they teach. This sidesteps
the real issue, for it relies on poor proxies for teaching
effectiveness instead of demonstrated capacity to do the actual work
that will help students learn. This is perilous for our students.
The initial training of teachers must be connected to a
comprehensive curriculum of professional training and licensure that
spans pre-service education through at least the first five years of
teaching practice, with corresponding assessments providing information
about teachers' increasing competence as they become more experienced.
This approach is a significant departure from current practice in which
teachers start teaching with little training in the complex work of
teaching and are expected to learn this work from experience.
Experience is an unreliable method of learning in any domain, from
athletics to skilled trades to teaching. Although knowledge and skill
can improve with experience, mislearning often develops and is Three
key elements must comprise the redesign of teacher training:
1. Focus teachers' preparation on the work of teaching to high
levels of skill and detailed and specialized knowledge of the academic
content they teach;
2. Provide a range of settings for close practice and feedback so
that teachers can be deliberately taught and explicitly coached with
the skills to reach a wide range of learners; and
3. Develop highly credible and predictive assessments of
professional knowledge and skill so that no one enters a classroom
without fundamental capacity for effective performance as a beginning
teacher.
At the heart of this system must be a set of core skills of
teaching that are crucial to student learning. No beginning teacher
should be allowed to teach young people if he or she cannot perform
these flexibly and skillfully. These include skills of communicating
content clearly to students, holding students to high standards while
explicitly showing students how to do complex work, establishing and
maintaining a productive classroom climate, interpreting and using
evidence of student performance, and connecting effectively with
students' families. In addition, teachers must demonstrate the detailed
knowledge of subject matter needed to help students learn it.
This is not how we prepare teachers in this country today.
What is needed is an explicit curriculum to develop teachers'
skills with these tasks and a system of performance assessments to
determine whether teacher candidates can perform each one competently.
This curriculum must also include carefully designed and sequenced
opportunities to practice these skills in a variety of settings.
Teacher candidates must demonstrate proficient performance with each
set of skills before they are granted an initial teaching license.
We must build a professionally valid licensure system that requires
all teacher candidates to demonstrate the required level of capacity to
teach young children responsibly. The assessments would focus on
measuring teachers' content knowledge used for teaching, their actual
skill with the instructional practices most important for student
learning, and their persistence in working to make sure that every one
of their students learns. These assessments would be different from the
ones we currently have in this country which do not, for the most part,
focus on the ability to teach. These assessments will rigorously
measure teachers' ability to mobilize knowledge in teaching and to do
actual tasks of teaching. Examples include diagnosing students'
learning difficulties, designing a test, conducting a discussion,
giving pupils feedback on their work, choosing and using strategic
instructional examples, and interpreting data on student progress and
using it to calibrate instruction.
My argument is not an argument for or against either
``traditional'' or ``alternative'' pathways into teaching. We should
encourage multiple pathways into teaching and multiple providers of
training in order to recruit the diverse teaching force that our
country needs. What is most important is that graduates of any pathway
must be capable of effective practice.
Students must have teachers who are prepared to help them learn,
not beginners who are struggling with or naive about their
responsibilities. Allowing teachers to learn on our young people is
unethical. Teaching is intricate work that can be learned to high
levels of skill with appropriate training. What we need in this country
is a professional continuum that would provide teachers with high-
quality training in increasingly advanced practice, and that would tie
We need to consider along with what I have described here significant
changes in the educational infrastructure in this country--in the
organization of schools, teachers' work, and their compensation. For
example, schools should be set up to provide integral support for early
career teachers so that they can more effectively and rapidly increase
their professional skill, just as hospitals support beginning nurses.
Teachers with different levels of license should have different
assignments in schools and should be compensated differentially.
Schools would need to be staffed to include teachers of all levels of
licensure to ensure that all schools have the full complement of
professional expertise. To make use of that expertise in improving
students' learning, teachers' professional work days would have to
include--as they do in other countries--time and space for interaction
with other teachers of these different levels of expertise, with a
focus on examining student performance, student difficulties,
curriculum issues, and on developing focused instructional strategies.
All of this, too, is what we see in other professions.
Finally, we need in this country an appropriately-resourced and
expertly directed system of design, development, and research that will
produce the evidence base and resources to make it possible to
accomplish high levels of success in K-12 education. Doing this would
require a coordinated plan to build the knowledge and tools to achieve
these specific goals. To be effective, this comprehensive system of
design, development, and research must be oriented toward understanding
and solving our core problems of education and must be fundamentally
rooted in and connected to practice and policy.
One important footnote to all of this is that this work I am
describing would be helped immeasurably if we had a common ambitious
curriculum for K-12 schools--consisting of goals, standards, and
metrics for their attainment--that would provide a consistent and
coherent infrastructure for teaching and learning. This curriculum
would need to be accompanied by assessments that were well coordinated
with this common curriculum and that could be used at scale with high
degrees of reliability and validity. These assessments would use new
technologies and the best expertise drawn from across disciplines to
build a new suite of assessments to track the kinds of outcomes we must
be seeking to achieve with all of our students.
The most important point overall is that we must stop wasting
energy debating whether teachers recruited one way or another are more
effective. Instead, we must turn now to training people to do the real
work of teaching and to building a system that can reliably supply good
teaching to every pupil in our nation's classrooms, every year.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you very much.
Dr. Salazar.
STATEMENT OF PAMELA S. SALAZAR, ED.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
PRACTICE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP, UNIVERSITY OF
NEVADA
Ms. Salazar. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Miller and
members of the committee. It is an honor to be invited to
testify before you today on a topic of utmost importance,
educational leadership.
As stated earlier, I am a professor at the University of
Nevada-Las Vegas where I coordinate a principal preparation
program with Clark County School District, which is the fifth
largest district in the country. I am a retired high school
principal and a former physics, math, and computer science
teacher.
Educational leadership is a topic on which I have great
passion and commitment. And I applaud the committee for
including this important issue as part of the reauthorization
of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Research documents what educators inherently know: A strong
principal is second only to a highly effective teacher in
producing student learning and achievement. The renewed
emphasis on school-level outcomes and student achievement
places the school leader at the center of all school reform
efforts.
Today's principals and assistant principals are expected to
be visionary leaders, instructional experts, building managers,
assessment specialists, disciplinarians, community builders and
more. They are also the ones ultimately held responsible for
student achievement. Therefore, it is imperative that we do a
better job of preparing principals and other school leaders as
well as supporting them to be able to meet the needs of
teachers and students.
To create a consistently reliable process to develop,
recognize, and retain effective principals, the National Board
For Professional Teaching Standards has launched the
development of a voluntary national certification for
successful experienced principals, assistant principals and
teacher leaders, known as National Board Certification For
Educational Leaders. Assisting in this effort are the National
Association of Elementary School Principals, National
Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Middle
Schools Association, the American Association of School
Administrators, and representatives from higher education,
district and State administration and professional
associations.
I had the honor of serving as the co-chair of the committee
that developed the National Board of Standards For Accomplished
Principals. These standards represent a professional consensus
on the very unique practices that distinguish accomplished
principals. They are cast in terms of the collaborative actions
that accomplished principals take to advance learning to the
very highest level for each and every child.
These principals recruit, promote, and retain accomplished
teachers. They improve the school culture and performance. They
advocate for the profession and the needs of their school. And
they purposefully engage families in the broader community in
the school's vision and mission.
I am now working on the development of the assessment that
will form the foundation and the rich amalgam of knowledge,
skills, and dispositions that will characterize national board
certified principals.
Having a set of standards that define best practices allows
the development of professional education that is targeted for
the continuum of practice. As school leaders engage and reflect
on their level of practice, and for those who hold the
responsibility of preparing leaders, the standards continuum
now offers the profession a much clearer view of the
requirements of successful practice and leadership.
As school districts seek to select and develop principals,
assistant principals and teacher leaders that can lead the
much-needed transformation of our schools, the existence of a
continuum of standards to assist and identify accomplished
practice is hugely beneficial.
National board certification for principals will define and
validate the requirements that identify an accomplished,
effective, and results-oriented principal.
As in medicine, law and other fields, it will support
excellence, motivation, and prestige within the profession.
Indeed, principals that meet these standards will have made a
commitment to excellence in their schools and throughout their
school districts.
However, if principals and assistants principals are to
meet the growing, ever-changing expectations of this very
demanding position, they require continued professional
development personalized to meet their individual needs. This
is true for all school leaders, regardless of their initial
preparation or their length of service.
The educational challenge of the 21st century is to achieve
high levels of learning for each and every student. As
increased accountability becomes the norm, leadership becomes
more challenging and demanding. In today's complex world, in
schools beset with new kinds of issues and problems, the
ability of the principal to improve the effectiveness of the
school is the critical element in determining the kind of
impact that the school will have on its students.
There are no shortcuts to school success. But a serious
examination of the leadership practices that can drive the
quality and effectiveness of our schools is the most
significant way that we can offer our neediest students that
you referred to. These students deserve the better support to
help them reach the high standards of excellence.
Effective educational success depends on quality school
leadership. This means that it is imperative that we attract,
develop and retain the very best and brightest educational
leaders to the profession to prepare students for the
expectation of an ever-changing diverse population and global
economy.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
[The statement of Ms. Salazar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Pamela S. Salazar, Associate Professor of
Practice, Department of Educational Leadership, University of Nevada,
Las Vegas
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Kline, members of the Committee. It
is an honor to be invited to testify before you today on a topic of
utmost importance: educational leadership. I am Pamela S. Salazar, an
associate professor of practice in the Department of Educational
Leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I am the coordinator
of the Collaborative Principal Preparation Program, which is a joint
venture between the Clark County School District and the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas, designed to prepare future administrators for
positions within the Clark County Schools. I am a retired high school
principal and a former physics, math, and computer science teacher.
Additionally, I recently authored a book titled High-Impact Leadership
for High-Impact Schools which has been adopted by numerous school
districts across the country for both new principal induction programs
and practicing principal leadership academies. I applaud the Committee
for including this critical issue as part of the reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
Research documents what educators inherently know--a strong
principal is second only to a highly effective teacher in impacting
student learning and achievement. The renewed emphasis on school-level
outcomes and student achievement places the school leader at the center
of all school reform efforts. Today's principals and assistant
principals are expected to be visionary leaders, instructional experts,
building managers, assessment specialists, disciplinarians, community
builders, and more; they are also the ones ultimately held responsible
for student achievement. Research also shows that it is imperative that
we do a better job of preparing principals and other school leaders to
be able to meet the needs of teachers and students.
Effective principals must possess strong coping skills, high
cognitive functioning, emotional intelligence and a thorough
understanding of the complex nature of the job. They understand that
their expectations and actions set the tone for the school culture. The
most effective principals set a vision and create a school culture that
positively influences student outcomes. These attributes are most
important in those dedicated educational leaders taking on the
challenge of turning around the lowest-performing schools where they
potentially have the greatest impact.
To create a consistently reliable process to develop, recognize and
retain effective principals, the National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has launched the development of a voluntary
national certification for successful, experienced principals,
assistant principals, and teacher leaders known as National Board
Certification for Educational Leaders. Assisting in this effort are the
National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National
Association of Secondary School Principals, National Middle School
Association, American Association of School Administrators and
representatives from higher education, district and state
administration and professional associations.
I had the honor of serving as co-chair of the committee that
developed the National Board Standards for Accomplished Principals.
These standards represent a professional consensus on the unique
practices that distinguish accomplished principals. They are cast in
terms of the collaborative actions that accomplished principals take to
advance learning to the highest level for every child: to recruit,
promote and retain accomplished teachers; to improve school culture and
performance; to advocate for the profession and the needs of their
school; and to purposefully engage families and the broader community
in the school's vision and mission. We are now working on the
development of the assessment. This assessment will form the foundation
for the rich amalgam of knowledge, skills and dispositions that will
characterize National Board Certified Principals.
Having standards that define best practices allows for the
development of professional education targeted for the continuum of
practice. As school leaders engage and reflect on their level of
practice and for those who hold the responsibility for preparing
leaders, the standards continuum offers the profession a much clearer
view of the requirements of successful practice. As school districts
seek to select and develop principals, assistant principals, and
teacher leaders that can lead the transformation of schools, the
existence of a continuum of standards to assist and identify
accomplished practice is hugely beneficial in the selection, training,
and development of aspiring and practicing principals, assistant
principals, and teacher leaders.
National Board Certification for Principals will define and
validate the requirements that identify an accomplished, effective and
results-oriented principal. As in medicine, law and other fields, it
will support excellence, motivation and prestige within the profession.
The National Board's analysis shows that principals support the
prospect of advanced certification that recognizes the importance of
instructional leadership, organizational change and community
involvement--as well as the principal's essential role in school
management. An NBPTS survey found that 83 percent of school leader
respondents and 69 percent of district leaders respondents expressed
interest in advanced principal certification. Both groups were most
interested in a certification that would better prepare principals to
lead systemic instructional improvement.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards envisions
the highly effective and accomplished principal as one who has had a
positive impact on student learning and achievement by creating a
professional learning community that focuses on student needs, teacher
retention and professional development as well as the incorporation of
community and business groups in ensuring the success of every student.
Though the diversity of environments and students throughout our
nation make it naive to suggest that these principals will be lock-step
to follow a single play book of ``do's'' and ``don'ts'', it is certain
that they will all display the same characteristics critical to
outstanding school leadership.
Principals possessing these characteristics:
Lead with a sense of urgency to achieve the highest results for all
students and staff in their schools and build organizational capacity
by developing leadership in others.
Inspire their school to evolve into a learning community where
teachers, community leaders and local businesses share a steadfast
commitment to high achievement in student learning and strong
instructional practice.
Ensure that strategic management systems and processes are designed
and implemented so that the primary focus of their school is teaching
and learning.
Most importantly, these principals will be ethical leaders, whose
continuous advocacy for equitable learning conditions and opportunities
is matched only by a humility which guides them to continually reflect
on their practice. In this manner, these principals will not only
continue to grow personally and professionally, but also they will
serve as an example to other principals striving to improve their own
practice and schools.
Indeed, principals that meet these standards will have made a
commitment to excellence in their schools and throughout their school
districts. They will help refine and develop new systems by which we
measure, evaluate and reward principals.
If principals and assistant principals are to meet the growing,
ever-changing expectations of this demanding position, they require
continual professional development personalized to meet their
individual needs. This is true for all school leaders, regardless of
their initial preparation or their length of service. Today's
educational environment of standards-based education and high
accountability demands that principals are knowledgeable and skilled in
instructional leadership, organizational development, community
relations, and change management. Ongoing, job-embedded professional
development is the key to developing this capacity in all school
leaders.
Although there is growing consensus on the attributes of highly
effective principals, there is currently no reliable way to measure the
performance of school leaders--or to recognize and reward them for
their accomplishments. School districts should examine quantitative and
qualitative data pertaining to both academic and nonacademic indicators
in their evaluation of principals. The following measurements, in
addition to student indicators, are recommended for assessing principal
performance: self assessments; supervisor site visits; school
documentation of classroom observations and faculty meeting agendas;
climate surveys; teacher, other school staff, parent, and student
evaluations; teacher retention and transfer rates; teacher and student
attendance rates, and opportunities for student engagement through co-
curricular and extracurricular activities and rates of participation.
In measuring a principal's performance based on student indicators,
States should use multiple assessments that are aligned with common
standards, include performance-based measures, and measure individual
student growth from year to year, including State assessments;
portfolios, performance tasks, and other examples of a student's
accomplishments; traditional quizzes and tests; interviews,
questionnaires, and conferences; end-of-course exams; comprehensive
personal academic or graduation plans; assessments aligned with high
school and college entrance requirements; and senior projects.
But while effective principals are key to a school's success, they
are not the whole story and cannot be solely held accountable for a
school's performance. Schools are a sum of many parts, each being
integral to the whole. Changing one or two of the parts, even one as
crucial as the principal will not guarantee the desired result. The
lowest performing schools need whole school improvement, not piecemeal
applications. The Administration's approach in its School Improvement
Grants and in ``A Blueprint for Reform'', requires the removal of a
principal in perennially low-performing schools as part of the
improvement process. This will not automatically result in dramatic,
sustainable reform. Turning around low-performing schools and
significantly improving student achievement requires, among other
factors, a principal that has received appropriate training and
mentoring to understand what principal and school leader should know
and be able to do to effectively lead a school. Even more, it requires
that the principal have access to appropriate data, a well-training
workforce, and the authority and autonomy to place resources where they
are needed most. Yes, it is important to be able to remove principals
who cannot effective lead, but we should not adopt policies that assume
the incompetency of every principal in our lowest-performing schools.
Successful students and teachers need the support of effective
principals and school leadership. The most accomplished principals
create a school-based learning community that involves teachers,
students, parents and the community. Additionally, the demands and
complexity of 21st century education requires more than ever from these
leaders. It is essential that we attract, develop and retain the best
and brightest educational leaders to the profession to prepare students
for the expectations of a global economy.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I am
happy to answer any questions you may have.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Dr. Winters.
STATEMENT OF MARCUS A. WINTERS, SENIOR FELLOW, THE MANHATTAN
INSTITUTE
Mr. Winters. Chairman Miller, Congressman Castle, members
of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify
before you today on the important issue of teacher quality.
The findings of modern research strongly confirm what
parents, teachers, and school administrators have always known:
The quality of a child's teacher is the most important factor
within a school's control that determines the student's
learning in a given year. The best estimates indicate that the
difference for a student being taught by a good or a bad
teacher amounts to about a grade level's worth of learning at
the end of the school year.
Unfortunately, the current system fails to distinguish
between our best and worst teachers. Nearly all teachers are
rated satisfactory or higher according to their official
evaluations. When the current system does distinguish between
teachers, it is according to two attributes that researchers
consistently find have little to no relationship to a teacher's
performance in the classroom, the attainment of advanced
degrees and years of experience. Researchers consistently find
no discernable relationship between whether or not a teacher
has a master's degree and the learning her students acquire
during a given year.
According to the research, the benefits from classroom
experience seem to plateau after about the third to fifth
years. Of course, some teachers do get better over time. But
some teachers don't improve, while others burn out and actually
get worse over time.
In addition, whether an individual teacher is better at her
job today than she was yesterday is insufficient for
determining whether she is more effective than the teacher down
the hall. Empirical studies consistently find that experience
and other easily observed characteristics explain very little
the difference in teacher effectiveness.
That credentials and experience tell us so little about
teacher effectiveness is disappointing because most school
districts rely on those attributes alone to determine a
teacher's salary. Teachers have responded to the incentive of
their pay scale by pursuing unproductive advanced degrees. The
percentage of public school teachers with a master's degree or
higher has increased from about 24 percent in 1961 to about 52
percent today.
It is common for school systems to determine layoffs based
entirely on seniority within the system. Those ``first in, last
out'' layoff rules are now coming into play as States across
the country are finding it necessary to reduce their teaching
staffs during this time of fiscal strife.
The results of basing layoffs on factors unrelated to
classroom effectiveness will be that many wonderful young
teachers will be let go, and several poorly performing but more
experienced teachers will remain in the classroom.
Further, in most school systems, upwards of 95 percent or
more teachers who remain in the classroom the 3 years or so
required to become eligible for the job protections of tenure
receive it. It is true that tenure only requires that a teacher
cannot be fired without a due process proceeding. However, in
practice, that due process is so burdensome and expensive that
most administrators don't bother with it. For instance, just 10
of New York City's 55,000 tenured teachers were fired for any
reason in 2007.
Even if we were to believe that schools are capable of
identifying and removing all of their ineffective teachers so
early in their careers, the practice of tenure still
essentially assumes that anyone not shown to be incompetent in
their third year will be effective in the classroom in their
30th. Given the complexity of a teacher's job, it is not so
surprising that the basic attributes like experience and
credentials explain so little of their effectiveness.
Qualitative attributes, such as the teacher's patience,
classroom management skills and knack for presenting complex
information clearly explain most of her influence on students'
learning. Unfortunately, those attributes do not lend
themselves to simple salary schedules or layoff policies.
If we take the lessons of modern research seriously, we
have to conclude that today's system has its priorities
backwards. A better system would measure a teacher's actual
performance in the classroom and then reward the most effective
teachers or remove the least effective ones accordingly.
The first step toward creating a better system is to
improve teacher evaluations. School districts should replace
the current evaluation system with one based in part on a
teacher's measurable influence on students' standardized test
scores. Data analysis is far from perfect, and it should
certainly not be used in isolation in making employment
decisions. But modern statistical techniques can raise red
flags and thus help administrators to distinguish between
teachers whose students excel and teachers whose students
languish or fail.
Once a school system has identified the best and worst
teachers, it should act upon that information. States and
districts should continue to experiment with different ways to
tie some portion of a teacher's compensation to her performance
in the classroom. Further, States should streamline the process
for administrators to remove ineffective teachers once they
have been identified.
Unfortunately, local union affiliates continue to fight
hard against some of this meaningful change. Consider New
York's recent experience. When it appeared that New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was prepared to use test scores as part
of evaluating teachers for tenure, the city's teachers' union
went to Albany and pushed through legislation making it illegal
for any school system in the State to do so.
Further with an estimated 15,000 teacher layoffs on the
horizon in New York, it is the State's and city's teachers'
unions that have stood strongest against proposed legislation
that would grant discretion to principals so that they can
determine which teachers should remain in the classroom.
Some argue that it would be more productive for us to
instead focus efforts on reducing class sizes for teachers. The
argument for reducing class size depends on a single study from
79 public schools in Tennessee during the 1980s. It was a very
good study. The study followed the high-quality random
assignment design and found some evidence that student learning
was greater in smaller class size environments.
However, when taken to scale, the results of class size
reduction programs have been disappointing. For instance, a
study by the Rand Corporation found that California's class
size reduction program has had no influence on student
proficiency.
It is essential to America's future to ensure that each of
the Nation's public school classrooms is staffed with an
effective teacher. The current system is incapable of achieving
that goal. It is time for school systems to rethink the way
that they evaluate, compensate and hold accountable public
school teachers who are educating the Nation's youth. I look
forward to your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Winters follows:]
Prepared Statement of Marcus A. Winters, Senior Fellow, Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research
Chairman Miller, senior Republican Castle, members of the
committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today on
the important issue of teacher quality. This is an issue that I have
studied and written about extensively as a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. However, I emphasize that the
opinions that I express here today are my own.
The last decade and a half of empirical research has dramatically
increased our understanding of teacher quality and the factors related
to it. The findings of modern research strongly confirm what parents,
teachers, and school administrators have always known: The quality of a
child's teacher is the most important factor within a school's control
that determines a student's learning in a given year. The best
estimates indicate that the difference for a student being taught by a
good or bad teacher amounts to about an additional grade level's worth
of learning at the end of the school year.
Unfortunately, despite the substantial variation in teacher
quality, the current system fails to distinguish between our best and
worst teachers. Nearly all teachers are rated satisfactory or higher
according to their official evaluations.
When the current system does distinguish between teachers it is
according to two attributes that research consistently finds have
little to no relationship to a teacher's performance in the classroom:
the attainment of advanced degrees and years of experience.
Researchers consistently find no discernible relationship between
whether or not a teacher has earned a Master's degree and the learning
her students acquire in a given year. Further, the positive experience
with alternative certification programs such as Teach for America that
recruit motivated, bright individuals without education backgrounds to
teach in low-performing public schools shows that great teachers need
not have ever attended a single course in an education college.
The research evaluating the relationship between classroom
experience and effectiveness is only slightly more encouraging.
According to the research, the benefits from classroom experience
plateau in about the third to fifth year. Of course, some teachers do
get better over time. But some teachers don't improve, while others
burn out and actually get worse over time.
In addition, whether an individual teacher is better at her job
today than she was yesterday is insufficient for determining whether
she is more effective than the teacher down the hall. Empirical studies
consistently find that experience and other easily observed
characteristics explain very little of the difference in teacher
effectiveness.
That credentials and experience tell us so little about a teacher's
effectiveness is disappointing because most school districts rely on
those attributes alone to determine a teacher's salary. Teachers have
responded to the incentives of their pay scale by pursuing unproductive
advanced degrees. According to the National Center for Education
Statistics, the percentage of public school teachers with a Master's
degree or higher has increased from about 24 percent in 1961 to about
52 percent today.
Under the current system, whether or not a teacher is allowed to
remain in the classroom is nearly entirely a function of how many years
she has been employed there already. It is common for school systems to
determine layoffs based entirely on seniority within the system. Those
``first-in, last-out'' layoff rules are now coming into play as states
across the country are finding it necessary to reduce their teaching
staffs during this time of fiscal strife. The result of basing layoffs
on factors unrelated to classroom effectiveness will be that many
wonderful young teachers will be let go and several poorly performing
but more experienced teachers will remain in the classroom.
Further, in most school systems upwards of 95 percent or more of
the teachers who remain in the classroom the three years or so required
to become eligible for the job protections of tenure receive it. It's
true that tenure only requires that a teacher cannot be fired from her
position unless the school system first goes through a due process
proceeding. However, in practice that due process is so burdensome and
expensive that most administrators don't even bother with it. For
instance, just 10 of New York City's 55,000 tenured teachers were fired
for any reason in 2007.
A common argument made by tenure's defenders is that school systems
have effectively weeded out many of the low performers by the third
year. However, even if we were to believe that schools were capable of
identifying and removing ineffective teachers so early in their
careers, the practice of tenure still essentially assumes that anyone
not shown to be incompetent by her third year will be effective in the
classroom in her thirtieth.
Given the complexity of a teacher's job, it's not so surprising
that basic attributes like experience and credentials explain so little
of their effectiveness. Most of the qualities that differentiate a
great teacher from a not-so-great teacher can't be collected in an
administrative data set. Qualitative attributes, such as a teacher's
patience, classroom management skills, and knack for presenting complex
information clearly explain most of her influence on her students'
learning.
Unfortunately, those are attributes that do not lend themselves to
simple salary schedules and layoff policies. If we take the lessons of
modern research seriously we have to conclude that today's system has
its priorities backwards. A better system would measure a teacher's
actual performance in the classroom and then reward the most effective
teachers and remove the least effective ones accordingly.
The first step towards creating a better system is to improve
teacher evaluations. Not all teachers in today's public schools are
succeeding in the classroom, and that the current evaluation tools tell
us otherwise makes them essentially useless. School districts should
replace the current evaluation system with one based in part on a
teacher's measurable influence on her students' standardized test
scores. Data analysis is far from perfect, and it should certainly not
be used in isolation to make employment decisions. But modern
statistical techniques can raise red flags and thus help administrators
distinguish between teachers whose students excel and teachers whose
students languish or fail.
Once a school system has identified the best and worst teachers, it
should act upon that information. States and districts should continue
to experiment with different ways to tie some portion of a teacher's
compensation to her performance in the classroom. Further, states
should streamline the process for administrators to remove ineffective
teachers after they have been identified.
The political hurdles to adopting such a reasonable system are
daunting. Though we have heard some encouraging words from the American
Federation of Teachers at the national level, local union affiliates
continue to fight hard against meaningful change.
Consider New York's recent experience. When it appeared that New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was prepared to use test scores as
part of evaluating teachers for tenure, the city's teachers union went
to Albany and pushed through legislation making it illegal for any
school system in the state to do so. Further, with an estimated 15,000
teacher layoffs on the horizon in New York due to stressed budgets, it
is the state and city teachers unions that have stood strongest against
proposed legislation that would replace the state's law requiring
layoffs to occur according to seniority with legislation granting
discretion to principals so that they can determine which teachers
should remain in the classroom.
The unions and other defenders of the current system also
frequently argue that it would be more productive to focus efforts on
reducing class size rather than removing ineffective teachers. The
argument for reducing class size depends on a single study from 79
public schools in Tennessee during the late 1980's. The study followed
a high quality random assignment design and found some evidence that
student learning was greater in smaller class size environments.
However, when taken to scale, the results of class size reduction
programs have been disappointing. For instance, a study by the Rand
Corporation found that California's class size reduction program has
had no influence on student proficiency.
It is essential to America's future to ensure that each of the
nation's public school classrooms is staffed with an effective teacher.
The current system's failure to accurately measure teacher quality, its
emphasis on rewarding teachers for attributes unrelated to their
effectiveness, and its powerful protections for even the worst teachers
makes it incapable of achieving that goal. It is time for school
systems to rethink the way that they evaluate, compensate, and hold
accountable the public school teachers who are educating the nation's
youth.
I look forward to answering your questions as this important
discussion moves forward.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Thank you to all of you for your testimony.
Let me see. How do I proceed here? I think this panel's
testimony is compelling to the idea that we should give serious
consideration, after my 36 years on this committee, of maybe
breaking with the past and starting to think how people arrive
at the decision to become a teacher and then how, whether or
not that individual enters the field and what happens to them
then, and whether we are going to, after all of the rhetoric,
we are going to, in fact, decide there is something to this,
that that is a profession.
And if you look across the board at other professions, it
seems that the training never really stops. I am a lawyer. You
have the continuing education of the bar. You have to take
units. I don't know if it is any good or not. I am inactive,
but I don't know. But it seems everybody throws up something in
terms of training. If you are a firefighter, the training never
stops. If you are a police officer, the training never stops,
and if you are a doctor.
But it also seems a lot of people enter those fields being
trained for what they are going to do when they enter the
field, and yet in teaching, a lot of people can still walk
through the side door, given the circumstance of a district,
where they happen to be, who knows whom, and all of a sudden,
there you are, because you have the credential, and in some
cases, that is enough. But we have sort of enabled this to go
on and on and on. To what extent the Federal Government can
change that is what this debate is about.
And Dr. Ball, you talked about the redesign of teacher
training, but the three steps you lay out don't look a lot like
what I think or have been led to believe most teacher training
programs look like. They come later. You get your credential.
You have gotten your major degree. You get a credential, and
then people talk about training you.
When I look at the three things you outline, it would seem
to me that some of that has to occur beforehand. I mean, I
don't know what schools of education do. I don't see any
evidence that they do much. But I need to know, how do we back
this up so that people come with greater skill sets? We try to
develop those skill sets. This is a very complex job.
Ms. Salazar. Yes, it is.
Chairman Miller. And I think that is the point of your
testimony. If you don't mind, please respond.
Ms. Ball. Thank you for the opportunity to take that up.
Indeed my argument was that it is crucial to ensure that we
establish standards for entry to the profession, and I was
quite clear about saying I think that can be provided,
potentially through a multitude of pathways, that schools of
education should and can provide that sort of training, but so
could that be done through other pathways.
What is crucial is to establish the bar that someone needs
to meet in order to be allowed to practice independently on
students. We do that with, as you said, many other professions
and, in fact, many trades in this country don't allow people to
perform what we consider to be skilled trades without actually
having a license. You don't have someone come to your house to
repair a disposal who doesn't actually know how to work on
drains.
I think that what we haven't done here is to establish a
key set of things that we don't think any young person should
have a teacher who can't do those things. I think it would
require articulating a continuum where the training you
describe for ongoing learning, that some of those things would
be things people would learn as they became more expert.
My colleague here referred to the fact that teachers don't
improve with experience. I think it is quite easy to point to
the fact that much of the training provided to teachers as they
advance through the profession doesn't enable increasing
skills. In fact, if it were inherently true that nobody
improved after 3 years of teaching, then we would see that
around the world. And we don't actually see that around the
world. In countries where the professional education system is
much more substantial and helps people to become more and more
accomplished professional teachers, you don't see that leveling
off at the third or fourth year.
It is entirely due to the fact that, in this country, the
kind of professional training that is available to teachers is
often weak, and I think the drive to pursue these so-called
useless master's degrees is a quest by teachers to seek
additional professional training. The master's degree on its
own isn't valuable or not. It has to do with what is inside
that degree or any other form of professional training.
So, in sum, I think that we need both to ensure that
beginning teachers know their content well enough to be
responsible to teach it to young people, but we need also to
articulate a set of basic skills of teaching, including
managing the classroom, conducting a discussion, assessing
student learning, using data, communicating with the home. And
we should not allow people to be practicing on young people.
Chairman Miller. But you are still describing currently,
and I am not asking you to defend the system, but you are still
describing a system that currently is hit or miss.
Ms. Ball. Right now, people become licensed without having
to demonstrate they can do any of those things. As I said,
people become licensed currently by completing an approved
program or in other routes by having a degree in the subject.
Neither of those is what I am describing.
I am describing an assessment system where we would hold
any program accountable for demonstrating that its candidates
for whom it was recommending for licensure could actually do
those things before they enter; that is, do them with students,
conduct a discussion, call up a parent and have a sensible
conversation about a student difficulty, diagnose a common
error that a student makes in learning reading. We allow people
to begin teaching who have not demonstrated they can do those
things. And the system that was changed would require any
program to prepare people to pass that set of assessments. That
is not the system we currently have.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Castle.
Mr. Castle. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Winters, in your testimony, you indicate that research
shows that certain factors, such as smaller class size and I
think you mentioned tenure in there as a feature, have little
impact on student achievement.
Can you tell us what skills are necessary in order to
produce good teachers?
Mr. Winters. The short answer is, no. The problem is--
right, reducing class size has been found in small experiments
to have positive effects. As far as what are the overall
attributes for good teaching, I am not sure. I don't know
that--I am not sure that we know that as profession. Maybe some
of my colleagues would disagree about that.
My view of the research is that we know that there is
enormous variation in the quality of teachers, but very little
of what we try to explain that variation, even studies that use
things like the courses that students have taken in college,
SAT scores seem to correlate with this some but not as much we
would hope. A lot of those attributes don't explain very much
of that variation.
So I actually think that a lot of teaching is innate and
not something that we are seeing that we are producing, which
leads me to believe that a better system would allow people to
become teachers, identify who is good at it, and do the best we
can, no matter why they are good at it, what they are doing to
be good at it, and do the best we can to keep those people in
the classroom.
Mr. Castle. Leading into this question, which is, do you
have any thoughts about the difference between alternative
certification programs and traditional routes of certification
in terms of either quality of teachers or methodologies which
are used?
Mr. Winters. I think the research on those things is still
pretty young, but so far, the experience with alternative
certification programs has been generally positive. Now you do
see wide variation among teachers who come through alternative
routes as well, but again, we see enormous variation in the
quality of teachers who come through the more traditional
routes, which again I think goes to the point where some people
are just wonderful at teaching. And what we should be doing is
trying to get smart people into the classroom and provide them
with the training. I don't think it is correct to say teachers
need no training. So I don't want to say that. But I do think
what we should be trying to do is, through alternative
certification routes and others, is to put smart people in
front of the classroom and evaluate them afterwards and try to
get the bad ones out and keep the good ones in.
Mr. Castle. Dr. Salazar, almost all principals I know come
from teacher ranks. I guess that is generally true throughout
the country.
Is there any experimentation or has anyone looked into
alternative methodologies of bringing people into principal
ranks who don't necessarily come up through the teacher ranks?
And if so, is there any judgment as to whether that is
successful or not in any way?
Ms. Salazar. I have to tell you that, in terms of research
around that topic, I am not aware of any. I am sure that
someone has done research taking a look at alternative route to
the principal. And certainly there are different certifications
required across the States in terms of who can be a principle
and who can't. That is not the case in Nevada. Everyone does
come from the ranks of the teacher. And so I don't have--I can
get information back to you on that, but I don't really have
any information on that.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Ms. Weingarten, you said someplace, and unfortunately, it
is sort of disconnected from other things you said in my mind,
and I agree with you completely on this, that we need to look
at out of school factors. And that is true, obviously, in terms
of how we are educating kids. But I am not sure exactly how you
intended that when you said it, looking at out-of-school
factors, in terms of judging teaches or in terms of what we as
a society should be doing with respect to educating kids.
Ms. Weingarten. What we need to do is, I think, three
things, one, and today we are focused on the paths to great
teaching and great teachers, and but the second thing is, and
none of us actually focused on this as much we should today,
there is a need to have a broad, engaged curriculum. Chairman
Miller and this committee have been talking about that in the
context of common standards and assessments that are aligned
with common standards, but an engaged curriculum, rigorous
curriculum, that includes art and music and physical education
but is deep in terms of social studies and science is very
important as a lock-in with great teachers and great teaching.
And the third point was that poverty can't be an excuse for
student to not have the engine of opportunity. But what we have
seen is that if you do, if you find ways to compete with
poverty, schools alone and teachers alone will never be able to
do this. And I disagree with my friend, Marcus, on the other
side of the table, because you can't, teachers alone can't do
this. Maybe in isolated circumstances, yes.
But what we have seen is that in schools and districts that
have wraparound services, community schools where the schools
itself are the hub for these outside services, like health
care, after-school care, some social services, you see a way of
being able to level the playing field for poor kids and
narrowing the achievement gap.
So what I am saying is, we need to deal with all three, not
use out-of-school factors as an excuse, but help kids by
dealing with all three.
And so what we have actually proposed for an overhaul of
teacher development and evaluation is by focusing on shared
responsibility, as opposed to just top-down accountability.
When teachers, for example, will say, I need to lower class
size so I can differentiate instruction among and between
children, that is the import of class size. Or I can identify
that this child needs some other additional supports; I can do
what I can do instructionally, but you have to help me get
those other supports for this child. That is what we are
talking about when we talk about a holistic development and
evaluation plan that includes access to wraparound services.
And that, Congressman, is exactly what New Haven has just done,
which is why I am so fixated on New Haven.
Mr. Castle. Thank you all so much.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Kildee.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Ball, I really appreciate your recommendations to
reform the way we prepare our teachers in this country. If we
were to move forward with these recommendations, what is the
Federal role, and can we learn anything from other professions?
You know, a century ago in Ireland or France or Germany,
very often in a small village, the most educated and the person
turned to the most in that village would be the priest, the
lawyer, the physician, and the teacher. These were the
professions that really were the founts of knowledge in those
villages. Can we learn something from other professions as we
prepare teachers for their responsibilities?
Ms. Ball. Thank you, Representative Kildee.
I think that, on the second question first, from other
professions, in fact, other clinical professions and in
particular ones which work with young people, so I gave the
example of flying a plane, but it may be more appropriate to
think of professions where people work with people, where there
is an uncertainty of how you work with a young person, how you
work with a client if you are a psychologist. And in fact, a
colleague at Stanford University, Pam Grossman, and her
colleagues have conducted a study of preparation in other
professions to learn more about the clinical preparation in
other fields. And in fact, they do much better at teaching the
clinical skills, at breaking them down, at naming them, at
rehearsing them and coaching them and assessing people on them,
so I disagree with my colleague that teaching can't be taught.
And in fact, I would argue that it is highly dangerous to
take a policy strategy that permits people to be tried out in
classrooms and fire those later who don't produce results.
There are real children in those classrooms who are suffering
under the teaching of people who later find out they can't do
it.
Let me give you a simple example. When a child makes an
error in elementary mathematics, as the kind that I produced in
my written testimony for you, you don't want somebody teaching
in that classroom who is mystified by that error. You want
somebody who can rapidly size up what the difficulty is that
the student is having and who has three or four key leverage
things to do next to help the children learn.
It is deeply dangerous to put people into classrooms who
can't quickly recognize the errors that kids make and can
diagnose them and move on, and that is precisely what other
diagnostic human professions have done is put people with
knowledge, give them lots of practice, and identify them when
patients or clients have those difficulties and having the
strategies to deal with them.
I can't understand a strategy in which we think it is
permissible to put people into classrooms who are smart and
hope that after 2 or 3 years, they have done well. And if they
haven't, we fire them. Those are real children in those
classrooms. And I think it is unconscionable to think that that
is a reasonable policy strategy.
When you ask about the Federal role, I think there are
things the Federal Government can be doing in supporting more
integration of common content in this country. It is very
difficult to prepare teachers for their work when they teach
entirely different content in different parts of the country,
and I know that that is a very deeply problematic issue, but it
is actually quite important to the improvement of teaching.
I do want to close by saying one other thing, which is that
the research on alternative routes versus other kinds of
teacher education programs shows that they actually are very
little different. One study shows a slight advantage to one,
and one the other, but overall, the message I would like you to
understand is that in no pathway or program are we preparing
professionals adequately at the scale we need in this country,
in no pathway whatsoever.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. I was mystified, but I think it was
because I was reading that math problem after a long jet trip.
So I----
Ms. Ball. Did you solve it?
Chairman Miller. Yeah, I solved it, that and cold fusion
while I was waiting for my bags. I can't go back to classroom?
Mrs. Biggert. You might be mystified, I am a little
confused. Chairman Miller used the analogy of lawyers, and he
is a lawyer, I am a lawyer, and my first job out of law school
was clerking for a judge in the Court of Appeals. I got a
really broad education with every kind of issue that came up.
And then I was hired by a law firm, which I didn't do. I
decided to practice on my own. And, you know, here having been
doing this Socratic method and suddenly how do I write a real
estate contract, how do I do probate? No clue. And nobody to
help me, because I was on my own. So what do you do? You go to
the continuing education and take--and go into the classes and
talk to people there and get the idea.
I don't--to me, maybe I am missing something, but it seems
like if you get a good education in education in the schools
and then you do student teaching--if you are a student teacher,
you are working with another teacher who can be a mentor. And
then I was a school board president and we had the mentoring
that was very important to our school and every young teacher
had a mentor who actually taped them in the classroom so that
they could see what they were doing and even the other
teachers.
So it seemed to me that there was an awful lot of
continuing education and we had days of teacher training. I
don't always know how good that was, but teachers participated.
It seems like to do all these things, really the three things
that there probably should be done in school. I know Stanford
has a 5-year program that the teacher has to do the 5-year
program before they really get out, and I see Ms. Weingarten,
you were kind of shaking your head about the student teaching.
Ms. Weingarten. I have both taught and practiced law and
we--teachers, and Dr. Ball said this already, but there is, in
medicine, in law, in several other professions, the
deliberateness of the training is much more intense than what
you have in teaching. And so what you see in countries like
Finland and Japan is a way in which--Finland spends a lot of
time, as the chairman said, on the induction, and recruitment,
and selection process of teachers, but what they do that is
quite different than anything we do in the United States, is
the focus on teacher development in school when teachers get
there in real-time with professional development, not off the
shelf from someone else. And they do this by having teachers
work together, it is excruciatingly expensive, because what you
are doing is taking teachers together, working together,
diagnosing what kids need, building on each other's practice,
polishing the stone, thinking about the craft, and, in some
ways, like we do in grand rounds in medicine, like one does in
a big law firm that I had the honor to work in.
And that is how teachers really learn deeply to teach, but
it costs a lot of money and that is why a lot of school
districts never ever do it.
Mrs. Biggert. If you have the LSAT for law, and then it is
hard to get into medical school, do we need to raise the
standards for getting into education to start out with?
Ms. Weingarten. Well, it is both the issue of who comes in
to teach, but I am focused on, regardless of who is there, how
do we make them, how do we help create the versatility, both in
terms of the content knowledge and in terms of the modes of
transmission of teaching that Congressman Kildee talked about?
And so ultimately, what happens in Finland is you have because
of the value of teaching you have some of the ``it has become
the most attractive profession to go into.'' In the United
States, that is not the case. But the emphasis I am making,
Congresswoman is that it is a craft that you learn, that those
of us--and this is where I disagree with Mr. Winters, we are
not that good.
Mrs. Biggert. No, we are not ranked very well either.
Ms. Weingarten. And even with my law degree and on Law
Review and all of that, I was a blithering idiot the first few
days I taught in schools. And ultimately it was the craft of
learning with others and understanding content, but also how to
do the things that Dr. Ball was talking about. And let me just
finish by saying we see good models throughout the country now.
Our real, our real obstacle is how to create both the capacity
and replicability of that, so that it is not individuals or
individual schools, but how do we do that throughout the
country.
Mrs. Biggert. Thanks. I yield back.
Chairman Miller. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you to all of
you. I would love to sit here and have a long conversation with
you because I really appreciate what you are saying. Maybe you
are just picking up, Ms. Weingarten, you are talking about the
capacity and replicability because one of the frustrations I
guess that I have had in thinking about this, and having been a
former school board member a number of years ago is that I
don't think we have time to work on pilots throughout this
country.
And what I am seeking is, is there something--and I am not
looking for the silver bullet either, I think none of us are,
and as we reauthorize ESEA, language regarding evaluation that
inspires, and also provides for the kind of tools that local
school districts can really pick up and use and that they can
have some way of having some way of verifying that what they
are doing has some merit.
I think the first question we have to ask sometimes is do
evaluations matter? I mean, do we actually see that student
achievement improves in schools that have, you know, what we
might call as close as possible to a kind of state-of-the-art
evaluation, I don't know if any of those exists, but maybe they
do, and the question is it what role does the evaluation
process play in that, so looking at that issue, but then how
can we do this, because to me, giving grants to schools, giving
them an application process and demonstrating that they are
doing--I think it is going to be a little, perhaps like
national board certification, which I think is fabulous, and I
have been a been big champion of that and I love the idea of
that as well in principalship.
But we know there are certain individuals who are going to
seek that, and we have to reach everybody here, we can't just
do that. So what is it that we need, that we can do here in
terms of evaluation, because what I keep feeling the pushback,
you know, in whole or in part we don't want any link to test
scores. Well, local school districts control a lot of that too.
That is out of the hands of a lot of teachers, but the way in
which teachers prepare students for that, to me, would be more
significant than the actual score. So help me out here. I would
love to be part of writing something that really makes a
difference in this area.
Ms. Weingarten. As Chairman Miller and I have had many
conversations about this, and maybe we have, at the AFT, broken
new ground on this, but in January, we talked about overhauling
the teacher development and evaluation system, and having as a
component of evaluation, both teacher practice and teacher
standards, but also student learning.
So some people think about student learning simply as
standardized test scores, and I think about it as much broader
than that. And your sense of urgency we feel as well. But what
we are trying to do here is create some good practice and some
good templates so that actual districts and unions could use
them. And some of the researchers who helped design the
evaluation frameworks that we released that day said to us
allow for modeling. Don't come up with your own model, come up
with frameworks that then districts and locals will use. In
fact, what has happened since January is that we now have, and
we are about to submit an i3 grant for 17 districts and local
unions that are willing, over the course of the next year, to
create this.
We already have eight districts in New York and Rhode
Island. And I see Congresswoman McCarthy there, she has been
very helpful in helping us figure some of this out. We already
have some of them on the ground doing this. The goal is to
create a tipping point, to use this coming school year, and
hopefully with a new reauthorized ESEA to promote a real
overhaul of all of this, so that we are looking at what
practice works and what doesn't, and then how do we replicate
the practice that works and how do we jettison what doesn't
work?
And ultimately, if a teacher is floundering, how do we help
the teacher? And if she doesn't make it, how do we weed her out
of the profession? So if we had 25 or 50 pilots or an ability
within the ESEA to really promote that within a year or 2, then
in 3 years from now, we will have totally revamped teacher
evaluation, which I think is the critical measure, development
and evaluation, to solving teacher quality.
Mrs. Davis. And what about--I think that is fine, but
everybody else, how do we do something that in those 3 years,
so we are not wasting that time also create the opportunity for
others to look at some of the things that you are doing?
Ms. Weingarten. What ends up happening is that there is
with Race to the Top and with this focus on teacher preparation
and evaluation now, people are sharing information, the likes
of which they have not beforehand, but ultimately, if we just
focus on the single test scores, just like right now, the
antiquated 5-minute evaluations, we are not going to do any
better in terms of teacher support than we are doing right now.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Woolsey.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mrs.
Weingarten, for bringing up the very subject of competing with
poverty. Far too many of our Nation's students go to school
hungry or without proper medical care. Many of them don't have
someone at home to help with homework, or a safe place to go
after school. And I believe what you just said, that schools
and communities need to be able to offer these services to
children and their families so that children are ready to learn
when they enter the classroom.
So we are talking about teachers and how we ensure that the
teachers are the most qualified, et cetera, et cetera. How can
we evaluate teachers have wraparound services available in
their school districts with those who do not? I mean, what are
we going to do? It is going to be the poor districts that need
it the most that are going to have the hardest time. I will
start with that with you, if you have an answer.
Ms. Weingarten. And Congresswoman Davis, I think, in some
ways said this, we have to build these planes and fly them at
the same time. We don't have a choice as school teachers. We
have to help--so regardless of whether a teacher gets the
support he or she needs, regardless of whether they have the
support of principal, or we can say regardless of all of this,
every single day a teacher has to try to do their best to
create a connection and engagement with children.
So there is a way, and I know the chairman and others have
been talking about using growth models in terms of
accountability as opposed the current AYP, that may be helpful
in terms of this. But what we are also proposing for ESEA is
this notion of shared responsibility and 360-degree
accountability, so that as part of an accountability system, if
a school does not have some of the wraparound services or
programs that teachers believe kids need, that that is factored
into accountability in some way, form or matter. But we can't
wait for every school, as much as I--as much as we yearn for
kids to have these programs we are not going to be able to wait
for every school to have wraparound program for us to be able
to focus on what teachers can be able to do and how we engage
with kids.
Ms. Woolsey. So would you take wraparound programs, and
tell the members and everybody what you consider the basics of
a wraparound program? And will they be the same for every
district, or will they change depending on?
Ms. Weingarten. Congressman Hoyer has, and I know you,
Congresswoman Woolsey, have done this as well, you have bills
about wraparound programs in community schools. What we have
proposed is that there is a bucket of services that schools
should be able to either access and coordinate with other not-
for-profits. Now the Race to the Top has some of this as part
of the promise neighborhoods. We have actually said, let's
downsize that to actual schools. And so those services could
include health services that could be paid for through the
SCHIP program; they could include social services; they could
include after-school services; they could include in a high
school, services for parents, ELL services, job development
services in order to start really bringing parents into the
school, having a school open 20 hours a day, 18 hours a day so
that the school is really the center of community.
So some of these services would--let's say you had 100
extra dollars, a school would then decide which service they
could buy with $100. Maybe they couldn't buy all of it, but
they could buy what was most necessary.
Ms. Woolsey. I have a question for you, Mr. Winters. What
is an effective evaluation program?
Mr. Winters. An example of one or what would one look like?
Ms. Woolsey. What would it look like?
Mr. Winters. Well, I am part of the experimental, I think,
there are a lot of things we need to try. I don't think the
test scores alone, if that is where we are going, I don't think
the test scores alone are the way to go. I think test scores
are limiting and they are noisy, but they do provide important
information that should be used as part of evaluation tools.
I also think that principal evaluations and even peer
evaluations can play an important role in those things. Part of
that will have to be--there needs to be accountability on the
principals and the peers to make sure that they have the
incentives to make the right decisions about teachers as well.
What all the correct weights of that are, I am not sure, and I
think that is something we need to consider moving forward. But
an evaluation system that we have now where 99 percent, or a
little bit less or a little bit more of teachers are rated as
satisfactory or exceeding, or excelling is, by far, off base of
reality.
Ms. Woolsey. I have used up my time. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Loebsack.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
panel for being here today. I just want to say at the outset, I
really appreciate what you have had to say, Ms. Weingarten,
about out of school factors, something I have tried to focus on
since I have been here the beginning of January 2007. I like
the idea of schools as sort of community centers. In some ways
too, we have a school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Taylor Elementary
School, that served that purpose quite well before the great
flood of 2008, and they were inundated by the flood and they
are coming back and doing that.
Obviously it is important to the community as well. When
you get a WIC program, for example, run out of the school and
that sort of thing, it is sort of beyond what we think of as
normal school activities.
I have some concerns about some of what appears to be
assumptions today, about sort of where we are already. Maybe
part of that is because I am from Iowa, and maybe we take too
much pride in what we already do in Iowa, and how well we do
it. I am the first to admit there may be some false pride on my
part.
Chairman Miller. Really?
Mr. Loebsack. The chair likes to hear me say that. But I do
have a question, Dr. Ball, about your own research because--and
I like what Congresswoman Biggert said, there are programs that
are in existence, they may be inadequate, but there are student
teacher programs, practicums, whatever the case may be. I guess
I want to ask you sort of empirically, and maybe you can
forward some of your articles to me; I would love to see that,
I was an academic before I became a congressman so I am very
interested to see the actual evidence for what we are lacking.
And if it is the case that this is true across the country
or particular parts of the country, does it relate specifically
to particular SES, or are we talking about race factors here,
ethnicity, what are we talking about exactly when we talk about
the inadequacy of teachers and the inadequacy of the teacher
training programs? That seems to be the focus today.
Ms. Ball. Thank you. So your question has to do with what
kind of evidence do we have been the inadequacy of our current
system?
Mr. Loebsack. That would, in fact, demonstrate the problem,
as I see it, that we are talking about today.
Ms. Ball. I think it is, in fact, true, that an
apprenticeship that we typically in the last 30 or 40 years
referred to as student teaching, nobody has argued that that is
not a good idea. I am not saying we shouldn't have student
teaching. My claim is somewhat more detailed, which is it
matters what happens inside of something called student
teaching or inside a clinical experience.
Most programs, alternatives or higher ed programs provide
field or clinical experience, but often they leave to beginning
teachers, basically to experience to experiment on kids, to get
somewhat undetailed feedback from their mentors. Mentors need
to learn how to provide feedback. A physician who is a
competent surgeon doesn't automatically know how to provide
feedback to a medical students. And, in fact, medical schools
do a lot of work to help people to learn to do that. I am
describing the need to become much more deliberate, as Ms.
Weingarten said, about how we would provide much more
deliberate clinical training.
Right now what I would say is we have a situation where it
is left somewhat to chance. And so the research on student
teaching is highly inconclusive because all it really shows is
the student teaching matter or not and you can't get much out
of that because it depends on what happens in the student
teaching. How good the teacher is, how whether the teacher is
good at giving skilled feedback, like really careful feedback.
Why did that lesson not go well? That requires a real
ability to be analytic about a teaching act, and to be able to
tell a beginner here is where it went wrong. So the research
would show that most of the efforts to try to evaluate these
things are too undetailed, and so we get very kind of messy,
noisy result. And what I am arguing, in part, by looking at
other professions is that we need a system that much more
deliberately and systematically that you could count on someone
who has initial training having learned particular things.
So with all the talk about assessments that we are doing
today, it is important to remember that although the
assessments for both kids and teachers need to be improved,
that without the training to help people achieve when they are
given those assessments, children won't do better only by being
tested and neither will teachers. So we need both better
assessments. My argument for assessments primarily is because I
think it will drive, it will, I hope, drive a greater appetite
for much better training. If we have really good assessments
that teachers and experts about teaching believed it were valid
then we would actually build a market for developing good
training which we don't currently very.
Mr. Loebsack. Is there any concern by any of you all on the
panel today that if we move forward in the direction that I
think many of us here think we should move, including many on
the panel, that we might have the same problem that some would
argue we had with No Child Left Behind, and we sort of create a
situation where we have a one-size-fits-all model, potential
for one-size-fits-all model we come up with some kind of new
law or regulations, whatever, when it comes to training--trying
to train good teachers that it will not be nimble enough to
deal with different parts of the country or parts of a State or
whatever the case may be.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Loebsack will take his answer off the
air.
We are going to go to Mr. Courtney. Mr. Courtney is going
to be the last questioner of this panel, and then we will take
the second panel, they'll present their testimony and we will
pick up with Ms. Clarke, who I believe is next.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. The panel would like an answer to Mr.
Loebsack's question, but I have got to move along here, we are
going to lose opportunity.
Mr. Courtney. Actually, my question was probably somewhat
in the same vein, obviously we have looked at the New Haven
contract in Connecticut very closely, read it from cover to
cover and applaud the hard work that went into that work, where
I think there is serious buy in both sides of the table in
terms of a new way of approaching things.
Again, I guess my concern is looking at the blueprint,
which obviously is a very unfinished document and the devil is
in the details when we get a bill here. Are you comfortable
with whether or not they mesh or whether or not the challenge
of building and flying at the same time may end up sort of
crashing the contract, to put it bluntly?
Ms. Weingarten. Building a plane and flying it at the same
time always has its obvious problems, but I think in terms of
education, we don't have a choice, because as Dr. Ball said, we
are dealing with children every single day. So what we have by
suggesting a change in the blueprint by saying that evaluations
are critically important, but let's create some pilots so we
can create a critical mass at the beginning of this process
that then other districts can buy into, we think will actually,
for the first time, change teacher quality fundamentally around
the country. I think there are programs.
And Congressman Loebsack, I have seen programs in Iowa that
are absolutely terrific and we have see programs around the
country that are actually terrific. But what we are proposing
here is pilots that do both teacher development and evaluation,
like what happened in New Haven. So you bootstrap all together,
so an evaluation that is not simply a gotcha system or a
snapshot system. It is the way in which you deal with the
training piece that we have all talked about that has been
totally and completely imperfect in schools so far. That is the
big difference in terms of a change, a systemic change in
schools.
The point I am making about New Haven is that they did it
through the vehicle of collective bargaining. So collective
bargaining became a force for change and became a force for buy
in. And they did it through a collaborative model and they met
every single deadline that people were skeptical when the New
Haven contract was first negotiated that it was just an
agreement to a committee. What happened instead is they have
actually met every single deadline and the evaluation plan that
they came up with is a really good model throughout the
country.
So what we would propose is to have an opportunity to
incentivize pilots in teacher development and evaluation so
that we would have good practice around the country that one
could look at as opposed to what unfortunately happened with No
Child Left Behind, regardless of how laudatory the intent was
is that you saw a lot of bad practice. You say basically
teaching to the task instead of a real focus on teaching around
learning.
Mr. Courtney. Do you see that in the blueprint presented by
the Secretary?
Ms. Weingarten. That is why I am saying we would--one of
our recommendations is to change the piece of blueprint that
talked about evaluation and to say yes, of course, evaluation--
in our letter to the Secretary last summer about Race to the
Top, we said evaluation is the Rosetta Stone, it is the
critical need to really change it, overhaul it.
And then in January, we came up with a proposal about how
to do so. But what is happening around the country is that in
the zeal to change evaluation systems, people are going and
doing the easy route which is just to look at one test score.
So we have gone from one snapshot of a principal coming in for
5 minutes a year to one test score, neither one of them work.
We need to have this throughout full deliberate process that
really changes fundamental evaluations.
Mr. Courtney. Ms. Ball, you look like you want to weigh in.
Ms. Ball. I think that is absolutely right that we have to
have a system that promotes efforts on helping people learn to
be better. We have a scale here of such size that while we can
do things in the environment of schooling that certainly will
matter, that we have a very large teaching force and I tried to
sketch that it will have a need for even more entrants, that if
we really want to improve the quality of what kids are going to
be getting in the immediate future, we have to immediately
change the way we are approaching both initial training and the
assessment processes so that we can build a system we want, not
merely test whether it works or not.
We have to create a system that works effectively for young
people. And if all we do is test and throw out the things that
are not working, we are not improving it. And there is an
urgent need to do that.
I do want to say one thing, which is, I think these
problems are inherently requiring of multiple forms of
expertise, and one thing that concerns me is sometimes I think
a distraction, who has the expertise to solve these problems?
In fact, I think it requires working across higher ed,
researchers, practicing teachers, teacher leaders, people in
the unions. There are a lot of people of expertise for these
problems, and when we try to locate the creation of solutions
in only one of the these domains, I think we shoot ourselves in
the foot, because these problem are complicated and we need
multiple kinds of expertise to work together. So I encourage
you to produce language that permits that kind of collaboration
to continue, and perhaps increase over what have seen in the
recent years.
Chairman Miller. That is a very good place for this panel
to end because we are going to call upon all of you to
participate in the solving of this problem. Thank you very much
for your testimony and for your time. I think it is clear from
those who got an opportunity to ask the questions that you have
given us a lot to think about here with respect to
professionalization of our teacher core.
Our next panel will come forward.
Chairman Miller. Welcome to the committee, and if I might
introduce the panel while they are taking their seats, our
first witness will be Marie Parker-McElroy who is an
instructional coach at Fairfax County public schools. She has
an on-the-ground view of professional development for teachers
and administration, she has experience transforming
underperforming schools and blue ribbon schools in a period
under 5 years. She will talk to us about what makes good
professional development and how to use data to drive it.
Monique Burns Thompson is the president of Teach Plus in
Boston, an organization which works to support the retention of
high quality teachers in the second stage of their careers with
expanded leadership opportunities for financial incentives for
success. She focuses on the development, management and
delivery of training curriculum and gives new principals the
skills and instructional and managerial leadership, previously
worked as the special assistant to the superintendent of
Philadelphia public schools, and was also an assistant
principal.
Chris Steinhauser is superintendent of Long Beach Unified
School District, a district which has been honored with the
prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education. He is an educator
with three decades in the Long Beach school system. He has been
involved in the seamless education program, a partnership with
California State University Long
Beach to train teacher candidates on designing course work,
and he will share his knowledge about the Long Beach teacher
system and professional development.
Jeanne Burns is with the Louisiana Board of Regents, an
associate commissioner of the teacher education initiative and
the Louisiana Board of Regents. She also serves as codirector
of Blue Ribbon Commission for Education Excellence and
recommends policies to improve teacher quality and holds
teachers accountable to results.
Dr. Burns previously taught special education and worked in
district leadership roles in Florida, and Louisiana. She will
talk about teacher professional development for teachers and
teacher leaders placement issues and serving rural schools.
Dr. Tony Bennett is the Indiana superintendent of public
instruction. Dr. Bennett has served as Indiana superintendent
of public instruction and served has for 9 years in a classroom
a science teacher before beginning his career in
administration.
John Kaplan is the president of Walden University. As
president, he focuses on efforts to attract diverse student
population that provides students in engaging learning
environment expands global learning opportunities. Prior to
joining Walden University, Mr. Kaplan had a career in
government public policy and law in Washington, DC. Serving as
the White House chief of staff for the national economic
council and special assistant as president for economic policy
under President Clinton.
Ms. McElroy, we will begin with you. Welcome to all of you.
I think most of you are here and see how the lighting system
works. It will begin with a green light, go to an orange and
then ask you to wrap up with the red light comes on. Thank you,
we look forward to your testimony and thank you for your time.
STATEMENT OF MARIE PARKER-McELROY, INSTRUCTIONAL COACH, FAIRFAX
COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Ms. Parker-McElroy. Good afternoon, Chairman Miller and
members of the committee, I am honored to be invited to bring
the teacher and instructional coach perspective to this
important conversation today. I am here to share my views and
experiences and express my support for Congressman Polis's
Great Teachers for Great Schools Act. Which directly addresses
implementation of high quality, effective professional
development, something that I am very passionate about.
Let me start with the metaphor, for every surgeon beside an
operating table, there are countless people behind the scenes
making sure that the surgeon can save a life. For every teacher
in the classroom, we have specialized professionals to support
them, help them solve problems, encourage them, and make sure
their students are receiving the best instruction possible. I
am one of those professionals. Like surgeons, teachers cannot
effectively perform in isolation, they require teamwork,
continuous professional development and improvement. However
most schools are not organized to support valuable team work.
School structure and tradition forces many teachers to teach
alone in isolation from their colleagues. I work with teachers
to bust this trend, to make sure that they understand the data,
the research, the best practices and the best ways to work
together.
Today I want to talk about the impact that professional
learning has on teachers that I work with daily, and more
importantly, the impact it has on students. At Grant Road
Elementary, there is strong professional development in place.
Most the professional development occurs among teams of
teachers organized by grade level. Teachers are supported in
developing understanding and practice of new strategies by
engaging in activities explored in team-based meetings. We
constantly check to see if what we are doing is making a
difference for our students and revise our practice
accordingly. We develop a sense of shared responsibility for
our students' success.
Let me tell you about one team in particular. This year I
am working with a team of fifth grade teachers. At the
beginning of the year, only 72 percent of our students passed
the county assessment. We have studied the standards that 10-
year-olds ought to achieve. We determined the knowledge and the
skills students will need to meet these standards. We asked
each other, what does it look like for each individual child in
our classroom? We developed lessons and strategies for teachers
to use with their students. This professional learning takes
place in real-time, not months before in random lectures or
workshops that occur away from our school.
After implementing the strategies and lessons developed by
the teams of teachers we study how the students responded to
our lessons and whether they achieved the required standards.
We immediately know if the students are achieving or not and we
determine why.
Our team uses the live feedback from the students to adapt
our instructions. This continuous job-embedded and data-driven
process of teams of teachers studying and implementing
effective teaching practices aligned to students needs has
produced significant academic gains for our students. One week
ago, we retested our students and 91 percent of them passed.
That is an increase of 19 percentage points gained in less than
one full academic year. How did this happen? Teachers were
involved in effective, real-time on the job professional
learning with our their colleagues who know their students and
what their students need to increase their success.
Students in our classroom only have 36 weeks to learn the
grade level standards. My teachers, and more importantly my
students, don't have time to waste. Collaborative professional
development allows them to learn from each other and access the
tools and strategies they need when they need them to help our
students achieve. A teacher and coach once said as a brand new
teacher and having a personal connection to a coach who
understood curriculum and structure in the culture of the
school gave me more support than anything else that was
offered. Being able to rely on a coach to come into any
classroom and not judge, but support my instruction, increased
my ability to support each individual student I taught.
In summary, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am
confident that students can reach their full academic potential
when teams of teachers are actively engaged in professional
learning based upon data and the needs of their own students
and organized in a structure that offered timely and embedded
teams in classroom-based support. I recommend that the
Reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act, include a
Federal definition of professional development consistent with
the National Staff Development Council Standards for staff
development and Congressman Polis's Great Teachers For Great
Schools Act.
We as teachers need the support to improve our practice and
increase student achievement. I also recommend that federally-
funded professional development should be evaluated rigorously
for its impact on teacher performance and student learning.
Finally, please provide dedicated resources so that
districts can build capacity and provide time and support to
implement professional development in all schools. Achievement
for all students depends on investing in it now.
[The statement of Ms. Parker-McElroy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Marie Parker-McElroy, Cluster-Based Instructional
Coach, Fairfax County Public Schools
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the
Committee. My name is Marie Parker-McElroy, a Cluster-Based
Instructional Coach in Fairfax County Public Schools, the twelfth
largest school district in the country. I work in two schools, Camelot
Elementary and Graham Road Elementary. I am honored to be invited to
bring the teacher and instructional coach perspective to this important
conversation. I am here today to share my views and experiences, and to
express my support for Congressman Polis' Great Teachers for Great
Schools Act, which directly addresses the implementation of high-
quality, effective professional development--something that I am
passionate about.
Let me start with a metaphor. For every surgeon beside an operating
table, there are countless people behind the scenes, making sure that
the surgeon can save a life. For every teacher in the classroom, we
have specialized professionals to support them, help them solve
problems and improve, encourage them, and make sure that their students
are receiving the best instruction possible. I am one of those
professionals.
Like surgeons, teachers cannot effectively perform in isolation.
They require teamwork, continuous professional development and
improvement. However, most schools are not organized to support
valuable team work. School structure and tradition forces many teachers
to teach alone, in isolation from their colleagues. I work with
teachers to buck this trend, to make sure that they understand the
data, the research, the best practices, and the best ways to work
together.
Today, I want to talk about the impact that professional learning
has on teachers that I work with daily, and more importantly, the
impact it has on students.
At Graham Road Elementary, there is a strong professional
development structure in place. Most of the professional development
occurs among teams of teachers organized by grade level. We begin
professional development meetings by looking at our data, focusing
first on school-wide data. As the instructional coach, my job is to
work with each team to analyze the data, discover instructional
strengths and weaknesses, establish team learning priorities, and
define indicators for success. Throughout this process, we identify
books and research that we will read together to deepen our
understanding and content knowledge. We also develop a sense of shared
responsibility for our student success.
On an ongoing basis, we review our progress in implementing the
school improvement plan. We constantly check to see if what we are
doing is making a difference for our students and revise our practices
accordingly. These measures can be as simple as a teacher using pencil
and paper to analyze a test or include excel spreadsheets with student
data to analyze our impact on students' learning.
To recap, teachers are supported in developing their understanding
and practice of new strategies by engaging in activities explored
during team-based professional learning meetings. These meetings are
led by teacher leaders, coaches or principals. The meetings focus on
deepening content knowledge, planning formative assessments to check
for student understanding, and analyzing common assessments to measure
the impact of instruction.
Let me tell you about one team in particular. This year I am
working with a team of fifth grade teachers. At the beginning of the
year, only 72 percent of students passed the county assessment. We meet
weekly during regular school hours. We study the standards that 10-
year-olds ought to achieve. We determine the knowledge and skills
students will need to meet the standards. We ask each other, ``how does
this look for academically advanced students, second language learners,
students in special education or the economically disadvantaged?'' We
develop lessons and strategies for teachers to use with their students.
This professional learning takes place in real time; not months before
in random lectures or workshops that occur away from our school.
After implementing the strategies and lessons developed by the
teams of teachers, we study how the students responded to our lessons
and whether they achieved the required standards. We immediately know
if the students are achieving or not and determine why. Our team uses
the live feedback from the students to adapt our instruction.
This continuous, job-embedded, and data-driven process of teams of
teachers studying and implementing effective teaching practices aligned
to student needs has produced significant academic gains for our
students. One week ago, we retested our students and 91 percent of them
passed. That is an increase of 19 percentage points, gained in less
than one full academic year. How did this happen? Teachers were
involved in effective, real-time and on-the-job professional learning
with their colleagues who know their students and know what their
students need to increase their success. Students in our classrooms
only have 36 weeks to learn the grade-level standards. My teachers, and
more importantly my students, don't have time to waste. Collaborative
professional development allows them to learn from each other and
access the tools and strategies they need--when they need them--to help
our students achieve.
A teacher I coached once said:
I joined Graham Road Elementary School as a brand new teacher and
having a personal connection to a coach, who understood curriculum,
instruction, and the culture of the school gave me more support than
anything else that was offered. Being able to rely on a coach to come
into my classroom and not judge, but support my instruction increased
my ability to support each individual student I taught. My coach's
constant feedback and modeling increased my own efficacy as a teacher,
which in turn improved each student's learning within the class. I am
confident to say that without an effective instructional coach many
teachers would not be as effective as they are and therefore many
students would not be at their full academic potential.
In summary, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am
confident that students can reach their full academic potential when
teams of teachers are actively engaged in professional learning based
upon data and the needs of their own students and organized in a
structure that offers timely and embedded team and classroom-based
support.
I recommend that the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary
Education Act include a federal definition for professional development
consistent with the National Staff Development Council's Standards for
Staff Development and Congressman Polis' Great Teachers for Great
Schools Act. We, as teachers, need the support to improve our practice
and increase student achievement. I also recommend that federally
funded professional development should be evaluated rigorously for its
impact on teacher performance and student learning. Finally, please
provide dedicated resources so that districts--especially those most in
need of improvement--can build capacity, and provide time and support
to implement effective professional development in all schools. This is
the most critical lever available to improve the effectiveness of our
teacher workforce, as we continue to seek ways to improve recruitment
and preparation. Achievement for all students depends on investing in
it now.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee for the
opportunity to share my point of view as a teacher and instructional
coach.
______
STATEMENT OF MONIQUE BURNS THOMPSON, PRESIDENT, TEACH PLUS
Ms. Thompson. Chairman Miller and members of the committee,
thank you very much for providing me with the opportunity to
talk with you this afternoon about the importance of effective
teachers and how to attract and retain them in the schools that
need them the most. At Teach Plus, we work with experienced
effective teachers in years 3 to 10 of their careers. The ideas
presented here are informed by those teachers. The research
confirms what parents and educators have long known, teachers
are the most important factors in determining whether a child
has a lifetime of choice or challenge. We know that there are
big differences among teachers, as much as one full year's
worth of learning between the most and the least effective
teachers. Students in Los Angeles who were assigned the most
effective teachers gained, on average, 10 percentile points
more than students in classrooms with less effective teachers.
The researchers conclude if the effects were to accumulate
having a top quartile teacher, rather than a bottom quartile
teacher for 4 years in a row would be enough to close the Black
White test score gap.
Even though we know unequivocally how much talented
teachers matter, harmful patterns of inequitability, access to
the strongest teachers continue to exist, especially for low-
income minority students. Recent analysis of the national
school and staffing survey data reveals that core academic
classes in high poverty secondary schools are almost as twice
likely as their low poverty counterparts to be taught by
teachers with neither major nor certification in their assigned
subjects. Children in high poverty schools
Are more than twice as likely to receive an inexperienced
teacher as children in low poverty schools.
Clearly we must design policies and practices to attract,
support and retain our most effective teachers and ensure that
they are working in schools with students who need them the
most. We feel this work is the civil rights issue of our time
if we are to close the achievement gap that has held back
generations of our citizens from participating and constructing
a stronger future America.
Thankfully the teachers with whom we work in Massachusetts,
Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee believe this as well. One such
team of teachers ask our Boston policy fellowship program. As
they read the research on teacher distribution they became
outraged. These teachers developed a proposal to staff the so-
called hard-to-staff schools with experienced, effective
teachers. They called it Ready for the Next Challenge. And it
begins with the profound statement from the teachers
themselves.
We believe that given the right support and conditions,
there is no shortage of talented, experienced teachers willing
to teach in low performing schools. The idea that no one wants
to teach in high-need schools risks becoming a self-fulfilling
prophecy. It must be replaced with what can we do to attract,
retain and develop teachers who want to teach in these schools.
They proceeded to layout the conditions that would motivate
them to teach in low-performing schools and for the next year
we at Teach Plus worked to enact their model in the Boston
public school system.
The program is called T3, Turnaround Teacher Teams. T3 was
adopted by the superintendent of the Boston public schools, Dr.
Carol Johnson to recruit select cohorts of effective teachers
in three of Boston's lowest achieving schools. The goal of T3
is to ensure that high-need students have significantly
improved access to excellent teachers. T3 is a key piece of Dr.
Johnson's strategy to turn around chronically underperforming
schools.
The initiative is made up of six primary components. T3 is
selective, teachers must apply and demonstrate a minimum of 3
years of effective teaching in the urban setting. T3 is a team-
based strategy, a minimum of 25 percent of the faculty will be
T3 teachers. T3 teachers will play central leadership role in
performing and transforming that school as these teachers
continue to be teachers in the classroom. They will have a pay
differential, they will work for highly effective principals
who have a track record of turnaround, and they will have time
for training and collaboration.
In addition to running a national marketing campaign, Teach
Plus has created a rigorous T3 selection process that is
designed in partnership with the Boston public schools to be
fair and comprehensive in assessing teachers readiness to be
turnaround leaders.
So the logical next question is teachers have envisioned
it, we have built it, will they come? After just 2 weeks of
marketing, over 130 teachers have begun the application
process, including Fulbright Scholar, quite a few teachers from
charter schools, a large number of experienced ELL teachers
that are desperately needed in these schools. We have given a
reason to stay and reconnect with corps mission that brought
them into teaching in the first place, social justice. They are
showing all of us that they are ready for the next challenge,
they are not afraid or hesitant to take on the hefty heavy
lifting of school reform and they are eager to serve the city's
children with greatest need.
We are inspired and motivated by these teachers every day
and we hope this distinguished committee will be as well.
[The statement of Ms. Thompson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Monique Burns Thompson, President, Teach Plus
Chairman Miller and Members of the Committee: Thank you very much
for providing me with the opportunity to talk with you this afternoon
about the importance of effective teachers and how to attract and
retain them in the schools that need them the most. At Teach Plus, we
work with experienced, effective teachers in years 3-10 of their
careers. The ideas presented here are informed by those teachers.
Teachers: Our Most Valuable Resource
The research confirms what parents and educators have long known:
Teachers are the most important factor in determining whether a child
has a lifetime of choice or challenge.
We know that there are big differences among teachers--as much as
one full year's worth of learning between the most and least effective
teachers.\i\ Students in Los Angeles who were assigned to the most
effective teachers\ii\ gained, on average, ten percentile points more
than students in the classrooms of the least effective teachers.\iii\
The researchers conclude: ``If the effects were to accumulate, having a
top-quartile teacher rather than a bottom quartile teacher four years
in a row would be enough to close the black-white test score gap.''
\iv\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\i\ Chait, Robin (2009). From Qualifications to Results: promoting
Teacher Effectiveness Through Federal Policy. Washington, D.C.: Center
for American Progress. Sources: Eric A. Hanushek and Steven G. Rivkin,
``How to Improve the Supply of High Quality Teachers'' (Washington:
Brookings Institution, 2003); Rockoff, ``The Impact of Individual
Teachers on Student Achievement Evidence from Panel Data''; Steven G.
Rivkin, Eric A. Hanushek, and John F. Kain, ``Teachers, Schools, and
Academic Achievement,'' Econometrica 73 (2) (2005): 417--458.
\ii\ Ibid.
\iii\ Most effective teachers are those teachers in the top
quartile of performance, while very ineffective teachers are teachers
in the bottom quartile of performance, using ``value-added'' to measure
performance. Source: Gordon, R., Kane, T.J., and Staiger, D.O. (2006).
Identifying Effective teachers Using Performance on the Job.
Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
\iv\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inequitable Access Persists: We Must Act with Courage and Conviction
Even though we know unequivocally how much teachers matter, harmful
patterns of inequitable access to the strongest teachers continue to
exist, especially for low-income and minority students:
Recent analysis of the Schools and Staffing Survey Data--
the only national dataset we have on teacher distribution and
characteristics--reveals that core academic classes in high-poverty
secondary schools are almost twice as likely as core academic classes
in low-poverty schools to be taught by teachers with neither a major
nor certification in their assigned subject (14 percent compared to 27
percent).\v\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\v\ Richard Ingersoll, 2007. Analysis of the 2003-2004 Schools and
Staffing Survey Data for the Education Trust, ``Core Problems: Out-of-
Field Teaching Persists in Key Academic Courses and High-Poverty
Schools.'' Available: http://www.edtrust.org/sites/edtrust.org/files/
publications/files/SASSreportCoreProblem.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Children in high-poverty schools are more than twice as
likely to receive an inexperienced teacher as children in low-poverty
schools.\vi\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\vi\ Heather Peske and Kati Haycock, 2006. ``Teaching Inequality:
How Poor and Minority Students are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality.''
Washington, DC: The Education Trust.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
And when we look at the data on the distribution of
teacher effectiveness, we find similar inequity. The Tennessee
Department of Education recently analyzed state data on teacher
effectiveness to see where the state's most effective teachers are
teaching.\vii\ They found: ``Students in Tennessee's high priority
schools have less access to the state's most effective teachers in
reading/language arts and math than students in other schools across
the state.'' \viii\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\vii\ These ``most effective teachers'' are producing at least one
and a half year's worth of growth with students.
\viii\ ``Distribution of Effective Teachers in Tennessee Schools,''
Tennessee Race to the Top Application Appendix D-3-2, page D-133.
Available: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase1-
applications/appendixes/tennessee.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recruiting and Retaining Effective Teachers in the Schools that Need
Them Most: The Civil Rights Issue of this Generation
Clearly, we must design policies and practices to attract, support
and retain our most effective teachers, and ensure they are working in
schools with the students who need them the most.
This work is the civil rights issue of our time if we are to close
the achievement gap that has held back generations of our citizens from
participating in constructing a stronger future America. Thankfully,
the teachers with whom we work in Massachusetts, Indiana, Illinois and
Tennessee believe this as well.
A Pioneering Solution to Inequitable Distribution in Boston, MA: T3:
Turnaround Teacher Teams
One such team of teachers is in our Boston Policy Fellowship
program. As they read the research on teacher distribution, they became
outraged. They and so many of their peers were motivated to teach by a
commitment to social justice. The systematic breakdown in matching
high-need students with high-quality teachers was a problem they
believed to be solvable. These teachers developed a proposal to staff
so-called ``hard-to-staff'' schools with experienced, effective
teachers. They called it, ``Ready for the Next Challenge'' and it
begins with a profound statement from the teachers themselves, ``We
believe that, given the right supports and conditions, there is no
shortage of talented experienced teachers willing to teach in low-
performing schools. The idea that no one wants to teach in a high-need
school risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. It must be replaced
with, What can we do to attract, retain and develop teachers who want
to teach in these schools?''
They proceeded to lay out the conditions that would motivate them
to teach in a low-performing school, and for the next year, we at Teach
Plus worked to enact their model in the Boston Public Schools. The
initiative is called T3: Turnaround, Teach, Team Initiative. T3 was
adopted by the Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, Dr. Carol
Johnson to recruit, select and support cohorts of effective teachers in
three of Boston's lowest achieving schools. The goal of T3 is to ensure
that high-need students have significantly improved access to excellent
teachers. T3 is a key piece of Dr. Johnson's strategy to turn around
chronically underperforming schools. The T3 Initiative is made up of
six primary components:
1. T3 is selective. Teachers must apply to the T3 Initiative and
demonstrate a minimum of three years of effective teaching in an urban
setting.
2. T3 is a team-based strategy. A minimum of 25% of the school
faculty will be selected through the T3 process, ensuring strong
colleagues in the turnaround effort.
3. T3 Teachers will play central leadership roles in transforming
the schools. T3 teachers will serve in lead teacher roles, such as
grade level chairs, while continuing in the classroom. They will also
be part of the school principal's turnaround leadership council.
4. Pay differential. Additional compensations will range from
$6,000-8,000 depending on the amount of additional time worked.
5. The principals of these schools are highly effective. Each of
these schools has a new principal with a turnaround track record and a
commitment to teacher leadership.
6. Time for training and collaboration. T3 teachers will be trained
together in the summer to take on the challenges of teacher leadership
and school turnaround. They will also have the support of a team and
data coach throughout the school year.
In addition to running a national marketing campaign, Teach Plus
has created a rigorous T3 selection process that is designed in
partnership with Boston Public Schools to be a fair and comprehensive
way of assessing a teacher's readiness to be a turnaround leader. The
T3 selection process includes:
A written application;
An interview process that involves participation in a
case-based challenge;
Evidence of effective classroom teaching practice--in the
form of an observation of submitted video.
So the logical next question is, ``teachers have envisioned it, we
have built it, will they come?'' After just two weeks of marketing over
100 teachers have begun the application process including a Fulbright
scholar, quite a few teachers from charter schools interested in
working the traditional system, and a large number of experienced SPED
and ELL teachers these schools desperately need. We are giving them
reason to stay and a chance to reconnect to the core mission that
brought them into teaching in the first place: social justice. They are
showing all of us that they are ready for the next challenge, they are
not afraid or hesitant to take on the heavy lifting of school reform
and they are eager to serve the city's children with the greatest need.
We are inspired and motivated by these teachers every day, and we hope
that this distinguished committee will be as well.
______
Chairman Miller. Mr. Steinhauser.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS STEINHAUSER, SUPERINTENDENT, LONG BEACH
UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Mr. Steinhauser. Good afternoon, Chairman Miller,
Congressman Castle, and distinguished members of the committee.
I deeply appreciate this historic opportunity to provide
testimony on the most important civil rights issue of our time,
for I firmly believe every child has the right to a good
education.
In Long Beach, data-driven accountability has become a way
of life, use of data is infused into our nationally recognized
professional development and our C1 certification partnership
with California's State University, and Long Beach City College
where most of our teachers come from. Such professional
development is required of all new teachers and administrators
in our district. New teachers and administrators are not simply
left to sink or swim in Long Beach, it is supported by new
teacher and administrative coaches and ongoing training in how
to use data to continually improve instruction throughout the
school year.
I also would like to add that all of our teachers and
parents have total access to data 24/7. All of our parents can
see immediately how their students have done on their test. My
wife is a teacher at our school system, she can give a test
that day, go home that night, and regroup her kids based on
disaggregation, how the kids have done based on the scanning of
those tests.
I would like to also talk about a few of our best practices
in Long Beach. Through our partnership with California State
University of Long Beach we have totally redesigned all of our
teacher ed and our administrator programs. We have gone into a
program where we have multiple pathways into our teacher ed
administrator programs. We take our best and brightest teachers
and administrators and we coteach the up and coming new
teachers and administrators with our higher ed partners. Some
of those classes are taught at the University; and some of
those classes are taught in our campuses. We have provided
apprenticeships for teachers and for our administrators and so
they hone their craft.
Our leadership development program prepares the next
generation of leaders in our district. We have a whole host of
tiered activities for our teachers so that if they choose not
to leave the classroom, they can stay in the classroom and hone
their craft and help other teachers. Ninety percent of our
administrators in Long Beach Unified were teachers of Long
Beach Unified. And we retain about 90 percent of our teachers
in our school system after 5 years of instruction. We lose very
few teachers in our school district.
We also use the same strategy for our school improvement
strategy. We take our most successful teachers and our most
successful principals and we reassign them to our most troubled
school. We also use response to intervention for students in
the same way that we do for our schools. In that sense, schools
that are having greater struggles have fewer flexible options.
Schools who are doing really, really well have greater flexible
options in our school system.
We believe strongly that we need to think outside the box
as school systems and so we have entered into a partnership
with Fresno Unified which is the fourth largest school district
in California. So the third and fourth largest school systems
now have a formalized partnership recognized by our State Board
of Education, and we are focusing on 3 areas: ELL instruction
for English language learners, math instruction for all
students and leadership development.
I want to share one program where we had one teacher who
modeled a map program that was taught in Singapore in one of
our classrooms. We received unbelievable results. We then moved
that program to other schools in our district. Our student test
scores went up 24 percent in a 3-year period. That program is
now replicated in Fresno, Garden Grove, Oakland and Compton
Unified with the same results. Now our teachers in Fresno and
Long Beach are codeveloping and coteaching classes and new
programs to serve our students. We have regular visitations
from Fresno teachers and Long Beach teachers in both school
systems, we meet 3 times a school year.
I want to close by saying that we would recommend providing
districts like ours maximum flexibility regarding expenditures
of local Federal funds, this can be done while still assuring
accountability to make sure that we focus on all student needs.
We endorse the ESEA blueprint unveiled by the President and we
welcome the President's emphasis on competitive grants. We
believe strongly that competition drives reforms by rewarding
success. We have made great progress in Long Beach, but we can
and must accelerate our efforts, and we can only do that with
your help and with Federal policy.
I look forward to working with you to achieve this aim, and
I want to thank you again for this opportunity to speak to you.
[The statement of Mr. Steinhauser follows:]
Prepared Statement of Christopher J. Steinhauser, Superintendent of
Schools, Long Beach Unified School District (CA)
Hello, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Kline, and distinguished
members of the committee. I deeply appreciate this historic opportunity
to provide testimony on the most important civil rights issue of our
time, for I firmly believe that every child has a right to a good
education.
As superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District, I'm
here today on behalf of 87,000 students in California's third largest
school district--a school system that despite the tough obstacles of
poverty, language barriers and our ongoing, multi-billion dollar cuts
in state funding for education--continues to defy the odds and achieve
steady, significant gains in student achievement.
I've provided several attachments to this written testimony showing
that other experts nationwide have recognized the effectiveness of Long
Beach schools, and that our approach merits replication elsewhere. A
common theme in those attachments is that in Long Beach, data-driven
accountability has become a way of life. Use of data is infused into
our nationally recognized professional development and our Seamless
Education Partnership with our local postsecondary institutions that
produce most of our new teachers. Such professional development is
required of all new teachers and administrators in our district. New
teachers are not simply left to sink or swim in Long Beach. They're
supported by new-teacher coaches, and with ongoing training on how to
use data to continually improve instruction throughout the school year.
In Long Beach, students speak 38 languages, and 70 percent of our
children receive federally subsidized meals, yet students from all
walks of life--from the inner city to the suburbs--are making academic
gains because of our persistent focus on data-driven instruction and
training.
Allow me to share a few of our best practices in Long Beach:
We offer school choice to our parents, allowing them to
select a school within our system, or if they so choose, to attend a
school outside our district. Forty percent of our students are
attending schools of choice.
We were the first public school system in the United
States to implement uniforms in kindergarten through eighth grade, and
we now have two high schools in uniforms.
We were the first to require any third grader reading
below grade level to attend mandatory summer school, and the first to
end social promotion, or the practice of passing students from one
grade to the next whether they met grade level standards or not.
Our Academic and Career Success For All Initiative aims to
increase the college and career readiness of all students. It includes
our College Promise program, which provides scholarships, a tuition-
free first semester at our local city college, and guaranteed college
admission at our local university for students who complete minimum
requirements.
Our Leadership Development Program prepares the next
generation of school leaders by building a leadership pipeline, through
new principal induction, teacher leader certification and other
leadership development training.
Our school improvement strategies include the pairing of
some of our most successful school principals with our schools that
need the most support. We use Response to Intervention strategies in a
systemic fashion, providing tiered support to students and schools.
This way, schools in need of greater support receive it, along with
more structured guidance from our central office, while higher
achieving schools are allowed greater flexibility at their site.
We learn from other school districts, and other districts
learn from us, in a systematic fashion. We have entered into a
partnership with Fresno Unified School District, so that now we have
the third and fourth largest school districts in California committed
to sharing knowledge and resources to increase graduation rates and
prepare students for college and the working world. We're especially
focused on sharing with Fresno our best practices on English Language
Learner instruction, leadership development, and math instruction.
Long Beach proves that our public schools, and our large, urban
school systems, can overcome stubborn challenges. But we need your
help. Despite our nationally recognized success in Long Beach, I truly
believe that we can do much better if we make some key adjustments.
We recommend providing school districts like ours the maximum
flexibility possible regarding the expenditure of federal funds. This
can be done while assuring accountability, and we have helped to
initiate a pending state senate bill, SB 1396, that proposes a pilot
program to do just that in California.
We endorse the ESEA blueprint unveiled recently by President Obama.
The blueprint would reward academic growth and innovation instead of
simply sending more money to troubled school districts.
We welcome the president's emphasis on competitive grants.
Competition drives reform by recognizing and rewarding success.
The president's blueprint contains a number of other features that
we favor. I have attached additional information on our input regarding
the blueprint.
We've made great progress in Long Beach, but we can and must
accelerate our efforts with the help of sound federal policy. I look
forward to working with you to achieve this aim, and I thank you again
for the opportunity to provide this testimony.
Attachments:
A. Obama Plan Aims to Reward Performance (By Christopher J.
Steinhauser)
B. Reforms Bring International Acclaim
C. Stanford U. Touts School Reform Here
D. Seamless Education a `National Model'
E. Federal Review Praises Accountability
F. Downtown School Wins National Award
G. Senior U.S. Education Official Visits
H. New Harvard Book Touts Long Beach
I. America's Educators Look to Long Beach
J. State Superintendent Praises LBUSD's Use of Data
K. Use of Data Lauded by National Council
L. LBUSD `America's Crown Jewel'
______
ATTACHMENT A
Obama Plan Aims to Reward Performance
We have good news and bad news about the list of schools that the
California Department of Education just deemed to be among the poorest
performers in the state. The good news is that thanks to the hard work
of our teachers and others, no schools in the Long Beach Unified School
District appeared on this ``lowest 5 percent'' list. The bad news is
that because we have no schools on the list, our schools and students
will miss out on tens of millions of dollars in federal education
funding that will instead go to the poorest performing schools.
Last Saturday, President Barack Obama attempted to remedy such
funding flaws as he unveiled his blueprint for the reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left
Behind. Building upon his administration's Race to the Top education
initiative, President Obama's plan would reward academic growth and
innovation instead of simply sending more money to troubled school
districts. We applaud the president's plan, which presents an important
opportunity to revamp many of NCLB's deficiencies.
Instead of unfairly labeling schools as failures, including some of
the top-ranked schools in the nation, President Obama's plan would
abolish NCLB's draconian Adequate Yearly Progress system, replacing its
single snapshot approach with a system that rewards academic gains.
Here in our school district, which has attracted national attention for
its successful school reforms, we say it's about time.
We welcome the president's emphasis on competitive grants.
Competition drives reform by recognizing and rewarding success. We saw
this theory in action when, even before any Race to the Top money was
spent, many states moved forward on a number of reform issues as they
competed for federal funds.
The president's blueprint contains a number of other features that
we favor:
Competitive grants will focus on big-picture goals
(student success, teacher excellence, etc.) and give recipients the
freedom to decide how to meet those goals.
Competitive funding will drive reform not only at the
state level but also at the school district level. We relish the
opportunity to apply directly for federal funds, bypassing Sacramento.
Designated funds will support local projects to incubate
and expand promising reforms. This approach not only complements our
practice of launching pilot projects and then carefully evaluating and
refining them before implementing them more broadly. It also inherently
encourages collaboration with teachers and community partners, which
has been key to our success in Long Beach.
Fewer, but larger and more flexible funding streams will
be created for areas integral to student success, giving states and
districts flexibility to focus on local needs. These new, competitive
funding streams will still ensure that federal funds are used wisely.
At the same time, school districts will have fewer restrictions on
blending funds from different categories, meaning less red tape. We
have consistently advocated for such increased flexibility at the state
and federal levels.
College and career readiness standards will be
implemented, as will improved assessments aligned with those standards.
This effort will enhance our own Academic and Career Success Initative,
which aims to prepare more students for high-paying, high-demand jobs.
Critics of the president's plan should consider this. Few people
dispute that the current system doesn't work. Secondly, our students in
Long Beach face the same and often greater challenges than those in
other school districts, yet they regularly miss out on large sums of
federal help. Two-thirds of our students live below the poverty line.
More than 30 languages are spoken in our schools. Yet somehow we
continue to make significant progress. Federal policies should not
punish our teachers and students for their successes. We're just as
deserving of those federal funds--if not more so--than other school
systems.
______
ATTACHMENT B
Reforms Bring International Acclaim
A new book examining successful and enduring school reform in the
U.S. and beyond praises the Long Beach Unified School District's steady
gains in student achievement.
The book, ``All Systems Go: The Change Imperative for Whole System
Reform,'' says that ``Long Beach has had a long run of success from
1992 to the present.''
Author Michael Fullan details LBUSD's development of higher
standards for students, and how those standards are attained through
effective central office support for schools.
Fullan contrasts Long Beach's successful reforms with California's
penchant for piecemeal policy making and fiscal uncertainty.
While ``Long Beach represents another example of whole-system
reform at the district level,'' the book states, ``California continues
to be one of the worst examples of piecemeal reform, not to mention the
fact that it is currently desperately in debt.''
Among LBUSD's successes cited in the book are the increase in the
number of fifth graders reading at grade level here, and a dramatic
decrease in high school dropout rates.
The author, Fullan, is professor emeritus at the Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and is special
adviser on education to Dalton McGuinty, the premier of Ontario. He is
currently working as adviser and consultant on several major education
reform initiatives around the world.
Find Fullan's book at www.corwin.com. Type ``All Systems Go'' in
the search field.
______
ATTACHMENT C
Stanford U. Touts School Reform Here
For many years, high school was the time when students chose to
pursue college or a career. But educators today recognize that high
schools must prepare all students for both college and career
readiness. A recent report from Stanford University says Long Beach is
tackling this challenge effectively and creating lasting reform.
Long Beach and some other districts in California are working to
improve high schools by connecting strong academics, demanding
technical education and real-world experience in a wide range of
fields, such as engineering, arts and media, biomedicine and health.
This reform model, known as linked learning (or multiple pathways),
provides multiyear programs of study that are rigorous, relevant and
directly connected to regional and state economic needs. The idea is to
prepare students for success in a full array of options after high
school.
The recent report from Stanford's School Redesign Network focuses
on Long Beach's ``distributive leadership'' method of implementing such
reform.
``Rather than an `initiative-of-the month' approach, distributive
leadership enables districts to build in structures, capacity and
culture that foster systemic change owned and sustained by a broad base
of leaders,'' states the report, titled ``Distributive Leadership in
District Reform: A Model for Taking Linked Learning to Scale.''
The report examines Long Beach's ``effective mechanism for
including school staff in reform efforts through Pathway Leadership
Teams. These teams are school-based and made up of site administrators,
teachers, counselors and others. The teams are critical in leading bold
change to structures, policies and instructional practices, such as
master schedules, curriculum integration and professional
development.''
LBUSD provides leadership training and support for pathway
leadership team members, including teachers, so they can take the lead
in building a school-based culture of collaboration and accountability,
the report states. The school district also builds broad-based
community support through an Expanding Pathways Implementation
Council--a formal steering committee of school site curriculum leaders,
postsecondary partners, Regional Occupation Programs and career
technical education leaders, principals, counselors, industry and
community leaders, executive district staff and others.
The report is supported by a grant from The James Irvine
Foundation.
The School Redesign Network was established in 2000 at Stanford
University to build, capture and share research-based knowledge to
transform secondary schools and school systems.
The Stanford group's mission is ``to help support and sustain
equitable schools and districts that are intellectually rigorous, high
performing and designed to help all students master the knowledge and
skills needed for success in college, career and citizenship.''The
network is affiliated with the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy
in Education.
______
ATTACHMENT D
Seamless Education a `National Model'
A recent case study by the Washington, D.C.-based Business Higher
Education Forum calls the Long Beach Unified School District's Seamless
Education Partnership a national model.
The Seamless partnership, started in 1994, connects LBUSD's
educators with business leaders, Long Beach City College and Cal State
Long Beach to make certain that students progress smoothly through the
education systems and into the workforce.
``The Long Beach Seamless Education Partnership has become a
defining feature of the community and a model for the nation,'' states
the 16-page report, titled ``Improving Education Through Collaboration:
A Case Study of the Long Beach Seamless Education Partnership.''
Among Seamless Education's signature programs is the Long Beach
College Promise, which promises all LBUSD students the opportunity to
receive a college education and provides a variety of educational
benefits and services.
The full report by the Business Higher Education Forum is available
here.
According to their website, BHEF is an organization of Fortune 500
chief executive officers, prominent college and university presidents,
and foundation leaders ``working to advance innovative solutions to our
nation's education challenges in order to enhance U.S.
competitiveness.''
______
ATTACHMENT E
Federal Review Praises Accountability
Federal auditors liked what they saw during a recent visit to the
Long Beach Unified School District, praising the district's fiscal
practices, instruction, public accessibility, accountability and
parental involvement.
Reviewers from the U.S. Department of Education visited McKinley
Elementary School, Hamilton Middle School and LBUSD's central offices,
thoroughly examining everything from record-keeping practices to
parental involvement and the level of central office support for
principals and their schools.
Reviewer Julia Keleher, now in her third year on the job, described
LBUSD as the best school district she had ever seen.
She and other reviewers were impressed with the training, or staff
development, that the district provides to principals and teachers,
said Carol Pratt, an administrative assistant with LBUSD who helped
coordinate the reviewers' visit. The visitors also were impressed with
parental involvement in various school committees, school site councils
and training sessions.
``The reviewers were blown away by our parent involvement,'' Pratt
said. ``They just couldn't get over how excited the parents were about
all the opportunities they have to learn, and how our parents raved
about our superintendent being accessible and easy to talk to.''
______
ATTACHMENT F
Downtown School Wins National Award
International Elementary School in downtown Long Beach is one of 13
schools to earn the prestigious National Excellence in Urban Education
Award. School officials will accept the honor from the National Center
for Urban School Transformation during a May 5 to 7 conference in Long
Beach.
``If every school in America served diverse populations of students
as well as these 13 schools, achievement gaps would be eliminated,''
said Joseph F. Johnson, Jr., Executive Director of NCUST.
To be eligible, schools must have high numbers of low-income
students and may not have selective admissions policies. Test results
must be better than the state average on required assessments, and show
few or no achievement gaps among various demographic groups of
students. All schools must have high attendance rates, low suspension
and expulsion rates, and exceed the federal government's Adequate
Yearly Progress (AYP) for at least the past two years.
Each winning school receives a $1,000 check, a large banner for the
school, and a profile at www.ncust.org.
At the winning schools, researchers found impressive evidence of
students learning challenging academic content and skills in reading,
writing, science, mathematics and social studies that exceed grade
level expectations. The reviewers saw students benefiting from
``excellent academic support structures'' that helped ensure their
success in learning the challenging content.
Reviewers also saw teachers using engaging instructional methods
that helped students perceive learning as interesting, relevant to
their lives, and fun, according to a statement from NCUST. Students,
parents, teachers and staff reported that they felt respected and
valued by one another and by the school administrators.
``Another outstanding feature of winning schools is the commitment
of their teachers and administrators to continue to set and pursue even
more challenging academic goals, even though these schools already have
achieved results that far exceeded state or federal expectations,''
NCUST noted.
NCUST is a part of the QUALCOMM Institute for Innovation and
Educational Success at San Diego State University.
For more information on the National Excellence in Urban Education
Awards or the NCUST Symposium, visit www.ncust.org.
______
ATTACHMENT G
Senior U.S. Education Official Visits
Describing her tour of International Elementary School as
``amazing'' and ``magical,'' a senior U.S. Department of Education
official reaffirmed that LBUSD's successes merit replication elsewhere.
Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, assistant secretary for elementary
and secondary education at the Education Department, visited classrooms
before observing a professional development session at the school
district's Teacher Resource Center.
``We want to learn what Long Beach is doing,'' the assistant
secretary said. ``There's an alignment and purpose in Long Beach, from
the central office to the schools, to support what goes on in the
classroom. That's very clear here.
``We're also interested in the innovative work going on between
Long Beach and other school districts as a potential model.'' Long
Beach is working with other urban school systems such as the Fresno
Unified School District to improve instruction and gain additional
flexibility regarding the expenditure of state funding.
Appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S.
Senate last July, Melendez serves as the principal adviser to the U.S.
secretary of education on all matters related to pre-kindergarten,
elementary and secondary education.
Melendez is former superintendent of the Pomona Unified School
District.
______
ATTACHMENT H
New Harvard Book Touts Long Beach
The first book to detail examples of successful large-scale reform
in the nation's most improved urban districts is now available from the
Harvard Graduate School of Education's publishing group, and it
features the Long Beach Unified School District.
Bringing School Reform to Scale: Five Award-Winning School
Districts, from Harvard Education Press, describes specific district-
wide reform strategies that author and researcher Heather Zavadsky
shows led Broad Prize-winning school districts to outpace their peers
in raising student achievement--not just in individual schools--but in
numerous schools districtwide.
The annual $2 million Broad Prize honors the five large urban
school districts that demonstrate the strongest student achievement and
improvement while narrowing achievement gaps between income and ethnic
groups.
Of particular use to educators seeking federal funds under Race to
the Top, the new book describes sustained efforts undertaken by Broad
Prize-winning school districts in Long Beach, Boston, Garden Grove,
Norfolk (Va.) and Aldine (Houston) to improve instruction.
For superintendents, chief academic officers, education school
professors, school board members and elected officials or advocacy
organizations looking to produce large-scale, dramatic student
achievement gains, this book shows what systemic districtwide
improvement looks like ``on the ground, warts and all, and the outcomes
that are possible,'' according to a statement from The Broad
Foundation.
Among the book's important lessons for policy makers: 1) the single
most important contributor to the success of these districts was their
effort to put in place a clear, direct and rigorous curriculum aligned
with high standards and supported at various layers throughout the
system, 2) data-driven teaching and testing empowered teachers and led
to student gains, and 3) stable school district governance, in the form
of mayoral control or a unified school board, was critical to success.
``This book offers an unusually detailed look inside some of our
best run school districts. Heather Zavadsky offers honest assessments,
highlighting not only the inspiring successes, but also the many
daunting challenges that remain. Very enlightening!'' said Ronald F.
Ferguson, faculty co-chair and director of the Achievement Gap
Initiative at Harvard.
The book's author, Zavadsky, is director of policy and
communications for the Institute for Public School Initiatives for the
University of Texas system. She led research teams through site visits
and analysis of Broad Prize districts from 2002 to 2006.
To order the book, visit www.hepg.org.
______
ATTACHMENT I
America's Educators Look to Long Beach
An alliance of top U.S. education associations reports that the
Long Beach Unified School District ``has long been recognized as a
model urban school system.'' The Learning First Alliance explains
LBUSD's success.
``The district hasn't achieved this success by flitting from reform
to reform or looking for silver bullets. Rather, it has spent most of
the past two decades building on the same educational strategies, and
focusing on data, community buy-in and staff development.''
These observations are part of a new article at
www.publicschoolinsights.org under the section, ``Education
Visionaries.''
The article, ``The Long Beach Way,'' includes an extensive
interview with LBUSD Superintendent of Schools Christopher J.
Steinhauser, who describes Long Beach's 18-year effort to reform local
schools.
Steinhauser provides perspective on early initiatives such as
school uniforms, the Third Grade Reading Initiative, and the Seamless
Education partnership with Long Beach City College and Cal State Long
Beach.
The superintendent also describes LBUSD's evolution as a data-
driven organization that cultivates parental and community buy-in to
improve student achievement, especially through better use of
communications technology.
The Learning First Alliance, which sponsors
www.publicschoolinsights.org, is a permanent partnership of 17 leading
education associations with more than 10 million members. Alliance
members include the National Education Association, American Federation
of Teachers, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education,
National PTA, National School Boards Association, and the American
Association of School Administrators.
______
ATTACHMENT J
State Superintendent Praises LBUSD's Use of Data
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell
recently praised the Long Beach Unified School District's use of
student performance data to improve instruction. O'Connell delivered
his 7th annual State of Education Address to educators, policymakers,
students and parents.
``Let me give you one great example of using data to improve
instruction,'' O'Connell said. ``About 16 years ago, the Long Beach
Unified School District began a teacher-driven project aimed at
collecting assessment data in order to better understand ways to keep
students in school. In order to do this effectively, the district
created a data collection system, and as teachers began to find this
data more and more useful, the system evolved into a local longitudinal
data system.
``In one instance, the data highlighted exceptional results in
student performance in math at one particular school. It turns out that
one math instructor, named Si Swun designed his own standards-aligned
math curriculum, called MAP2D (Math Achievement Program), which was
making headway with students. Based on these results, the school
expanded this same curriculum to other classes.
``Eventually, based on the data coming from this school, the
district expanded this curriculum even further, to other schools, and
began to assist Mr. Swun in the production of materials for the
curriculum. As the district began a pilot program for the curriculum in
more of its schools, it designated Mr. Swun to coach others on teaching
the curriculum.
``The pilot schools performed exceptionally well. In fact, these
schools experienced a one-year, 24-point gain in their API scores due
to fifth grade math proficiency. Long Beach had such great results that
they expanded the math program districtwide.
``Then other districts heard about it and it spread to Fresno,
Compton, Garden Grove, Lennox and Oakland. Today, thousands of students
are in the MAP2D program, making real gains in proficiency. All because
of one teacher innovating in his classroom a data system able to
identify his success, and thanks to a culture of continuous
improvement.'' (Learn more about LBUSD's Math Achievement Program by
clicking on MAP2D in the A-Z index at www.lbschools.net.)
``This is exactly the kind of professional learning community that
uses data to support instruction that we hope to stimulate and foster
through the Race to the Top (federal funding program), and I would like
to salute teacher Si Swun who is here today for his innovative and
collaborative spirit.''
O'Connell joins a growing number of state and national leaders who
are noticing LBUSD's effective use of student performance data.
President Barack Obama, in his first major policy speech on education,
said last year that LBUSD's data-driven instruction is something other
districts across the nation should emulate.
______
ATTACHMENT K
Use of Data Lauded by National Council
A national journal on educator training describes ``a deep
commitment to professional learning and widespread use of data'' in the
Long Beach Unified School District.
The article, ``Let Data Do the Talking,'' appears in the fall
edition of the Journal of Staff Development. The piece includes an
extensive interview with LBUSD Superintendent of Schools Christopher J.
Steinhauser.
The journal, produced by the National Staff Development Council, is
known as the authority on professional learning.
NSDC writer Tracy Crow notes that Long Beach schools are widely
praised for their success. In a Q & A, Steinhauser discusses the
importance of remaining committed to research and professional
development even during tough budget years.
Visit www.nsdc.org for more information.
______
ATTACHMENT L
LBUSD `America's Crown Jewel'
For a record-tying fifth time, the Long Beach Unified School
District was honored among America's top urban school districts today
during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
LBUSD was recognized as one of the top five finalists for the
national Broad Prize for Urban Education. As a finalist, LBUSD receives
$250,000 in college scholarships for local students. The Aldine
Independent School District outside Houston won the top prize of $1
million in scholarships.
Long Beach won the award in 2003 and is a five-time finalist. The
latest $250,000 award brings the total amount of Broad Scholarships in
Long Beach to nearly $1.4 million. Only Boston Public Schools share
this five-year track record of excellence. The Broad Prize honors urban
school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and
improvement in achievement for all students.
``Long Beach continues to be America's crown jewel of urban school
districts, outperforming other urban districts year after year with its
steady gains,'' said Eli Broad, founder of the prize. ``We look forward
to sharing Long Beach's ongoing best practices with school districts
across the nation so millions more students benefit from the smart
efforts that have arisen there.''
Long Beach earned the finalist honor after national education
experts sifted through thousands of pieces of data on student
performance. Among the reasons Long Beach was selected is that its
African-American, Latino and low-income students achieved higher
average proficiency rates than their counterparts statewide in reading
and math, and because the district continued to narrow achievement gaps
that remain prevalent in many other school districts nationwide. Long
Beach saw greater participation of minority students taking Advanced
Placement exams and the SATs.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the finalists at
the U.S. Capitol, where LBUSD Superintendent of Schools Christopher J.
Steinhauser participated in the ceremony.
``Being a five-time Broad Prize finalist confirms that the Long
Beach community still believes in public education,'' Steinhauser said
in a written release. ``To be in the running again for this award is a
testament to our heroic teachers, tireless support staff,
administrators, parents, our 9,000 volunteers, our more than 1,100
business and community partners, our school board, our colleagues in
higher education, civic leaders, service clubs and philanthropic
foundations such as The Broad Foundation, insightful news media, local
clergy, Realtors, retirees, and many others who share our commitment to
kids and schools,'' Steinhauser said. ``To all of them, we say thank
you.'' See the superintendent's Press-Telegram commentary here.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed the audience, saying ``this is
a great day for public schools and for celebrating your success.'' In
the audience were several members of Congress along with more than 300
of the nation's leading educators and policy makers. Among them were
members of LBUSD's school board.
``It's a proud day for the Long Beach Unified School District,''
LBUSD Board of Education President Mary Stanton said in a written
statement. ``For Americans, education has always been the primary means
for obtaining equal opportunity. The Broad Prize recognizes our efforts
to give all children an equal chance to succeed, no matter what
obstacles they may face.''
The other finalists were school districts in Broward County, Fla.;
Gwinnett County, Ga.; and Socorro, Texas.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you. Dr. Burns, welcome.
STATEMENT OF JEANNE BURNS, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, TEACHER
EDUCATION INITIATIVES, LOUISIANA BOARD OF REGENTS
Ms. Burns. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Miller,
Congressman Castle and members of the committee. I appreciate
the opportunity to appear before you today to tell Louisiana's
story. I am testifying today on behalf of the Louisiana Board
of Regents. However, I will be addressing a successful
collaborative partnership that has existed in the State of
Louisiana during the last 10 years to improve the effectiveness
of new teachers and new leaders within our State. This
initiative has been supported by three governors; Governor
Bobby Jindal, Mike Foster, Governor Kathleen Blanco. Two
commissioners of higher education, Dr. Sally Clausen, Dr.
Joseph Savoie; two State superintendents, Paul Pastorek, the
late Cecil Picard, our Board of Regents, our board of
elementary and secondary education, our Louisiana Department of
Ed, our University presidents, their chief academics officers,
our deans, our faculty, our district and our private providers.
I share all of that because we have been successful in the
reforms within our State. This has been a statewide systemic
reform initiative that has brought about massive changes across
the State. You cannot have the kind of change that has occurred
within our State without having the kind of partners that we
have had to support our efforts.
Our State is also fortunate to possess very strong
partnership among the college of education deans at the public
universities and private universities within our State,
including our historically black colleges and universities.
They have freely exchanged best practices across their campuses
and worked collaboratively to help all institutions produce
effective new teachers and leaders. Their leadership and hard
work has been a critical component in our success.
We have also been fortunate to have received a grant from
the U.S. Department of Ed, a Title II teacher quality
enhancement State grant that was extremely beneficial in
supporting our reform efforts. In addition, we received support
from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Wallace
Foundation. As a result of these and other collaborative
partnerships, Louisiana is now leading the Nation in its
ability to link growth of student learning to universities and
private providers who prepare our new teachers. Through the use
of a value added teacher preparation assessment model,
developed by Dr. George Noell from Louisiana State University,
it is now possible for our State to predict the growth of
achievement of individual grades 4 through 9 students, examine
the actual achievement of individual students from the end of 1
year to the end of the next year, link the growth of
achievement to the new teachers who prepared the children and
link the achievement of the children and the new teachers to
the teacher preparation program that prepared the teachers.
We now know that we have some teacher preparation programs
within our state, our redesigned programs where our new
teachers have children who are showing growth and learning that
is comparable or greater in specific content areas than that of
experienced teachers within our State. We also know which
programs are in need of improvement. We also know the content
areas in which they need to improve and we know the grade
stands.
As a result of 60 recommendations that came from our
State's Blue Ribbon Commission when they addressed teacher
quality in 1999 and 2000 and 40 more recommendations in 2000,
2001 when they looked at educational leadership we have made
significant changes within our State. We now have more rigorous
expectations for teachers to become certified in our State. We
have new undergraduate and alternate certification pathways for
teachers to be prepared. The redesign of teacher preparation
programs has occurred in every single public and private
University in our State. We have a teacher preparation
accountability system that is using multiple measures in
addition to in the future or value added measure to look at the
effectiveness of our new teachers and we now have a research
agenda where our universities private providers districts are
working together to try to determine why is it that we have
more effective teachers completing some of our teacher
preparation programs.
The overall passage rate for teachers in our State
increased from 89 percent in 1999 to 1,000 to 99.9 percent in
2008, 2009. We are very proud about the accomplishments that we
have had within our State. We now know where we have effective
new teachers coming out of our teacher preparation programs
dollars and we feel we are an example of a State where State
agencies can work together, universities, providers and
districts can all work together for a common cause and that is
for the improved achievements of students within our State.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today.
[The statement of Ms. Burns follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jeanne M. Burns, Associate Commissioner for
Teacher and Leadership Initiatives, Louisiana Board of Regents
Good afternoon, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Kline, and members
of the Committee. My name is Jeanne Burns, and I am the Associate
Commissioner for Teacher and Leadership Initiatives for the Louisiana
Board of Regents. I am also an Associate Professor at Southeastern
Louisiana University and on loan to the State of Louisiana to support
our teacher and leader initiatives. I appreciate the opportunity to
appear before you at this hearing to tell Louisiana's story and address
Supporting America's Educators: The Importance in Quality Teachers and
Leaders.
I am testifying today on behalf of the Louisiana Board of Regents;
however, I will be addressing a successful collaborative partnership
that has existed in the State of Louisiana during the last ten years to
improve the effectiveness of teachers and educational leaders. This
initiative has been supported by three governors (Governor Bobby
Jindal, Governor Kathleen Blanco, and Governor Mike Foster), two
Commissioners of Higher Education (Dr. Sally Clausen and Dr. E. Joseph
Savoie), two State Superintendents (Paul Pastorek and Cecil Picard),
Louisiana Board of Regents, Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary
Education, Louisiana Department of Education, university presidents/
chief academic officers/college of education deans/faculty, private
providers, and school districts.
Our state is also fortunate to possess a strong partnership among
the college of education deans at all public universities and private
universities (including our Historically Black Colleges and
Universities). They have freely exchanged best practices across their
campuses and worked collaboratively to help all institutions produce
effective new teachers and leaders. Their leadership and hard work has
been a critical component of our success.
As a result of these and other collaborative partnerships,
Louisiana is now leading the nation in its ability to link growth of
student learning to university and private provider programs that
prepare new teachers. Through the use of a Value Added Teacher
Preparation Assessment, developed by Dr. George Noell at Louisiana
State University and A&M College, it is now possible for our state to
predict the growth of achievement of individual grades 4-9 students,
examine the actual achievement of individual students from the end of
one year to the end of the next year, link the growth of achievement of
students to new teachers who taught the students, and link the growth
in achievement to the teacher preparation programs that prepared the
new teachers.
Evidence of our success includes the following:
The overall passage rates for Louisiana's universities on the state
teacher certification examinations have increased from 89% in 1999-2000
to 99.9% in 2008-2009. Our Historically Black Colleges and Universities
had passage rates of 33%, 38%, and 65% for their 1999-2000 program
completers, and they now have passage rates of 100%.
The overall number of teacher candidates who failed to meet all
teacher certification requirements at the point of graduation has
decreased from 230 in 2000-2001 to only 3 in 2008-2009. At the point
that Hurricane Katrina hit our state, the number of new teachers being
produced by our universities was at its highest demonstrating that it
was possible to increase quality and numbers at the same time. Our
numbers dropped after Hurricane Katrina, and our state has been working
to increase the numbers through our universities, Teach for America,
and private providers like The New Teacher Project and the Louisiana
Resource Center for Educators. In 2001-2002, the percentage of teachers
certified to teach in Louisiana was 84.39%. The percentage of Louisiana
teachers identified as having standard certificates to teach in 2009-
2010 is 95.2%.
We are proud of our success, and we could not have done it without
the support and commitment of our many partners.
Background
Louisiana looked very different in 1999-2000 when it made a
decision to form a Blue Ribbon Commission for Teacher Quality to
develop recommendations to improve the recruitment, preparation, and
retention of quality teachers and principals. This Commission is still
in operation today as the Blue Ribbon Commission for Educational
Excellence and is recognized nationally as an example of a best
practice. The Commission is co-chaired by a member of the Board of
Elementary and Secondary Education (Glenny Lee Buquet) and a member of
the Board of Regents (Mary Ellen Roy--Current Co-Chair; Frances Henry--
Previous Co-Chair). It is composed of 36 members who represent state,
university, district, school, teacher, community, and parent leaders
and meets six times a year. It has a specific focus each year and uses
the expertise of national and state experts to guide it in the
development of new recommendations that are presented each May at a
joint meeting of the two boards. In 1999-2000, the Commission
identified 60 recommendations to improve teacher quality. In 2000-2001,
it identified 40 recommendations to improve educational leadership.
As a result of these recommendations, new policies were approved by
the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to strengthen teacher
and leader certification. More rigorous teacher certification
structures were implemented, new content examinations and higher cut-
off scores for licensure were adopted, ongoing professional development
over five years for relicensure was mandated, and new pathways for
alternate and undergraduate teacher preparation were approved.
The recommendations of the Commission were also used to attain a
$3.4 million Title II Teacher Quality State Grant from the U.S.
Department of Education during 2000-2004, a $4.2 million grant from The
Wallace Foundation during 2004-08, an $800,000 grant from the Carnegie
Corporation of New York during 2007-2009, and a $3.4 million grant from
The Wallace Foundation during 2008-2010 to support the implementation
of the new teacher and leader reforms at the state, university,
district, and school levels
In response to the new PK-12 policies, the Board of Regents
implemented new policies that required all universities to align
undergraduate and alternate teacher preparation programs with the new
state certification structures for teachers and educational leaders,
PK-12 state/national content standards, PK-12 state/national teacher
and leader standards, PRAXIS examination expectations, and national
accreditation expectations. In addition, they required all universities
to address four levels of teacher preparation effectiveness.
The first level of effectiveness pertains to effectiveness in
planning, and all universities were required to create redesign teams
composed of College of Education, College of Arts/Sciences, College of
Business, and school personnel and chaired by a PK-16+ Coordinator to
redesign all undergraduate and alternate teacher and educational
leadership preparation programs to address the new BESE and BoR
policies. All redesigned and new programs were evaluated by national
experts to ensure quality across all preparation programs. Universities
and private providers had to address all stipulations of the national
consultants to attain approval to implement the programs. Universities
and private providers that failed to address the expectations were not
allowed to admit new candidates to their programs after specific
deadline dates. Redesigned and new teacher preparation programs are now
being offered by 20 universities, two private providers for teacher
preparation, and three private providers for educational leadership
preparation.
The second level of effectiveness pertains to effectiveness of
implementation, and national accreditation was used as a measure of
accomplishment. All public and private universities were required to
attain national accreditation of their teacher preparation programs. At
the present time, 18 of the 20 public and private universities in
Louisiana are NCATE accredited. The two remaining universities are new.
One is pursuing NCATE accreditation, and the other is pursuing TEAC
accreditation. Thus, this expectation is being met by all public and
private universities in Louisiana.
The third level of effectiveness pertains to effectiveness of
impact, and a new Teacher Preparation Accountability System was
implemented to determine accomplishment. A Teacher Preparation
Performance Score was calculated for each university based upon
multiple measures for an Institutional Performance Index and Quantity
Index that rewarded universities that produced new teachers in teacher
shortage areas and rural districts. Universities were labeled as
Exemplary, High Performing, Satisfactory, At-Risk, and Low Performing
based upon their scores. Due to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita
impacting schools and universities in Louisiana, the baselines for the
Quantity Index had to be recalculated. As a result, the state's Blue
Ribbon Commission has revised the Teacher Preparation Accountability
System to include the new Value Added Teacher Preparation Assessment
scores and new baselines. The revised system will be piloted in the
upcoming months. Three universities entered into corrective action when
the system was first implemented. By 2004-2005, 14 universities were
labeled as Exemplary and one university was in corrective action. After
Hurricane Katrina, the one institution reconstituted its program and
concentrated its efforts upon the preparation of grades PK-3 and grades
1-5 teachers.
Thus, all universities in Louisiana have successfully addressed the
first three levels of teacher preparation effectiveness and have now
moved beyond universities in most other states to address the highest
level of effectiveness which is growth of achievement of students
taught by the teacher preparation programs that prepared the new
teachers.
Development of Value Added Teacher Preparation Assessment
Louisiana first recognized the need to link student achievement to
teacher preparation programs in 2000-2001 when the Blue Ribbon
Commission recommended a Teacher Preparation Accountability System that
included growth of student learning as one of several variables. The
state did not have the capacity to collect and analyze achievement data
in this fashion at that time.
As universities underwent evaluation by the national consultants,
it was observed that universities were experiencing problems in
creating authentic assessments to link student learning to new teachers
who completed the teacher preparation programs. Dr. George Noell and I
scheduled a meeting with former Commissioner of Higher Education E.
Joseph Savoie and former State Superintendent Cecil Picard to propose a
pilot study during 2003-04 to create and implement a value added
teacher preparation model that used data from 10 school districts in
the state. The 10 school districts were piloting a new data system for
the Louisiana Department of Education that linked students to their
achievement tests to the teachers who taught the students. The
Commissioner and State Superintendent agreed to share data and support
the pilot.
The Board of Regents provided funding for Dr. Noell to conduct the
pilot in 2003-04 and replicate the pilot in 2004-05. In 2005-06 and
2006-07, the Board of Regents provided funding for the study to be
expanded to include all school districts, 20 public and private
universities, and 2 private providers.
In 2007-08 and 2008-09, the Board of Regents obtained a two year
grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for the Louisiana State
University research team (led by Dr. George Noell and Dr. Kristin
Gansle) to conduct additional quantitative research to expand the Value
Added Teacher Preparation Assessment Model. In addition, funding was
provided for a State Research Team to be created to conduct a
qualitative research study to determine why some teacher preparation
programs prepared new teachers whose students demonstrated greater
growth in learning than experienced teachers in specific content areas.
The State Research Team was composed of a researcher from each of the
20 public and private universities and 2 private providers who prepared
teachers as well as staff from the Board of Regents and Louisiana
Department of Education.
Value Added Teacher Preparation Assessment Model
The Value Added Teacher Preparation Assessment predicts growth of
student achievement based on prior achievement, demographics, and
attendance, assesses actual student achievement, and calculates effect
estimates that identify the degree to which students taught by new
teachers showed achievement similar to students taught by experienced
teachers. The teacher preparation effect estimates are based upon
multiple new teachers in multiple schools across multiple school
districts in the state.
The predictors examine student variables, teacher variables, and
building variables and differ slightly based upon the five content
areas examined which are mathematics, science, social studies, reading,
and English/language arts.
To be included in the analysis, new teachers must be first or
second year teachers who have completed their teacher preparation
program leading to initial certification, received a standard teaching
certificate, attained teaching positions in their areas of
certification, and completed a teacher preparation program within five
years. Experienced teachers are all other certified professionals who
possess a standard teaching certificate and have taught in their area
of certification for two or more years.
The model examines the four pathways to teacher licensure that
exist in Louisiana: Undergraduate Pathway, Master of Arts in Teaching
alternate pathway, Practitioner Teacher Program alternate pathway, and
Non-Master's/Certification Only alternate pathway. All three alternate
pathways require candidates to meet the same entry/exit requirements
and require all candidates to address the same standards.
The current analysis uses State achievement data in the areas of
mathematics, science, social studies, language arts, and reading for
students enrolled in grades 4-9 who attended public schools in
Louisiana during the full school years of 2005-06, 2006-07, and/or
2007-08. In addition, data are used for all grades 4-9 teachers in
public schools in Louisiana who taught the students.
A Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) was used for the analysis. This
is a layered statistical model that is designed to analyze data within
natural layers or groups--students within classes within schools.
2008-09 Results
We currently have results for eight teacher preparation programs in
Louisiana that had a sufficient number of new teachers who completed
redesigned or new alternate certification programs and met the criteria
to be included in the study. It is anticipated that the remaining
teacher preparation programs will meet the criteria for inclusion in
the study when the results of the 2009-10 Value Added Teacher
Preparation Assessment study are released during 2010.
We used five bands of performance to focus attention on clusters of
performance rather than a continuous ranking of teacher preparation
programs.
Our results indicate that there is as much variance within teacher
preparation programs in individual content areas as there is variance
across teacher preparation programs in the state.
As an example, universities and private provider programs did not
perform equally high or equally low across all content areas.
The New Teacher Project prepared new teachers where the growth in
achievement was greater than experienced teachers in mathematics and
reading, comparable to experienced teachers in science and language
arts, and comparable to new teachers in social studies.
The University of Louisiana at Monroe prepared new teachers where
the growth in achievement was greater than experienced teachers in
science, comparable to new teachers in reading, language arts, and
social studies, and comparable to new teachers in mathematics.
Our results have also provided valuable information that can help
universities improve their programs. As an example, the University of
Louisiana at Lafayette has been NCATE accredited for many years and
received a label of Exemplary when our Teacher Preparation
Accountability System was implemented. Their university is respected in
the state, and they are committed to improving education in the
communities surrounding their university. Their current President is
the former Commissioner of Higher Education who supported the initial
creation of the Value Added Teacher Preparation Assessment Model. When
they received their value added results, they found that the growth of
achievement of students taught by their new teachers was comparable to
other new teachers in reading, mathematics, science, and social
studies. The growth was less than other new teachers in language arts
in both their undergraduate and alternate certification program. When
they were provided additional results, it was determined that the
problem was in their grades 1-5 grade span and not the other grade
spans. The President, college of education dean, and faculty have
seriously examined the curriculum and identified changes that are now
being implemented to improve language arts in grades 1-5. Without the
value added results, the university would not have been aware of the
need to strengthen the curriculum in this area.
The only other teacher preparation program to have growth that was
less than that of other new teachers was the Louisiana Resource Center
for Educators in the area of reading for all grade spans. They have
also seriously examined their curriculum and made changes to improve
the effectiveness of teachers in reading.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has implemented a
new policy that requires programs with growth that is less than new
teachers or significantly less than new teachers to enter into
Programmatic Intervention. Programs will be required to develop a plan
to improve their programs and provide timelines for outcomes to be
demonstrated. Failure to demonstrate improvement by the identified
timelines will result in closure of the programs.
Results are currently being reported for only the redesigned and
new teacher preparation programs that address the State's more rigorous
teacher certification requirements. Results for pre-redesign teacher
preparation programs were reported in 2006-2007 and the findings were
not as positive as those for the post-redesign programs.
Based upon our qualitative research, we have determined that it is
not the pathway that explains the variance within and between teacher
preparation programs; it is what is occurring within the pathway to
prepare new teachers in the specific content areas that makes the
difference.
We have also determined that our state policies to create more
rigorous teacher certification requirements and require all
universities to redesign their teacher preparation programs impacted
the programs. The more rigorous requirements for admission and
completion of alternate programs resulted in most of the new teachers
having ACT scores around 20 or 21 and few with lower ACT scores. These
teachers are more or less effective based upon the knowledge and skills
developed within specific content areas within the programs.
There has not been time to fully discuss our educational leadership
reforms, but you do need to be aware that we have worked just as hard
to improve the effectiveness of our educational leadership preparation
programs and we are currently developing an Educational Leadership
Preparation Accountability System. If we do not have effective
principals in our schools, we will not be able to retain the effective
new teachers that we are now preparing.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss the work we
have done in Louisiana to improve the effectiveness of new teachers and
leaders. I would be happy to answer your questions.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you. Dr. Bennett.
STATEMENT OF TONY BENNETT, SUPERINTENDENT, INDIANA OFFICE OF
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
Mr. Bennett. Thank you. Chairman Miller, Members of the
Committee it is an honor to be here today. With the belief that
great teachers and leaders are critical to students' success,
Indiana's goals and vision for education placed a strong focus
on reforms aiming to improve instruction and school leadership.
We have taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to developing
and implementing these reforms. Our fast forward reform plan,
the plan Indiana Department of Education, submitted as its
round 1 Federal Race to the Top application reflects our
commitment to realizing significant gains in this area. As we
sit here in 2010, never before have there been such coordinated
efforts by Federal, State local education stakeholders to put
the focus of our system of schools where it belongs on our
students. Our greatest challenge is to unite aggressively
against all forces working to oppose reform that benefits
children.
In Indiana, in States across the Nation, the most striking
and most powerful impediment to improving instructional quality
and school leadership has been those organizations charged
principally to protect the teaching profession, the teacher
unions. It is no secret that across the Nation, teacher and
school leader evaluations have been largely ineffective.
According to a study by the new teacher project, less than 1
percent of teachers evaluated as poor or ineffective. A survey
by the same group found teachers found little value in these
evaluations. They do not receive informative feedback or
constructive criticism and feel evaluations subjective and
inconsistent. Our efforts have been guided by core principals
about the role and importance of evaluations.
To begin, we believe any meaningful evaluation tool must
substantially consider student achievement growth in its
determinations. To that end, Indiana calls for teacher and
principal evaluations that base 51 percent of each educators
rating on student growth data. Every other aspect of the
evaluation must be tied to student learning. Most important,
these retooled evaluations must be factored into the decision
making. They should be used to inform professional development,
compensation considerations, promotion, retention and
reductions in force. Our best educators should lead
professional development experiences to share the best
practices. They should be eligible for additional compensation.
They should be the first considered for promotions and special
opportunity and in times of economic distress like today they
should be the highest priority for retention when considering
reductions in force. On the other hand, ineffective teachers or
those needing improvement should receive targeted professional
development and support, they do not improve enough to meet the
instructional needs of children they should be removed from the
classroom.
In Indiana, our State level union leaders seem to tout the
need for professionalism and high standards, but they are not
willing to back the reforms necessary to boost instructional
quality for Hoosier students. Although they expressed agreement
and cooperation with our intentions to create evaluation tools
tied to student growth, and even helped to develop the initial
the framework for those evaluations tools, when it came down to
publicly supporting union leaders, they failed to make even a
lukewarm endorsement of our efforts.
We have strengthened our regulations regarding teacher
preparations and licensure to make sure all secondary teachers
have content area majors in the subjects they teach. The same
rule revision removes burdensome regulations that require
teachers to spend thousands of dollars to renew their licenses
by allowing them to use professional development credit they
already earned towards renewal.
New teachers will be required to work closely with building
leaders to hone their skills and improve, and all teachers will
be able to make their licenses more marketable by adding areas
to their licenses by passing content area exams to prove their
competence.
Equally important, our new licensing regulations take the
first step toward creating alternative pathways to the teaching
profession by allowing nontraditional programs to be approved
in the future.
Many programs already exist in Indiana to drive more
nontraditional, highly competitive adults into the teaching
profession. The transition to Teaching Program, Wilson Teaching
Fellows, Indianapolis Teaching Fellows, The New Teacher
Project, and Teach for America are examples of alternative
pathways that put knowledgeable, well-trained adults in some of
our most high-need subject areas and schools.
At the heart of the majority of Indiana's reform efforts
included in our Fast Forward plan, including educator
evaluations, is Indiana's Growth Model. We began the model in
2008, and we are now weeks away from fully implementing this
important longitudinal data system.
Indiana's Growth Model groups students with grade-level
peers across the State who achieve similar scores on our
State's examination and track student growth with these
groupings. For the first time, we will be able to assess how
much growth a student has achieved over the course of a year.
The department has already begun the process to make
Indiana's school accountability system more transparent and
meaningful, as well as plans to incorporate the Growth Model in
the future. Public law 221 uses five category labels based on
student progress on the ISTEP exam, student improvement over 3
years, and Federal AYP status. These categories--exemplary,
commendable, academic progress, academic watch, and probation--
fail to clearly communicate the true condition of our schools
and, therefore, hinder reform efforts. Indiana is working to
change these labels to A through F letter grades to increase
transparency and public awareness.
In all, education in Indiana has come a long way in a
little more than a year, but we still have a great deal to
accomplish. Our Fast Forward plan is our reform map for the
future; and the most important piece, in many ways, is
requiring meaningful teacher and principal evaluations that
directly influence decision making. Our students' performance
can only be as high as the effectiveness of the teachers
educating them.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Bennett, I am going to ask you wrap up
if you would please.
Mr. Bennett. Okay.
Our hope ahead is that public, political, and parental
outrage and demand for aggressive education reform will
continue to build. As we shed more light on the appalling
inequity and tremendous failure of many of our schools to
provide our young people even a chance to succeed in this
complex global economy, we stand ready to take ownership for
the problems and take action to provide a better education for
these children.
[The statement of Mr. Bennett follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tony Bennett, Superintendent, Indiana Office of
Public Instruction
With the belief that great teachers and leaders are critical to
student success, Indiana's goals and vision for education place a
strong focus on reforms aiming to improve instruction and school
leadership. We have taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to developing
and implementing these reforms. Our Fast Forward reform plan--the plan
Indiana's Department of Education (IDOE) submitted as its Round I
federal Race to the Top application--reflects our commitment to
realizing significant gains in this area. Indeed, it can be argued that
every component of the reform plan helps support, secure, reward,
train, and retain great teachers and school leaders for Hoosier
students.
IDOE's Action Plan, developed when I took office in January 2009,
outlines a clear strategy for improving instructional quality and
enhancing school governance and leadership. Our goals in this area
require legislative and administrative success, and thus far, we have
accomplished a great deal on both fronts. In fact, as we wrote our Fast
Forward plan to compete in the federal Race to the Top competition, we
did so fully confident that whether we were able to secure funding or
not, the reforms within the plan would comprise our reform agenda for
the next three years.
Today, as we endeavor to improve the quality of instruction and
leadership for Indiana's schools without additional federal funding, we
look to our past accomplishments to inspire our future efforts for
Hoosier students. Moreover, we charge ahead with a commitment to
maintaining flexibility and autonomy for our local school districts.
For while it is our job, at the state level, to set a high bar for
achievement, provide support and enforce accountability, it is the job
of our local school districts to reach this bar with strategies best
suited to meet the needs of their unique student populations. Likewise,
Indiana stands behind the efforts of the U.S. Department of Education
to fundamentally change the ineffective status quo in American schools,
and we welcome their leadership and support as our state works to
implement bold reforms targeted to improve student achievement in
Indiana.
Never before have there been such coordinated efforts by federal,
state, and local education stakeholders to put the full focus of our
system of schools where it belongs--on students. Our greatest challenge
is to unite aggressively against all forces working to oppose reform
that benefits school children. In Indiana and states across the nation,
the most striking, most powerful impediment to improving instructional
quality and school leadership has been those organizations charged,
principally, to protect the integrity of the teaching profession:
teachers' unions.
While there are examples of local teachers' associations joining
Indiana's school leaders to make powerful decisions that improve and
protect instructional quality, state-level union leadership is
unwilling to support our reforms aimed at developing meaningful,
consistent and fair teacher and school leader evaluations.
It is no secret that, across the nation, teacher and school leader
evaluations are largely ineffective. According to a study by The New
Teacher Project, less than 1 percent of teachers are evaluated as poor
or ineffective. A survey by the same group found that teachers
themselves find little value in evaluations. They do not receive
informative feedback or constructive criticism, and they feel
evaluations are subjective and inconsistent.
Indiana aims to comprehensively overhaul teacher and school leader
evaluations by collaborating with teachers, principals and other
stakeholders.
Our efforts have been guided by core principles about the role and
importance of evaluations. To begin, we believe any meaningful
evaluation tool must substantially consider student achievement growth
in its determinations. To that end, Indiana calls for teacher and
principal evaluations that base 51 percent of each educator's rating on
student growth data. Every other aspect of evaluation must be tied to
student learning, as well. IDOE worked with leaders from the Indiana
State Teachers Association and the Indiana Federation of Teachers in a
series of meetings to develop a framework for these evaluations. During
the course of these work sessions, both organizations expressed
agreement, in principle, that tying educator evaluations to student
achievement growth was crucial.
Next, evaluations must reflect actual educator performance. Indiana
proposes four rating categories resulting from these evaluations:
Highly Effective, Effective, Needs Improvement, and Ineffective. The
ratings must be analyzed annually to ensure the distribution of
teachers and principals in each of these categories is accurate, and
evaluations must be declared invalid if ratings have been inflated.
Most important, these retooled evaluations must be factored into
decision-making. They should be used to inform professional
development, compensation considerations, promotion, retention, and
reductions in force. Our best educators should lead professional
development experiences to share best practices. They should be
eligible for additional compensation. They should be the first
considered for promotions and special opportunities, and in times of
severe economic distress--like today--they should be the highest
priority for retention when considering reductions in force. On the
other hand, ineffective teachers or those needing improvement should
receive targeted professional development and support. If they do not
improve enough to meet the instructional needs of students, they should
be removed from the classroom.
In every other profession, workers are evaluated by their ability
to get the job done. An educator's top priority is to educate young
minds--regardless of their achievement level or ability upon entering
the classroom--and they should be rated according to their ability to
educate children. Using student growth data assures that teachers are
recognized for their ability to give every student what they deserve:
at least one year's worth of learning over the course of one school
year. Principals should be evaluated not only by student growth but
also by the effectiveness of the teachers under their leadership.
My father was an electrician, a member of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. His union took responsibility for
his training and credentials, made sure he didn't burn any houses down,
and policed its member electricians. Teachers' unions should do the
same by ensuring the highest-quality licensing standards, professional
development and evaluations. Teachers' unions should have high
expectations for their members and protect the integrity of the
teaching profession.
In Indiana, our state-level union leaders seem to tout the need for
professionalism and high standards, but they aren't willing to back the
reforms necessary to boost instructional quality for Hoosier students.
Although they expressed agreement and cooperation with our intentions
to create evaluation tools tied to student growth and even helped
develop an initial framework for these evaluation tools, when it came
down to publicly supporting our reforms with their local union
leaders--they failed to make even a lukewarm endorsement of our
efforts.
We had hoped Race to the Top would provide the catalyst we needed
to overcome the significant obstacles to improving instruction and
school leadership. Yet, Indiana is well-positioned to implement a great
many positive initiatives without additional federal funding or the
support of teachers' unions: We have already put many reforms into
action, and we continue to build public and stakeholder support with
the power to provide the momentum we need to do more in the future.
Beginning with our legislative successes, Indiana's recent progress
to reform education is commendable. With the passage of legislation in
2009, teachers now receive qualified immunity from lawsuit for
reasonable acts of discipline to maintain control of their classrooms,
and dangerous loopholes have been closed to make sure teachers accused
and/or charged with dangerous offenses have their licenses revoked. Our
legislature also eliminated charter school caps, creating more
opportunities for students and more choices for their families.
We've strengthened our regulations regarding teacher preparation
and licensure to make sure all secondary teachers have content-area
majors in the subjects they teach. This same rule revision removes
burdensome regulations that require teachers to spend thousands of
dollars to renew their licenses by allowing them to use the
professional development credits they already earn toward their
renewal. New teachers will be required to work closely with building
leaders to hone in their skills and improve, and all teachers will be
able to make their licenses more marketable by adding areas to their
licenses by passing content-area exams to prove their competence.
Equally important, our new licensing regulations take the first step
toward creating alternative paths to the teaching profession by
allowing new nontraditional programs to be approved in the future.
Many programs already exist in Indiana to drive more
nontraditional, highly-competent adults into the teaching profession.
The Transition to Teaching program, Wilson Teaching Fellows,
Indianapolis Teaching Fellows, The New Teacher Project and Teach for
America are examples of alternative pathways that put knowledgeable,
well-trained adults in some of our most high need subject areas and
schools. We are also in the process of establishing programs to
identify and train highly effective school leaders, an effort closely
linked to our efforts to close the achievement gap and turnaround our
lowest achieving schools.
By slashing our own department's budget, IDOE was able to realize
over $1 million in savings. With that money, we created the Graduation
Rate Incentive program, providing financial rewards to teachers and
principals in schools that most increase the number of students
graduating from high school in four years.
At the heart of the majority of Indiana's reform efforts included
in our Fast Forward plan--including educator evaluations--is Indiana's
Growth Model. We began developing the model in 2008, and we now are
weeks away from fully rolling out this important longitudinal date
system. For years, the state relied solely on achievement test data to
assess student achievement. This provided us only a snapshot of student
performance and encouraged educators to focus their instructional
efforts on those students closest to passing the standardized
achievement test. Understandably, this myopic view of student
performance has been criticized as inequitable and inaccurate, as it
fails to adequately assess our lowest achieving, highest achieving,
special needs and Limited English Proficiency students.
Indiana's Growth Model groups students with their grade-level peers
across the state who achieve a similar score on our state's ISTEP+
examination and tracks student growth within these groupings. For the
first time, we will be able to assess how much growth a student has
achieved over the course of a school year.
The implications of this new longitudinal data system are immense.
We will be able to identify exceptional educators more fairly and
accurately. Consider the student who enters Grade 4 reading at a first
grade level. A teacher who can help that student gain two and one half
years of learning by the end of the year should be commended for her
efforts, not penalized because the student cannot read at a fourth
grade level. Likewise, a teacher whose students achieve at extremely
high levels but fail to gain one year's worth of learning in one year
may be less effective than a teacher with lower achieving students who
achieve higher growth.
IDOE plans to link this growth data to teachers and principals,
school buildings and school districts. Already, the general public can
view growth and achievement data for K-8 schools and districts. All
schools are placed on a four-square grid, and each school is rated
according to growth and achievement.
Additionally, the Growth Model can be used to track effective and
ineffective teachers back to the institutions that prepared them for
licensure. IDOE and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education are
exploring the possibility of a public rating for Indiana's teacher
preparation programs.
The Growth Model will be a powerful tool for parents and the
public, who will be able to see how well their schools are educating
students in a transparent format. Community and family involvement are
critical to our reform efforts, from their active involvement within
our schools to their support and high expectations for students'
success.
Another initiative has been invaluable to our efforts to increase
public awareness of the need for radical reform in our worst schools.
Public Law 221 was passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1999 to
hold schools accountable for student performance, inform parents and
the public, create incentives for ongoing and meaningful improvement,
and establish major educational reform.
PL 221 mandates state support and intervention for schools that
rank in the lowest category for four consecutive years. More than ten
years after the law's passage, the State has only now begun to
intervene in Indiana's 25 lowest achieving schools. We sent technical
teams to assess these schools and develop turnaround plans with school
leaders. The schools are not required to sign on to these plans, but if
they fail to demonstrate improvement, the state has the authority to
intervene by closing schools, replacing or eliminating school leaders
and teachers, or assuming state control of the buildings. Make no
mistake: we will not hesitate to intervene if necessary.
Our efforts to increase instructional quality and leadership are a
strong aspect of turning around our lowest achieving schools, as low
performing schools--especially those with high-poverty and high-
minority student populations--tend to have the greatest number of
ineffective teachers and principals. Ensuring a fair distribution of
high-quality educators is critical to narrowing the achievement gap in
Indiana and across the nation.
The department has already begun the process to make Indiana's
school accountability system more transparent and meaningful, as well,
and plans to incorporate the Growth Model in the future. PL 221 uses
five category labels based on student performance on the ISTEP+ exam,
student improvement over three years, and federal Adequate Yearly
Progress status. These categories (Exemplary, Commendable, Progress,
Watch and Probation) fail to clearly communicate the true condition of
our schools and, therefore, hinder reform efforts. Indiana is working
to change these labels to A-F letter grades to increase transparency
and public awareness.
Finally, we are supporting Indiana's teachers and school leaders
and arming them with the tools they need to improve instruction.
Indiana is part of a consortium of states working to adopt the Common
Core Standards. These standards will be clearer, more concise, and will
provide our students an internationally-benchmarked framework of the
skills they will need to succeed in a 21st century, global economy.
Indiana's existing academic standards are excellent, but they are
cumbersome and difficult for educators to navigate and use. Merging our
own standards into the Common Core will provide teachers a more
accessible and useful tool. IDOE is also developing curriculum maps to
help teachers plan daily instruction to incorporate all grade-level
standards over the course of the school year.
The Common Core Standards are a great example of how the state can
set the bar for high achievement without compromising local schools'
ability to custom tailor curricula to unique student populations. The
State isn't concerned with how schools meet (or exceed) expectations;
our job is simply to make sure students can demonstrate proficiency in
the standards.
In all, education in Indiana has come a long way in little more
than one year, but we still have a great deal to accomplish. Our Fast
Forward plan is our reform map for the future, and the most important
piece, in many ways, is requiring meaningful teacher and principal
evaluations that directly influence decision-making. Our students'
performance can only be as high as the effectiveness of the teachers
educating them. Our teachers' effectiveness can only be as good as our
school leaders demand and the support they provide. Unfortunately,
implementing meaningful educator evaluations will continue to be one of
the greatest challenges we face in transforming our schools because of
the powerful organized forces opposing accountability for the adults
charged with educating our students.
In Indiana, state law concerning teacher evaluations makes it
difficult to tie teacher evaluations to any type of student performance
data, including growth, because collective bargaining contracts can be
used to override attempts to include student performance data.
IDOE could work through the Indiana General Assembly to make
meaningful evaluations a real possibility, though the teachers' unions'
significant investment in many state legislator campaigns could make
negotiations difficult, to say the least. Likewise, our experience
negotiating with the teachers' unions to prepare our Race to the Top
application has made it abundantly clear these organizations are
committed to opposing efforts to improve educator evaluations.
I believe fundamentally that we must create high expectations for
the adults in our system of schools, just as we have set for our
students, and we must hold them accountable to meet those expectations.
If we fail to do this, we will have failed to create transformative
change that benefits all school children--despite all else we may
accomplish toward that end.
Our hope moving ahead is that public, political, and parental
outrage and demand for aggressive education reform will continue to
build. As we shed more light on the appalling inequity and the
tremendous failure of many of our schools to provide our young people
even a chance at success in this complex, global economy, we stand
ready to take ownership for the problems and take action to provide a
better education for these children.
As federal, state and local education stakeholders and elected
officials unite without regard to political affiliation to do what is
truly best for America's children, the powers working just as
tirelessly to oppose our efforts must relent to a national outcry for
change.
______
Indiana Department of Education
Guidelines for Measuring Teacher and Principal Effectiveness
``The Obama administration aims to reward states that use student
achievement as a ``predominant'' part of teacher evaluations with the
extra stimulus funds--and pass over those that don't.''
Joanne S. Weiss,
NewSchools Venture Fund and Race to the Top Director.
The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) is committed to
improving the quality of instruction and leadership in Indiana's
schools. To reach this goal we must focus on teacher and principal
quality by accurately assessing individual performance.
Recognizing that teacher and principal effectiveness are the most
important factors in improving student achievement, teachers and
principals must be credibly evaluated on their ability to impact
student outcomes and growth. Districts must reexamine their evaluation
tools and begin to use them to inform district policies regarding
hiring, laying off, professional development, compensation, promotions,
and retention.
IDOE has established these guidelines to provide a clear bar for
developing teacher and principal evaluation instruments. By adopting
these guidelines, a district still must follow applicable state laws.
In considering teacher and principal evaluation system, districts must:
Adopt a common evaluation tool for teachers and
principals.
Incorporate student performance/growth on ISTEP+ to count
for at least 51% of the total evaluation score.
Use a multiple rating scale consisting of 4 categories:
highly effective, effective, improvement necessary, and ineffective.
Ensure teacher and principal performance data shows
meaningful differentiation of effectiveness across the ratings
spectrum; the State will expect that the school corporations aggregate
evaluations show a credible distribution across the spectrum. Moreover,
there must be parity in distribution between tested and non-tested
grades/subjects.
Provide an annual evaluation for all teachers and
principals.
Include close examination of key performance metrics (e.g.
purposeful planning, classroom culture, effective instructional
techniques, and professional leadership).
Create a collaborative goal-setting component for teachers
and principals to set their own instructional and growth goals specific
to student achievement and teacher or principal effectiveness.
Specify the support and intervention which will be
provided for teachers not rated as ``highly effective'' or
``effective.'' (e.g. improvement plans, professional development and
dismissal protocols) and provide clear consequences for unsatisfactory
performance.
Use teacher and principal evaluation data to guide
district, school, and individual professional development plans.
Train and support evaluators to effectively implement
evaluation.
Use teacher and principal evaluations, at a minimum, to
inform decisions regarding: (a) Developing teachers and principals,
including by providing relevant coaching, induction support, and/or
professional development; (b) Compensating, promoting, and retaining
teachers and principals, including by providing opportunities for
highly effective teachers and principals to obtain additional
compensation and be given additional responsibilities; (c) Whether to
grant tenure and/or full certification (where applicable) to teachers
and principals using rigorous standards and streamlined, transparent,
and fair procedures; and (d) Removing ineffective tenured and untenured
teachers and principals after they have had ample opportunities to
improve, and ensuring that such decisions are made using rigorous
standards and streamlined, transparent, and fair procedures.
Train and support teachers in peer assistance and/or
teacher leader programs.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Kaplan.
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN A. KAPLAN, PRESIDENT,
WALDEN UNIVERSITY
Mr. Kaplan. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
I am very pleased to speak with you about the work we do at
Walden University to advance teacher quality and leadership in
the classroom.
For 40 years, Walden University has supported working
professionals in achieving their academic goals and advancing
positive social change. Based in Minnesota, Walden is a
primarily on-line institution, currently serving more than
40,000 students from all 50 States.
Our School of Education is named for Richard W. Riley, the
esteemed former U.S. Secretary of Education and former governor
of South Carolina. The Richard Riley College of Education and
Leadership has more than 28,000 graduates and currently enrolls
over 16,000 students. We offer programs ranging from teacher
certification through Ph.D.
We are proud of the Riley College's diversity. Seventy-
eight percent of our students are women, and 31 percent are
minorities. The average age of our students is 37. The
graduation rate for our masters program in teacher education,
our largest program, consistently runs over 80 percent. Our
students currently include 45 State Teachers of the Year.
I appreciate this committee's focus on the importance of
quality teachers and leaders. I believe that schools of
education play an essential role in educating teachers to be
more effective in their classrooms.
I would like to share with you three methods we use to
drive better results for our students and our students'
students: one, measuring and examining specific outcomes; two,
delivering programs that are relevant and practical; and,
three, using technology to enable better learning.
We measure Walden's success as an institution largely
through the success of our graduates. In addition to more
traditional means of assessment, we are increasingly focused on
demonstrating our students' success through outcomes analysis.
For example, on an annual basis, we survey our graduates
and their employers to understand the impact of our programs.
In our most recent data from 2008, each of the 72 school
principals or assistant principals who responded to our survey
said they would hire another Riley College graduate as a
teacher. More than 90 percent of our masters of education
graduates who responded said that earning their degrees
enhanced their professional performance. Data like this
provides important benchmarks for the School of Education to
measure our performance, and I want to emphasize that is our
measuring our own performance as a School of Education.
Beyond these surveys, we recognize the need to examine the
direct impact of our graduates in the classroom. In 2005,
Walden commissioned a 3-year longitudinal study in the Tacoma,
Washington, school district. The research demonstrated that
students of Tacoma teachers who graduated from our masters
program in elementary reading and literacy made greater gains
in reading fluency--more than 14 percent greater--than students
of non-Walden-masters educated teachers. We found this
longitudinal study quite instructive and are now exploring how
we might conduct similar studies in other substantive and
geographic areas.
At Walden, we also believe that our programs must have a
strong theoretical and content grounding and be highly relevant
and practical. Our curriculum is developed by our faculty but
done so in collaboration with national experts, on-the-ground
teachers, and instructional designers. This allows us to build
stronger programs and to prepare teachers, no matter where they
teach in the country.
We offer practical courses on topics that include classroom
management, meeting the needs of diverse learners, and
integrating technology in the classroom. Ninety-five percent of
our graduates who responded found the Walden teacher education
curriculum relevant to their daily work.
We also teach teachers how to be reflective about their own
skills and how to utilize research-based strategies and data to
improve instruction and effectiveness in their classrooms. Our
philosophy is that you have to provide the opportunity for
teachers to learn and apply 21st century skills so that a
teacher's own learning doesn't stop when their degree ends.
From our own experience at Walden, we know that
interactivity and engagement on line is a particularly
effective teaching tool in the field of education. For example,
in our programs, we supplement our required on-ground field
experience with a technology called Virtual Field Experience.
In this interactive instructional video, students see and hear
firsthand the master teacher's explanation of what is working
and what isn't working in the displayed K-12 classroom setting.
It also enables our faculty to highlight the best teaching
practices from a diverse group of master teachers. Using this
technology, our students have the opportunity to observe best
practices and diverse teaching styles from classrooms across
the country. As a leading on-line institution, we measure the
value of our technology only by the results it delivers.
At Walden, we feel privileged and responsible in our role
as educators of such a significant number of this Nation's
teacher workforce. We feel a real obligation to ensure and
demonstrate that our graduates are effective and making an even
more positive impact on the children they teach. Thank you
again for the opportunity to testify today.
[The statement of Mr. Kaplan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jonathan A. Kaplan, President, Walden University
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am honored to be
here before the Committee and with this august set of witnesses. I am
very pleased to speak with you today about the work we are doing at
Walden University's Richard W. Riley College of Education and
Leadership to advance teacher quality and leadership in the classroom.
For 40 years, Walden University has supported working professionals in
achieving their academic goals and advancing positive social change.
Based in Minnesota, Walden is a primarily online institution, is
regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, and currently
serves more than 40,000 students from all 50 states and more than 100
countries. It is the flagship online university in the Laureate
International Universities network--a global network of more than 50
online and campus-based universities in 21 countries.
Our school of education is named for Richard W. Riley, the esteemed
former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and former
governor of South Carolina. As the Committee knows very well, Secretary
Riley has long been a leader and advocate for improving education for
every American child.
Our Riley College of Education has graduated more than 28,000
educators and currently enrolls over 16,000 students from all 50
states. The Riley College offers programs ranging from teacher
certification through Ph.D. We are proud of the diversity of our
student body: the average age of a student in our school of education
is 37; a Masters programs in teacher education, our graduation rate
consistently runs over 80%. Our students currently include 45 state
Teachers of the Year.
On a personal note, my grandmother, Lee Kaplan, taught in the
Rochester, New York public school system for more than 20 years. I
learned from her how much pride--and personal accountability--each
teacher brings to school every day. As President of Walden University,
I share that sense of accountability. Schools of education play an
essential role in educating teachers to be more effective in their
classrooms.
I appreciate this Committee's interest in exploring ways to improve
teacher quality and leadership. I would like to share with you three
methods we use to drive better results for our students--and our
students' students. We focus on (1) measuring and examining specific
outcomes, (2) delivering programs that are relevant and practical, and
(3) using technology to enable better learning outcomes.
1. Assessing Quality through Outcomes
At the institutional level, we measure our own success at Walden
largely through the success of our graduates. Like other institutions,
we do so in part through reviewing our students' learning outcomes,
assessing their actual work products, and confirming that they know how
to apply in the classroom what they have learned. At the Riley College,
we are also increasingly focused on demonstrating our own students'
success through other outcomes analyses. We are aware of the current
interest among policymakers in this area. Let me describe two different
efforts that are ongoing at Walden.
Understand the impact that our graduates have had in their schools
and classrooms as well as to understand the impact of our programs on
their effectiveness as teachers. In our most recent data from 2008, we
surveyed some of those employers and each of the 72 school principals
or assistant principals who responded said they would hire another
Riley College graduate as a teacher. We also learned from our 2008
surveys that more than 90% of our Masters of Education graduates who
responded said that earning their degrees at Walden enhanced their
professional performance. This data provides important benchmarks and
tools for the school of education to measure our performance.
In addition to the surveys we conduct, we believe that it is also
important to examine the impact that our Riley College graduates have
on their own students' achievements. This is a process that requires
significant time, research, support and coordination with school
districts. Walden commissioned a third party to complete a longitudinal
study in the Tacoma, Washington school district over 2005-08. The
research demonstrated that students of Tacoma teachers who graduated
from our Masters program in Elementary Reading and Literacy made
greater gains in reading fluency--more than 14% greater--than students
of non-Walden-masters educated teachers. We learned that, as it relates
to our graduates, the improvements were most significant in first
grade. The study also told us that the positive impact Walden graduates
had on student reading fluency translated into more efficient use of
instructional time. I want to note that we began this research
uncertain about the outcome--the study may well have informed us that
our program was not enabling our graduates to perform at a sufficiently
high level.
These are significant findings and ones that have implications not
only for our teachers but also for administrators and schools of
education in general. We have also used the results of this research as
a mechanism for continuous improvement to enhance certain aspects of
our program. We found this longitudinal study so helpful that we are
exploring how we might conduct similar studies in other substantive and
geographic areas.
2. Providing Relevant and Practical Programs
I just spoke about institutional and other outcomes as a measure of
teacher quality. At Walden University, we also believe that providing
our students with practical classroom tools and analytical skills is
increasingly important to ensure effective teaching. We have a strong
belief that our programs need to not only have a strong theoretical and
content grounding, but must be highly relevant, practical and engaging.
Our curriculum is developed by our faculty, but done so in
collaboration with practitioners, national experts and experienced
instructional designers. This allows us to prepare teachers no matter
where in the U.S. they may teach and, in order to do that effectively,
it takes more than one person's perspective. This process also allows
us to seek input to design and then teach courses and programs in areas
in which this country has a growing need. Gathering all of that
expertise, grounding the courses in the latest research strategies, and
putting it together in a coherent curriculum based on the best diverse
learning environments--not just one particular local school district.
To provide the Committee some examples, we offer courses on topics
that include classroom management, working with struggling readers,
meeting the needs of diverse learners, integrating technology in the
classroom, adolescent literacy and technology, and creating an
effective learning environment. Teachers learn research-based
strategies that they can then apply in their classrooms immediately and
to good effect. In fact, 95% of our graduates who responded to our
survey found the Walden teacher education curriculum relevant to their
daily work.
We also encourage self-reflection in our curriculum. In addition to
giving teachers the necessary skills and tools--all grounded in
theory--we also teach them how to be reflective about their own
teaching and how to utilize research to enhance their effectiveness in
the classroom. For example, our Masters' program includes an Action
Research course where our Riley faculty teach teachers problem-solving
methodology so that after graduation, they can continue to learn and
improve their practice. In our programs, teachers are asked to use
authentic data from their classrooms and are taught how to use that
data to make informed decisions that drive better instruction. This is
essential in today's environment of increasing accountability and
greater reliance on data to measure and improve student achievement.
As a school of education, our philosophy is that you have to
provide the opportunity for teachers to learn and apply 21st century
skills so that a teacher's own learning doesn't stop when their degree
ends.
3. Using Technology to Enable Better Learning
As the U.S. Department of Education recently learned through a
study of its own, online learning is just as effective a method of
education, if not more so, than on-ground learning. This is in
significant part because of the required frequent interaction between
the faculty and their students. From our own experience at Walden, we
know that interactivity and engagement online is a particularly
effective teaching tool in the field of education. Allow me to share
one example.
In our education programs, we supplement our required, on-ground
field experience with a technology called Virtual Field Experience. In
a traditional field experience, prospective teachers observe a
classroom setting in a local school. When we brought together our
faculty and other experts to develop our teacher licensure program, one
of the shortcomings they described was that prospective teachers may
observe a terrific teacher in such a setting, or they may not. In
addition, depending on the particular school district where the student
is located, there may not be an opportunity for these prospective
teachers to be exposed to a diverse set of learners.
Using the Virtual Field Experience technology, our students have
the opportunity to observe best practices and diverse teaching styles
from classrooms across the country. Each video segment includes an
analysis component that allows our students to hear firsthand the
master teacher's engaging explanation of what's working and what isn't
working in the classroom. It also enables our faculty to highlight the
best teaching practices from a diverse group of master teachers around
the country. This is not the most cutting edge technology. Rather, it
is an effective means to supplement the teacher
Conclusion
At Walden, we are proud of the fact that over 40,000 teachers and
other educators have chosen our programs over the years with the goal
of increasing their knowledge and skills. We feel both privileged and
responsible in our role as educators of such a significant number of
this nation's teacher workforce. In this capacity, Walden University
generally, and the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership
in particular, feel a significant obligation to be able to demonstrate
that our graduates are effective and, in turn, are making a positive
impact on the children whom they teach. I thank you again for the
opportunity to testify today.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Under our prior agreement here, Ms. Clarke, we are going to
start with you.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and I want
to thank the panel as well.
I am a firm believer in the African proverb that it takes a
village to raise and, I might add, educate a child. Many out-
of-school variables, such as a lack of adequate nutrition or
health care, impoverished conditions in the community, can have
an adverse impact on student achievement. Wouldn't it make
sense to require all schools to examine these variables of
children in developing their turnaround models; and,
furthermore, aren't we placing too much of the accountability
burden just on teachers? What role should parental and
community involvement play in education?
And I open that to the panel.
Chairman Miller. Well, come on now, somebody. Mr.
Steinhauser.
Mr. Steinhauser. I will talk from Long Beach's perspective.
In Long Beach, I have 72 wrap-around programs that we heard
earlier discussed in the panel, and we look at everything. And
you are exactly right. It is the entire community. It is the
parents. It is the business partners. It is the higher ed. We
all have to come together. We have a very strong partnership
with our local churches, where our local churches open their
doors on Saturdays and after school, and we bring in the tutors
to work in those churches, and then they bring in the students.
So I agree 100 percent that the accountability is not just
on the teachers. It is on every single person. And it is very
important that, as we develop our accountability programs, that
we bring everybody to the table and that they are part of every
process of the table. Because it is important for parents to
understand what these assessments mean, how they can get
assistance if they need assistance, and not just for teachers
or the employers of the school district.
Chairman Miller. Anybody else?
Ms. Clarke. Okay. I just wanted to raise that as a concern,
because I find that oftentimes we are looking to the teacher
for all of the solutions and notwithstanding, you know, those
who may be willing to go into low-performing schools with their
skills, if they are not prepared to address that environment
that the child is living in it can also be a challenge. At the
end of the day, we are going to come back to the teachers and
say, you didn't perform; and no one is going to discuss all the
other factors that are impacting on that school environment.
So I wanted to raise that as an issue, because it is one
that I am faced with in Brooklyn, New York. I have seen,
actually, the concept of all the stakeholders work. I have yet
to see an exclusion of those stakeholders really take root in
terms of accountability in the development of the education of
our children.
I wanted to also ask whether you think that tying student
achievement outcomes to teacher and principal evaluations is a
good way to attract high-quality educators to struggling
schools. Do you believe that they would want to stick to
successful schools or remain in schools where they would not
risk uneven student growth because of the possible challenges
or hurdles involved in working in and turning around a
persistently low-achieving school? What is your experience?
Chairman Miller. Ms. McElroy.
Ms. Parker-McElroy. I have worked in a low-performing
school, and I have been a proud member of being able to turn it
around and for it to be successful. And one thing that I just
wanted to say is that the teachers, when we are working
together, the teachers are coming to that school not--before
moral obligations to make a difference to the students' lives.
And when we are around struggling and trying to make a
difference for the poverty students, such as you suggested a
minute ago, we like to show our data to each other because we
can see how a strategy has worked for one teacher and how I can
learn from you or maybe how I can bring that to another grade
to make a difference. So the teachers that I have worked with
for the last 5 years want to work in the schools and make a
difference for the students.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Thompson.
Ms. Thompson. At Teach Plus, we have actually had the
opportunity to pose that question to a group of about 150
teachers when the Commissioner of Education in Massachusetts
was creating the Race to the Top proposal. What we found in
that session is that 87 percent of the teachers in the room
welcomed student outcomes data as a part of their personal
assessments, and they wanted the opportunity to not only show
what they can do but to be held accountable and to continue to
work with their colleagues using that data and moving forward
with their professions.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Ms. Hirono.
Excuse me. Mr. Petri.
Mr. Petri. I would like to thank all of you for your
testimony and the effort that went into preparing it. And I
apologize that some of my questions are a little basic, but
don't be restricted by that.
I was interested, Mr. Kaplan, in your saying your students
are 37 years old, on average. Is that a factor? That is quite--
you think of people coming at a much younger age into the
teaching profession. And why would--could you explain why that
is or how this affects, if it does, the performance of the
people when they do enter your system and then finally get into
the teaching, presumably as a second or a third career?
Mr. Kaplan. Sure. Thank you.
The main reason that the average age of our students at
Walden is 37 is the fact that our focus predominantly, from a
program standpoint, has been in graduate education. As a
result, our largest program in the Riley College of Education
is our master of science in education where teachers are coming
back to get their masters degree as mid-career professionals
and teachers; and, because we are on-line, there is an
opportunity for them to do it without much difficulty in terms
of their own careers.
So, from our standpoint, ensuring that we are meeting the
needs of working adults and doing so in a way that is very
relevant and providing programs that are very practical to them
we know is critical. On average, our masters' students at
Walden have between 10 and 15 years teaching experience, so we
know that the value that we can add is supplementing their
education. Their education is continuing, they are lifelong
learners, and providing them with very relevant and practical
programs and courses at that level is essential.
Mr. Petri. It is my impression, and I may be wrong, but
that there is a fairly high dropout rate in the first couple of
years of people actually entering the classroom; and there are
efforts to try to deal with that through--as people segue from
education schools to practice teaching and so on and so forth.
But, nonetheless, many teachers do get overwhelmed, especially
going into inner city schools or challenging environments.
And the second part of that is that there has been a
criticism that many schools of education focus a lot more on
theory and not too much on preparing people to lead in the
classroom and to actually work on content and this sort of
thing. I wonder if any of you would be--as consumers of
teacher-school-trained people, is there room for improvement?
Is there something the Federal Government could do, if that is
the case, in improving the preparation for people moving into
the field of public school teaching and maybe having a two-tier
system, if people are dropping out anyway, of apprentice
teaching or--I don't know. I am just curious to know if we can
tighten up somehow on the profession of teaching and have
teachers be better prepared to teach.
Mr. Kaplan. Sure. I think your point about schools of
education needing to focus on practical and relevant lessons
for teachers and professional development that they can apply
immediately in the classroom in terms of how to apply research
in the classroom and learn from the data that they are looking
at--there is a lot of assessments out there. Are teachers
gaining the skills and the development they need to be able to
assess that data and then apply it immediately to improve
individual student performance? Those kinds of practical
elements are absolutely critical, we think, in terms of what
schools of education can offer.
Mr. Bennett. Our experience has been that it is not either/
or. It is not either content or pedagogy. It really is the
right mix of having the content area necessary to teach a
subject as well as the pedagological skills necessary to
present the material.
You know, one of our schools of education made the comment
that if you really break down the science and art of teaching,
you can really look at four main areas that you can build
almost all your class work into.
One is the issue of classroom management. We all know that
a well-managed classroom, a classroom that is disciplined and
engaging, is paramount to student learning. Two, the ability to
use data to drive instruction and differentiate instruction
based on the needs of children. Three is a culturally competent
way of presenting curriculum. And, finally, is the ability to
engage parents and community.
If you take those four overarching themes, you could build
a number of the pedagological classes that we currently offer
in 3-hour blocks into all four of those overarching themes; and
then you add that with an internship, student teaching
experience, and we believe that that is a good mix for
prospective teachers.
Ms. Burns. When our universities underwent the redesign of
all of their programs, we required all of the universities to
create redesign teams that had district personnel on them,
college of arts and science, college of education faculty, and
we required them to look at our State content standards and our
State teacher standards. And when they redesigned their
programs they redesigned them based upon what teachers needed
to know and be able to do within the classrooms. And, in
addition to that, all of the programs we are required to have
more site-based experiences earlier in the career of the
teachers. So we did not wait until teachers did student
teaching or an internship. They actually started during their
sophomore year.
And I mentioned to you that we are now looking, using the
value-added model to look at the teacher preparation programs
and the growth and learning of the children being taught by the
new teachers. And what we are finding is that our university
programs are not equally proficient across all content areas or
equally low across all content areas. We are seeing as much
variance within the programs.
So, like with teachers of grades one through five, we have
programs where those new teachers are performing at a growth
level that is greater than new teachers in one subject area,
comparable to new teachers, experienced teachers in two subject
areas, and comparable to other new teachers in other areas. And
so what this is telling us, and we heard it earlier with the
previous panel, it is what is going on in the preparation of
the teachers and the methodology and the content areas that
appears to be making the most difference.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Steinhauser, we are on Ms. Hirono's
time, so you are going to be brief.
Mr. Steinhauser. I think it critical--I want to build upon
what Dr. Burns said, that this communication has to be monthly
and ongoing; and I will give you an example.
When we redesigned our programs, our university let us take
the fifth year responsibility. So we actually give the
credential in the fifth year. So, again, like Louisiana,
individuals going into teaching have an opportunity to come
into our schools in their first year of college, so building
upon that. So I can't emphasize enough that it has to be
ongoing communication between the university and the K-12
system.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Ms. Hirono.
Ms. Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As we focus on evidence-based educational reforms, starting
with one of my big emphasis and also for the committee is
quality early education so that our kids can be prepared to
succeed in life and in school very early on.
But we know that the other component of what really enables
a child to learn is having a highly effective teacher standing
in front of that classroom. However, there is not a lot of
science behind what makes a teacher effective. So that is what
I think these two panels have been about.
Clearly, there are a lot of models out there. Some of the
models are collaborative teaching, an environment that fosters
that kind of teaching, changing the colleges of education,
which I think is a whole other subject because most of our
teachers do get trained by colleges, hundreds of thousands of
colleges of education across the country, and I don't think
they are particularly on the pages we are. So what I get from
these two panels is that there are a lot of models out there.
And as we are looking at reauthorizing ESEA, I think Ms.
Weingarten said that we ought to be incentivizing pilot
programs so that the best practices in all of these areas that
we are talking about can come to the fore. Do you agree with
that, that we ought to be not prescribing particular kinds of
approaches but that we really ought to be saying to our schools
and our districts and our States, try the various models and
see which one works for you? Do you agree with that kind of
approach for the Federal Government? Anybody?
Ms. Burns. I definitely agree that. If our State had not
received the Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement State Grant
we would not have been able to have accomplished what we have
accomplished, and that gave us funding to try something new,
different from what we had been doing previously within our
State. So I totally agree with you.
But what needs to occur is, where we identify practices
that are working, that information needs to be shared with
others nationally, so that others can learn the lessons as they
move forward and want to implement innovative new ideas
themselves.
Ms. Hirono. I agree with you. Because that is the point of
funding pilot programs, so that we don't all have to be
reinventing the wheel all the time.
So do the rest of you pretty much agree with that?
As we have experienced the Race to the Top grant
applications, we know that only two States got any money, and
we are now going into the second round of grants. There are
hundreds of millions of dollars. And one of the concerns I have
is that, for the lowest-performing schools, they are limited to
four, basically, approaches in how to turn around these
schools.
I heard some of you say that you support the President's
blueprint on this, so I wanted to hear a little bit more as to
whether or not, for the lowest-performing schools, you think
that these four criteria, whether the closure, eliminating 50
percent of the teachers, whether those are too prescriptive and
that we really ought to be saying to Secretary Duncan, that is
too prescriptive; we ought to provide more options for these
applicants.
Mr. Steinhauser. As the superintendent of a K-12 system, I
have had the opportunity to turn around a lot of low-performing
schools; and I will say that those are four options, that there
is no magic bullet. In some cases, you are going to have to
take a little bit of every one of those programs and implement
it.
So that is one area of the blueprint that I would like to
see a little more flexibility. Because when you turn around a
low-performing school part of it is the culture of that school.
Sometimes you need to bring--we have reconstituted schools
before, and it has been very successful. I have reconstituted
schools before, and it hasn't been successful. So I think that
I would like to see those four options and 40 more options, to
be honest with you.
Ms. Hirono. Do the rest of you agree? Because we are going
to make a change if that is what we are going to do.
Mr. Bennett. One of the things I think we need to think
about--and I agree with what he said about more options. But
one of the things we haven't talked about is the fact that,
regardless of which of those four models you use, there will be
some implementation lag, that you are not going to implement
any of those four models or any other truly structural reform
model for a school and get instant success. So I think we also
need to be looking at how we define the intermediate metrics in
terms of how we begin to judge whether these models do make the
progress we need to make to transforming or turning around
these schools. So not only do we need more models and more
flexibility, but I also think we need to understand how do we
set the intermediate metrics once we get into a turnaround
situation.
Ms. Thompson. What I would add to this, because we are
working in turnaround schools in Boston, is how important it is
to realize that there are teachers in that building, even in
the lowest-performing schools, who are doing really high-
quality work in their specific room, and that whatever model we
use, we have the opportunity to honor and value those teachers,
as well as the new set that are coming in and those who are
transitioning out because this was not the right place for
them. The T-3 work that we are doing in Boston, we are
specifically trying to locate both those teachers who have
incredible knowledge and history about why that building wasn't
working and can be then a very constructive part of the reform,
if that is what they choose to do.
Ms. Hirono. I agree. Thank you.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Member. I really, really appreciate the opportunity for
this hearing.
Dr. Bennett, can you describe in more detail Indiana's
program to train more effective school leaders?
Mr. Bennett. We have two or three different options.
First of all, the University of Notre Dame is beginning an
MBA--an executive MBA program that will train turnaround
leaders. Now the problem with that program is it is small in
scope, so we will not receive the scale and the number of
turnaround leaders that we need to make a difference in some of
our lowest-performing schools.
Indiana University is also engaging in a similar program.
We also have one of our local private universities, Marion
University, who has received private funding from a private
foundation to begin a turn-around academy for turn-around
leaders. So we believe that we need to address and get out with
our higher ed community to engage in some different types of
models, like this executive MBA, like a turnaround academy that
Marion University is investigating and like IU is
investigating. We think those are the key.
I also think it comes down some to local control. You know,
I think there is the opportunity for great turnaround leaders
who may be great educators in a building who may not be
historically educated as a principal to engage in these types
of activities. Because we all know this isn't for the faint of
heart. Turning around low-performing schools is not an easy
work and takes a special skill set. So the fact is we may need
folks outside of the traditional ilk and of the traditional
training programs.
Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania. And you state in your
testimony that we must create high expectations for adults in
our systems and schools just as we set for our students, and we
must hold those adults accountable to meet those expectations.
Can you give us an idea on how you think we can hold adults
more accountable within the education system?
Mr. Bennett. Well, again, I think we start with growth. We
start with the concept that every child, regardless of their
race, regardless of how much money mom and dad make, regardless
of their zip code, is entitled to 1 year of educational growth
in 1 year of instruction. And we measure that. And I think what
we do then is we tie teacher and principal evaluations
principally to that. We say 51 percent, and all other aspects
of the evaluation should be focused on the essential skills
that drive that type of result.
You know, I think, as a former assistant superintendent and
superintendent, I always remember the fact that when we held
adults accountable and we would take teachers to contract
cancellation because they ultimately were not performing, we
were criticized because we were using subjective evaluations.
And if our core mission in education is to drive student growth
and, ultimately, student achievement, then it doesn't make
sense that we shouldn't have objective measures that reflect
those high expectations for not only our teachers but also our
principals.
Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania. Thank you.
Mr. Kaplan, you know, I think, using the feedback from
teachers is so important. That is something I have been trying
to do as we look at this reauthorization, meeting with faculty
members all around my congressional district to get their
feedback. I was disappointed actually to find with the core
standards that it doesn't seem like--there really wasn't good
feedback from the teacher level. Through your testimony you
talked about using feedback received from local school
districts that received your teachers, and I was wondering if
you could provide us some specific examples about that feedback
that you received.
Mr. Kaplan. Sure. I would say from the outset that again,
and it is a theme that has come up previously, there is no
silver bullet in terms of a particular metric that we look at
to assess how our programs are doing, whether it is feedback
from principals and school districts on our teachers or any
other; and, further, we are very respectful of our graduates'
privacy and ask their permission in order to talk with their
supervisors, their principals, assistant principals, school
districts, and what have you.
The feedback we have gotten about our graduates, though,
has been informative to us about what is working and what we
can improve programmatically.
One point I would make is that we have heard a consistent
theme from different districts and principals that our teachers
are helping to create a bit of a professional learning
community within their schools and that the programs that they
were enrolled in at Walden were helpful in that regard. So,
from our standpoint, it has been helpful, as we look at our
programs, what to improve, what to focus more on. Because this
is an ongoing effort. Because teachers continue to learn
through their careers, cultivating that ongoing learning
environment is essential and something we will continue to
focus on.
Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Parker, you talk about coaching in the classroom and
working with the other teachers, which is a good idea. But,
practically speaking, most of our communities are really
strapped for money. So how does that layer in? Do they end up
paying you? Does it increase the size of the classrooms, or
where does it reflect on that, and what has been the impact
that you have seen?
Ms. Parker-McElroy. I don't really want to touch that
question at all. That is money and that is budget.
I do want to say, though----
Mr. Tierney. I do want you to touch that question. You have
been there, and you are observing it. So the question is,
really, you know, how do they make it? If they are going to
hire you as a teaching coach or whatever, then something else
has to give. When that other thing gives, how does it affect
the students and how to do they make up for it? What has been
the result?
Ms. Parker-McElroy. Correct. What can give is time. You
don't have to have an actual instructional coach in your
building, but you do need to have time to collaborate with
other team members, other teachers that are struggling with
those same questions at the same time, and that collaboration,
that staff development where you are looking at what an issue
is and talking together and looking it together. But it takes
time. It takes time within the school day. So not necessarily a
human coach, but time in the day to collaborate together with
your peers is essential.
Mr. Tierney. Okay. Let me ask Mr. Bennett, when you said
your teachers wouldn't publicly endorse what you had done, did
they make public statements as to why they wouldn't take that
step?
Mr. Bennett. First and foremost, they were critical about
our process that we used to put the plan together. Their
criticism is that we did not disclose the full documents to
them prior to submission, and that was from guidance that we
had received from our consultants. We explained that up front.
The most disturbing piece, Congressman, was after we made
the decision that we--after we had reached out and actually
said, these are the areas we need your support on, these are
the areas where the union needs to come to the table and
address, they did not want to have that discussion in a
transparent manner.
I invited the president of the Indiana State Teachers
Association, the President of the Indiana Federation of
Teachers, and myself, with no staff and just media present, so
we could hash these things out in a transparent manner. They
chose not to do that. And then, afterwards, we were told we
have public statements from the Indiana State Teachers
Association president that he did not support Race to the Top
from the beginning. He thought it was bad to pit students
against students and students from one State against students
from another State. So all the discussions we had about teacher
evaluations to me appear to be a little disingenuous after
hearing that.
Mr. Tierney. Well, it is possible that your consultants
advising you not to be transparent with the teachers, that
strikes me at a little odd. But, you know, it is what it is on
that. But I mean--and then asking them to be transparent in
return, I can see where that bargain may not be struck.
You know, the comment on capacity is what strikes me when I
talked to Ms. Thompson. You mentioned that your moving the
really highly qualified teachers in that have 3 years
experience in an urban, difficult school. The teachers they
displace have to go somewhere. But you have made the
determination that they are not as qualified as the ones that
are replacing them, so where do they go? And what happens to
those students who have the good teachers leave and the other
teachers who hadn't fit where they were go?
And then after we finish that I want to talk to Mr. Kaplan
about some capacity issues.
Ms. Thompson. One of the interesting statistics around
really-hard-to-staff, high-needs schools and failing schools,
they usually fall in the same bucket, is that they have very,
very large annual turnover rates for teachers. And so what we
have found is, for the most part, bringing in a team of high-
quality teachers is not displacing anyone. Because folks were
leaving already. Often. These schools are staffed with the most
inexperienced teachers. These are folks that do not have a
support infrastructure. They are in the hardest possible
environment, and they often leave the profession after a year
or two. Or if they have the opportunity, they go to another
school. But usually they are leaving the profession.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Kaplan, I am curious to know how,
logistically, your teaching process works. You are an on-line
institution. So do people have to come to the classroom at any
point in time? Is it all on-line? How are they evaluated in
their performance on that basis?
Mr. Kaplan. Sure. Well, there is an on-line classroom,
Congressman, where students will virtually sit, if you will, in
a section with 18, 19 other students and with a faculty member,
in our case, all doctorally prepared, who will then engage with
the students. They will have writing assignments back and
forth. There is chat and discussion that is required as a part
of being a part of the course.
One of the things that we note to prospective students who
are interested in our programs is that on-line learning isn't
for everyone. There is no hiding in the back row of an on-line
classroom in the sense that discussion and contribution is
required as a part of every section; and, obviously, writing
requirements, other assessments are a part of that process as
well.
One of the things that we have really found is the high
level of satisfaction that our students have with engagement.
They didn't think they would be as engaged with faculty and
other students as they are. And, again, that kinds of points
back to our theory about technology which is not using anything
to be cutting edge but really ensuring that it is about the
learning and it is about the student experience.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Roe.
Mr. Roe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing;
and I thank the panel members for being here today. I certainly
wish we had had more members here, because I think this is a
very important hearing that we are having today.
I believe, first of all, the education in this country is
at such a tipping point. If you look at our competition around
the world, we spent all last year talking about health care.
And, quite frankly, if we had an educated work force I think a
lot of the health care issues would have gone away because
people would have had good jobs and would have had access to
affordable health care.
So I am a product of the public education system, never
attended any private university, so I am totally committed to
seeing that every youngster in America gets a quality
education.
And just a couple of questions. I was riding on the
airplane back this afternoon and just shared some--ran into
some folks who just happened to be educators, and we were
talking about the various amounts of money that were spent. For
instance, in the Washington, DC, school system, I read in the
little throwaway newspaper they give you on the Metro every
morning when you ride in that average student in a school here
is $18,000 per student. I think, in Chicago, I think I heard--I
have a son that lives there--I think it is about $5,000 per
student. In Tennessee, where I am, in the city where I live, it
is $8,000.
The quality of education the kids are getting doesn't seem
to be consistent with the amount of money that you spend in any
one place. And I know you have to have enough. I do. I get
that. But the fact that we spend more money doesn't necessarily
mean you get more for your money is what I am saying.
Any comments that any of y'all would make like to make
about the funding for a student? Because you see it all over
the place in this country, and the results are all over the
place.
Mr. Steinhauser. In California, we have taken an $11
billion hit to school funding. I personally, in my school
system, have lost $120 million in 2 years; and, at the same
time, I have 87,000 youngsters that come to me and expect me to
prepare them for the world of work and for college. And I am
proud to say, last year, 74 percent of my graduating seniors
are in college today.
However, money isn't the whole answer. It is what do you
with the money which is the answer. And I would argue, as a
superintendent, yes, I need more money, but hold me accountable
to those outcomes; and if I don't do it, then I should be fired
if I don't come out on those outcomes. And I am a firm believer
in people being held to outcomes along with growth process.
Mr. Roe. I totally agree, and that leads to another
question. How do you deal with a tenured position when you have
someone who has just decided to park themselves in a chair? And
everybody knows--and it may not be the easiest teacher, it
could be the hardest teacher you have--is still a good teacher.
And I know that is hard to define. But I agree with you all
about objective outcomes. How do you deal with that, when you
have someone where the unions may be protecting that person or
they are just taking up space? What do you do?
Mr. Steinhauser. In my experience as a superintendent, we
have released tenured teachers before. We have a program, peer
assistance, and review. If a teacher is less than satisfactory,
he or she is going to get support from their colleagues; and in
99 percent of cases they improve.
I have never met a teacher truly who didn't want to be
there. For whatever reason, they may not be the stellar teacher
that they were when they first started. Then it is our
responsibility as administrators and others to support them to
get them the tools that they need. If they can't measure up to
those levels, then we have to release them. And it is--in
California, it is an expensive process. It costs around
$250,000 to do. I will be honest with you. The majority of
those individuals will resign before you have to go to the
hearing process.
Mr. Bennett. Congressman Roe, if I may, to add to that, I
believe that if you have a habitually poor-performing teacher
you have habitually poor-performing administrators. They are
not doing their job as the instructional leaders of the
building. So I think, you know, we, so many times, talk about
the tenured teacher or the poor-performing teacher that we
don't remove. You have to have a principal in the building that
knows how to evaluate.
You know, I have a group of principals I meet with every 2
or 3 months, and every one of them told me they were never
taught how to evaluate in their----
Mr. Roe. So it is two problems then.
Mr. Bennett. It really is two problems.
Mr. Roe. Before my time runs out, one other quick issue, I
ran into a guy who is a chemist and a mathematician at a
Starbucks. He had retired from the Eastman Chemical
Corporation, had gone back into the classroom.
How do you take someone like myself, who cannot teach an 8-
grade health class, but I can teach in medical school and in
college? How do we transition those folks who might want to go
back now and get them in the classroom? There are a lot of
bright people out there that would like to do that.
I understand you need some basic core curriculum and things
like that about how to get a lesson plan and all that together.
But just some answers here. I will be brief, if you would. I am
sorry for going over my time.
Yes, ma'am. Dr. Burns.
Ms. Burns. Within our State, we have three new pathways for
teachers through alternate certification. These are for
teachers, individuals who have--they have bachelors degrees in
areas other than education, and they want to enter into
education either mid-career or right after they come out of the
universities. And with the alternate certification programs, we
have one pathway that is a quick, 1-year pathway; we have one
where you can get a master of arts in teaching; and then we
have another one that is a certification only.
All three pathways require the same expectations to get
into the programs. You have to demonstrate content knowledge
before you can go into a classroom and participate in a program
and teach in a classroom. And throughout the programs, all of
them, all the teachers are having to meet the same State
standards for teachers, the same State standards for content.
However, the delivery is different within each one of those
three different pathways.
In our State, we have two private providers--the New
Teacher Project, the Louisiana Resource Center for Educators--
where they have received approval from the State to offer one
of those three pathways as a practitioner teacher program; and,
in addition, our universities can offer all three pathways. So
we have found this to be very successful.
In fact, with our alternate certification programs, these
are the ones where we now have value-added results; and we are
showing, with some of the programs, they are producing new
teachers where they are comparable or the growth of learning is
greater than that of experienced teachers. So they can be very
successful.
Mr. Roe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for indulging me.
But this friend of mine has got a Ph.D. In mathematics who
is teaching 8th and 9th graders math, which is unbelievable.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Thank you. We will have you out of here by 5:00, but we
have a couple of people who want to ask additional questions.
The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Chu. Dr. Bennett, you make some sweeping statements
about teachers in your testimony. For instance, you say, quote,
the most striking, most powerful impediment to improving
instructional quality in school leadership has been those
organizations charged principally to protect the integrity of
teaching profession, teachers unions, unquote.
I was very interested in these sweeping statements, because
I am a teacher. I was a teacher for 20 years. I belonged to a
union all those 20 years, the American Federation of Teachers,
albeit this was at the community college level.
So I note that the Race to the Top application built into
its application a requirement for genuine collaboration with
teachers unions, and that Tennessee and Delaware did engage in
collaborative process with many different entities, including
teachers, and were successful in their applications.
On the other hand, teachers' unions in Indiana were not
consulted in any kind of collaborative process in the State
application. In fact, they were informed of what the
application would contain but never actually allowed to see the
full application until after it was submitted to the U.S.
Department of Education.
Why did you decide not to involve the union in the process,
and how would you expect local unions to sign on to an MOU
saying that they would implement Race to the Top when they
never actually got to see the application?
Mr. Bennett. Well, first, we did collaborate with the
unions, especially in the area of great teachers and leaders
under that pillar. We had no less than three fairly lengthy and
robust discussions with both representatives from the ISTA and
the IFT regarding a framework for teacher and principal
evaluation. And we actually went to them because we said, we
know this is the place that involves the teachers the most,
especially at the local level when they go to negotiate
collective bargaining agreements that, in many cases, include
their evaluation instrument and their evaluation process.
So the concept that we didn't include them is not correct.
They did not see our application in total, but they did receive
an incredibly extensive executive summary.
And the reforms we have pursued have been consistent with
what the Secretary and the President have talked about for
reforming education. So we didn't really believe there was a
big secret.
But the direct answer to your question, Congresswoman, is,
again, we received guidance from our national consultants that
said this was a competition and we were competing against
potentially 50 other States, and we were told that we had
pieces of our proposal that were unique to Indiana and we
should keep those unique. So we did put out an extensive
executive summary. We went to nine--we made nine State-wide
stops where we engaged members of the teachers unions and
administrators and school board members; and, again, we did
have those robust discussions about the pillar that most
affected teachers, which was the great teacher and leader
pillar.
That said, the Indiana State Teachers Association still
came out after the fact and said they didn't even agree with
Race to the Top. So I am not sure how much collaboration would
have helped when the head of the union didn't agree with the
process we were trying to engage in.
Ms. Chu. Well, I am raising this because when you make such
sweeping statements about a whole profession then I think the
record has to be set straight.
And, Mr. Chairman, without objection, I would like to
insert into the hearing record three letters from the State of
Indiana State Teachers Association, because I think it is
important to have the hearing record show both sides of the
issue in the State of Indiana.
Chairman Miller. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
13 January 2010.
Dr. Tony Bennett,
Indiana Department of Education, Room 229, Statehouse, Indianapolis,
Indiana 46204-2798.
Dear Dr. Bennett: As president of the Indiana State Teachers
Association, I want to acknowledge the opportunities ISTA has had to
participate in discussions with Indiana's Superintendent of Public
Instruction concerning the proposals you might make regarding teacher
evaluation in Indiana's Race To The Top application.
Should Indiana be selected as a recipient of Race To The Top
funding, I appreciate the stated commitment of the Superintendent that
ISTA will be an active participant in the development and
implementation of state plans for education reform in the area of
teacher evaluation and in other areas of education policy which will be
included in the application.
I find it concerning, though, that the leadership of nearly 50,000
ISTA members teaching the more than one million public schoolchildren
in our public schools was not allowed to see the final Race To The Top
application before it was submitted to the federal government on
January 19.
I believe that Indiana's successful application for Race To The Top
funds is important for the schoolchildren in many school districts in
Indiana. If Indiana is awarded these funds, ISTA is willing to
participate more fully and constructively in the policy decision-making
process that will continue.
ISTA's objective is to provide its best thinking and advice on
policy issues so that Indiana's prospects for a bright future are
secured by actions that will best serve the schoolchildren and school
communities within our state. I assume that once I see the plan there
will be aspects of the plan that ISTA cannot fully support; however, I
acknowledge the need for cooperation among education stakeholders for
Indiana to succeed.
Just as Race To The Top leaves the decision on participation up to
local school districts, so too in ISTA's discussions with DOE, ISTA has
not wavered in its position that both endorsement of and participation
in Race To The Top is a matter for local decision. ISTA has made this
clear in discussions with DOE and DOE has acknowledged in those
discussions that collective bargaining will be required in order to
construct the work plans which will be required of local school
districts to obtain Race To The Top funds. This understanding is
consistent with Indiana's version of the Memorandum Of Understanding
(MOU) for participating LEA's (``Partnership Agreement between Indiana
Department of Education and Participating LEA''). As was the case in
the federal MOU, by signing Indiana's Partnership Agreement, a
participating LEA is providing the assurance that it ``(w)ill comply
with * * * all applicable federal and state laws and regulations.''
ISTA looks forward to continuing to work with our members and all
Indiana public officials to provide Hoosier students an education that
equals the best in the nation and the world.
Sincerely,
Nate Schnellenberger,
ISTA President.
______
From: ISTA President
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 1:37 PM
To: Pike, Brenda
Subject: ISTA Seeks Collaborative Race to the Top Sessions
Nathan G. Schnellenberger, President,
Dr. Brenda Pike, Ed. D., Executive Director,
Wednesday, April 21, 2010.
Dear ISTA Member: Dr. Tony Bennett has issued an invitation through
an Indiana Department of Education news release to meet with me, as
president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, in his office next
week to discuss Indiana's Race to the Top (RttT) plan. Dr. Bennett
stated in his news release that because he wants this to be a
meaningful discussion, I should attend his meeting unaccompanied by
ISTA staff. He did, however, issue invitations to members of the news
media to attend and has said that the meeting will be videotaped and
posted on the IDOE Web site.
After having thoroughly reviewed Indiana's application, I have
decided not to accept Dr. Bennett's invitation. A single meeting with
the media in attendance will not generate meaningful discussion or
create the work that needs to be accomplished to produce a viable plan
for the second round of RttT funding.
Despite our repeated requests from the start of the RttT process,
IDOE never shared with ISTA or any other education organization the
content of the plan before it was submitted. Yet now, when time is
short and pressure is deep, Dr. Bennett expects me to give an
unequivocal agreement to his RttT demands.
In Delaware and Tennessee, the two states that received round one
RttT funding, state education leaders solicited and included meaningful
input from their teachers' association leaders through collaborative
meetings and work sessions at every step of the process. That type of
collaboration did not occur in Indiana.
Indiana's RttT application placed 23rd out of 40 states that
submitted applications in the first round of funding, so it is clear
that if the state's application is going to advance to a viable funding
position, it will need intense reworking, not just an unequivocal sign-
off from ISTA. In fact, 100 percent support from ISTA could not have
added enough additional points to vault the Indiana proposal from its
23rd place to a winning grant.
The adversarial tone of Indiana's plan toward teachers stood in
stark contrast to the positive, upbeat tones of the Delaware and
Tennessee plans. It's also interesting to note that both the Delaware
and Tennessee plans preserved seniority, collective bargaining and due
process.
It's clear by looking at reviewers' comments that the failure of
Indiana's plan to be funded had a great deal more to do with a lack of
the plan's specificity and quality than with its lack of support from
ISTA. As evidenced, states likes Georgia (3), Florida (4), Rhode Island
(8) and Louisiana (11), which had absolutely no state association
support for their Race to the Top proposals, all finished significantly
higher than Indiana (23) in the initial round of competition.
An important matter regarding the federal Race to the Top program
has been overlooked. Federal RttT funds cannot be used to offset the
$297 million cut in public education funding mandated by Gov. Daniels.
RttT funds cannot be used to stop teacher layoffs, save instructional
programs or maintain reasonable class sizes. Race to the Top funds
cannot help solve Indiana's public education funding crisis.
ISTA is more than willing to meet with Dr. Bennett and his staff in
meaningful work sessions, but we will not participate in a media event
arranged for the purpose of strong-arming the ISTA into agreeing to an
unequivocal sign-off regarding the Indiana Department of Education's
Race to the Top application demands.
Sincerely,
Nate Schnellenberger.
______
17 December 2009.
Dr. Tony Bennett,
Indiana Department of Education, Room 229, Statehouse, Indianapolis,
Indiana 46204-2798.
Dear Dr. Bennett: I wanted to take the opportunity to reiterate
ISTA's position on the provisions you intend to include in Indiana's
application for Race to the Top funds relative to teacher evaluation.
In light of the cuts in public education which Governor Daniels has
proposed, it is critically important that you ensure that Indiana's
application is designed to assure the success of Indiana's application
and that the benefit of the Race to the Top funds will provide for
Indiana schoolchildren.
As I have stated in our meetings, ISTA can advise our local
affiliates to support the portion of the application which deals with
teacher evaluation as long as it requires that those evaluation systems
be redesigned to meet federal requirements and to meet the needs of
each school district with input from teachers and the local
association. The document we provided to your staff on December 14
clearly reflects our position in this regard. I urge you to reconsider
the position that was advanced in our meeting today under which Indiana
would add a requirement that participating school corporations adopt a
statewide, one- size-fits-all evaluation instrument. Once again, I urge
you to adopt the suggestions we provided in the document we provided on
December 14. I believe that the responsible course for you is to
construct Indiana's application so that IDOE provides guidelines to
supplement the federal requirements rather than adding requirements
which do not advance the policy behind RTTT and will, I believe, reduce
Indiana's chances of being awarded Race to the Top funds by reducing
the evidence you would otherwise have of widespread support for
Indiana's application.
In the area of teacher evaluation, the essential goal of Race to
the Top is to make student growth a significant factor in teacher
evaluation as a strategy for increased engagement on student
achievement and improvement of instruction. ISTA accepts this goal but
believes that we will not achieve it unless Indiana's teachers are
brought into this process. For change to be authentic and effective,
each participating school corporation and its local association must
collaborate in the process of refining or redesigning its evaluation
system. It is clear that the intent of the RTTT grant Reform Plan
Criteria (D)(2) Improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on
performance be that LEAs carry out the guidelines set forth by the
grant under (D) (2). ``The extent to which the State, in collaboration
with its participating LEAs, has a high-quality plan and ambitious yet
achievable annual targets to ensure that participating LEAs (i)
establish clear approaches * * * (iv). The U.S. Department of Education
further emphasizes this point that LEAs develop the teacher and
principal effectiveness plans on page 12 of the Race to the Top Program
Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions document stating, ``We believe
that the decision about which supplemental measures should be used is
best left to educators and leaders in LEAs and/or States who are close
to the classroom and who best determine which metrics work in their
environments.'' Creating plans to improve teacher and principal
effectiveness will require discussion at each LEA about how to improve
student achievement, selection of measures (in addition to ISTEP+)
which are appropriate for gauging student achievement and determination
of how to assess student growth using those measures. If teachers do
not engage in this process of reflection and decision-making, Indiana
will not have the buy-in from the teachers that is essential to
achieving the goal RTTT has set to focus us on student achievement.
ISTA is prepared to accept the challenge of Race to the Top, but we
believe it will not work through a top-down imposition of a one-size-
fits-all evaluation system.
I urge you to submit an application that would not jeopardize the
chances of success for Indiana in its Race to the Top application.
These federal funds are urgently needed to benefit Indiana's
schoolchildren, and it will be regrettable if the imposition of a one-
size-fits-all evaluation system, which is not required by Race to the
Top and which would be counter-productive to the goals of Race to the
Top, puts Indiana's application at a disadvantage.
Finally, we were extremely disappointed to learn, contrary to what
your office had previously announced, that the State Plan and
application will not be released until after the application is
submitted to the federal government on January 19. Instead you propose
to release an executive summary on Friday, December 18, and not make
Indiana's application and State Plan available until after the
application is filed on January 19. This is a most regrettable
development, putting school corporations and teachers' associations in
the position of having to make their participation decision without
knowing what participation requires. I urge you to reconsider and
release the full State Plan and application this Friday. The benefit of
providing complete information to school corporations and teachers
whose efforts will ultimately determine the success of the Race to the
Top far outweighs any other concern.
Sincerely,
Nate Schnellenberger, President.
______
Ms. Chu. But I do have three letters documenting the desire
of the Indiana State Teachers Association to actually read the
full application: a letter from December 17 in which they
expressed their extreme disappointment in not being able to
read the application; a letter from January 13 in which, again,
they express their extreme disappointment because you submitted
it January 19 without their review; and then also, apparently,
you did ask for a meeting, but that was in April, way after the
application was submitted.
Now, you say that Indiana did not get the funds because of
a lack of union support. However, it turns out that there were
other factors that may have been important here. For instance,
Indiana lost 15 points because it didn't include how the State
will emphasize and integrate science, technology, engineering,
and math--STEM, in other words--in its education system. And
you didn't meet all the required elements for a State-wide
longitudinal data system. So are you willing to address these
components in the second round application?
Mr. Bennett. Well, we are not making a second round
application, Congresswoman. We have notified the U.S.
Department of Education that Indiana will not make an
application.
And I want to say that I take responsibility for those
areas that you just mentioned. Because, if you look at our
application, our round one application, we were consistently
criticized for not providing the amount of detail necessary to
describe the reforms that we were pursuing. And we did that
because I made a decision that we would follow the guidance
regarding page limits. And if you look at our--the length of
our application compared to the other finalists, and especially
the successful--the two successful States, you will see a huge
difference in the length of the application. So much of our
detail in our proposal that we were criticized for, and rightly
so, is my responsibility because I chose to follow the page
limits.
Chairman Miller. We are going to have to continue that off
the air here for a minute because we are going to do a little
lightning round here so we can----
Mr. Steinhauser, I would like to ask you a question. So are
you in the position of the customer of Long Beach State?
Mr. Steinhauser. Yes.
Chairman Miller. And you award the credential.
Mr. Steinhauser. Yeah. We work with them. They do the pre-
teaching; and in the fifth year, once they are hired with us,
we award the credential.
Chairman Miller. So what you describe to us is that you
mutually, or you, as the customer, went and designed the
program that you thought would feed you the best applicants for
your positions.
Mr. Steinhauser. Correct. Fifteen years ago, we got
together on a retreat and stopped blaming each other, to start
working together.
Chairman Miller. And now what is it you are transferring to
Fresno or have transferred to Fresno?
Mr. Steinhauser. With Fresno, we are transferring our work
on our math program, our work on our English language learner,
our leadership development, and also a thing that we call the
Long Beach College Promise, which is a partnership between Long
Beach----
Chairman Miller. Is Fresno transferring that to Fresno
State?
Mr. Steinhauser. Correct. Our university presidents have
met, and then Fresno transfers their best practices with us.
Chairman Miller. So, in theory, in Oakland, it would go to
College of East Bay or whatever.
Mr. Steinhauser. Right.
Chairman Miller. So they could work with San Francisco. I
mean, they could work with one of the colleges in the Bay area.
And so it is a transfer not just of your side of the K through
12 model, it is the transfer of the Long Beach State model.
Mr. Steinhauser. Correct. And Long Beach State.
Chairman Miller. And you are in what year with this at
Fresno?
Mr. Steinhauser. We are just starting our second year.
Chairman Miller. Starting your second year.
Okay. I am done. Mr. Roe and then Ms. Woolsey.
Mr. Roe. In Tennessee, we have 50 percent of the young
people that enter education as a major in college don't finish
that. Of the 50 percent who do, in 5 years, half of them don't
teach. How do we get those young people to stay in education?
Because we have a huge need, especially in our inner cities.
I lived for 10 years--my wife taught in an inner city
school in Memphis, Tennessee, while I was in medical school.
And how do we get young people to stay? How do we retain them,
I guess is the question.
And the other thing I have, very quickly, is we use CME,
continuing medical education, for our--is that appropriate in
teaching, getting teachers to stay up to date with?
And I will let any of you answer that question, quickly.
Mr. Steinhauser. I think it is working conditions. You have
to provide people with the support they need to make sure they
are successful.
Chairman Miller. Agreement across the board.
Ms. Thompson, quickly, 30 seconds.
Ms. Thompson. I would agree with that, and I would add that
you need to give them the opportunity to see growth in a ladder
and the opportunity to be part of the bigger picture.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Woolsey.
Ms. Woolsey. Mr. Bennett, I am not going to couch this
generally or anything. I didn't hear from you how your reform
support teachers. Do you have wraparound programs so that if
they are in an area that needs extra help that is available to
them? If a teacher needs a mentor to bridge where they are at
this time from their past education to what is expected of them
now, are those mentoring programs available to your teachers?
How do you evaluate their needs?
Mr. Bennett. Well, we--currently, the issue of mentoring is
an issue that really has been adopted mostly by the local
school corporations. Many local school corporations have very
robust mentoring programs. So much of that is already addressed
at the local level through the cooperation of our
superintendents and principals.
Again, I go back to the fact that, in our situation, we
have a number of underperforming schools where we have had
teachers--have had actual superintendents cite to us that over
60 percent of their teachers are ineffective, defined as
unwilling. And the teachers union was present and did not
dispute that number. So, for me, this whole thing starts with
high expectations, and it starts with an ability to clearly
identify those expectations to teachers, give a teacher an
instructional leader.
Ms. Woolsey. You don't have time to do all this. What you
are telling me is you actually don't have programs to help
those teachers bridge.
Mr. Bennett. Absolutely. Yes, we do. We have professional
development opportunities; and part of our new licensing
proposals is to provide teachers the opportunity to use those
professional development opportunities to recertify their
licenses, as opposed to going to higher ed to have to take
credit hours.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Hirono.
Mr. Kildee, anything?
Well, thank you very much. We obviously needed more time.
But thank you so much for your giving us your time and your
expertise and all of your experience.
Members will have 14 days to submit statements or opening
statements, and we may have some questions that we will submit
to you in writing. We would appreciate if you would get back to
us, and we will be in touch with you as we progress down the
road here. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Guthrie follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Brett Guthrie, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Kentucky
Thank you Mr. Chairman, and let me join my colleagues in thanking
this distinguished panel of witnesses for joining us this afternoon.
I'm pleased to have so many expert voices here today to represent a
range of perspectives, so I'll keep my remarks brief.
We know there is no silver bullet when it comes to education, but
high-quality teachers are about as close as we can come to a ``sure
thing'' for improving student academic achievement. To put it simply,
we need excellent teachers to bring out excellence in our students.
If we want to close achievement gaps and raise the bar for all our
students, the first place we need to look is at the front of the
classroom. Are teachers prepared to succeed? Are they empowered to
lead? Are federal policies allowing teachers to teach, or are they
micromanaging and limiting creativity?
We need to look at state and local policies as well. Are contracts
and hiring practices putting our best teachers where they are needed
the most? Or are rigid tenure rules favoring longevity over quality?
As policymakers, we must ask what we can do at the federal level to
support educators and allow parents and local communities to
demonstrate leadership and ownership when it comes to their schools,
and the teachers who lead them.
I look forward to exploring these and other questions with our
witnesses today. Thank you, I yield back.
______
[Questions for the record submitted by Ms. Chu follow:]
Questions for the Record Submitted by Hon. Judy Chu, a Representative
in Congress From the State of California
Deborah Ball, Ph.D, Dean, School of Education, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI
If we had invited a teacher from my district, I am confident she
would have discussed how we prepare teachers and how we recruit
teachers to meet the needs of bilingual learners since over 60 percent
of my district does not speak English at home. But, it's not just
California anymore, states like North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee
have seen a 300% growth in their bilingual learner population. What do
Schools of Ed need to prepare our teachers not just for improved
overall instruction, but for a diverse classroom?
Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers,
Washington, DC
1. One of the most detrimental effects of No Child Left Behind is
the widespread ``teaching to the test.'' The pressure to make AYP has
shifted the focus from student learning to test scores--which many
experts agree don't adequately measure if a student has learned
language arts or math.
I'm pleased to see Secretary Duncan offer states a grant
opportunity to revise student assessments. However, he's seemed to put
the cart in front of the horse with Race to the Top Grants and
requiring teacher evaluations to be tied to student test scores before
student assessment systems are reformed. How will this poor sequencing
of reforms affect student learning and outcomes?
2. What other measures should be used to determine teacher
effectiveness besides student test scores?
Monique Burns Thompson, President, Teach Plus in Boston, Boston, MA
1. First, let me tell you how wonderful it is to hear a model in
education that is informed by teachers. It is commonsense in most
situations to include the experts on the ground in developing and
creating policies, but in education, it is not always the case.
I am very interested in this model because state and local
investment in high poverty and high minority districts are $773 less
and $1,222 less respectively, per student versus low poverty and low
minority districts. My district has 135 Title I Schools out of 165 and
is 6.7% white. The percent of all students performing at or above
proficient level is less than 50% in nearly every category. When we
talk about those students who need it most, we are talking about
students in my district. Therefore, I'd like to know what were the most
essential elements that brought the teachers together, built the public
support and made implementation successful?
Chris Steinhauser, Superintendent, Long Beach Unified School District,
Long Beach, CA
1. You are an advocate for Secretary Duncan's emphasis on
competitive grants versus formula funding. There are good arguments on
both sides, but in practice, I am interested in how an increase in
competitive grants for Long Beach Unified, especially with the drastic
budget cuts imposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, will impact your long-term
fiscal programming and plans? What will happen if you do not receive
state or federal funding to keep successful programs or implement new
innovative ones?
______
[Question for the record submitted by Mrs. McMorris Rodgers
follows:]
Question for the Record Submitted by Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a
Representative in Congress From the State of Washington
Please send this question to all of the witnesses on both panels.
There is a national consensus that our current education system is
not preparing our children for their future. Recent surveys of K-12
public educators commissioned by the Gates Foundation reveal that
teachers believe students leave schools unprepared for success beyond
high school. This is unacceptable. Whether students choose to pursue a
career or higher education after high school, the fact that teachers
recognize that their students are not prepared for their future is
problematic.
Realistically, our children have one shot at receiving a quality
education. Yet, over the last several decades, we've witnessed the
evolution of a number of programs intended to improve the effectiveness
of teachers in the classroom. In fact, two months ago, the
Administration released its education reform blueprint, which proposes
to consolidate Title II of the Higher Education Act with Title II of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Despite these programmatic
changes, I fear we will still be dealing with the same issue of teacher
ineffectiveness, which leads me to believe that we are not getting to
the heart of classroom ineffectiveness. Is it unions? Is it too much
federal involvement or not enough? Please comment on what you believe
are the underlying barriers.
______
[Witnesses' responses to questions submitted follow:]
Deborah Loewenberg Ball,
University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI.
Responses to Questions Submitted for the Record
1. Would the strategies you are proposing regarding teacher
preparation work in all states and in all types of communities? Is it a
good idea to address these through federal policy or do these
strategies need to be locally tailored and left up to districts and
states?
There is a national need to develop and implement a common standard
of practice for beginning teaching. This would entail developing a
coherent system for preparing teachers for the essential work of
teaching and performance assessments that would measure candidates'
skill with the entry-level aspects of professional practice. This
strategy would work in all states and all types of communities.
Producing and hiring skillful beginning teachers is crucial everywhere
in the United States; it is not unique to particular areas.
To achieve this, we need to identify the instructional practices
necessary for effective beginning teaching, and the knowledge and
skills needed to carry out those practices. Needed then are to develop
best materials, tools, and resources for training teachers, and valid
assessments to measure candidates' progress and certify their readiness
for practice. Although states and districts could work on these tasks
independently, a coordinated effort would be the best way to ensure
well-prepared teachers across the country.
Federal support for building this system and encouraging states to
work on it and/or adopt it is crucial. It will work best if this system
for teaching quality is closely tied to a common K-12 curriculum in the
United States. Teaching involves teaching specific content. Without a
common core curriculum, teacher training is far less efficient and
targeted. For example, with common goals about pupils' learning of text
comprehension, teachers could be trained to teach that goal with high
levels of skill. Similarly, if we agreed on the competencies that
middle schoolers need with fractions, we could specifically target
teachers' learning, in detail, toward effective teaching of those
proficiencies.
2. What do we need to do to prepare teachers not just for improved
overall instruction but for diverse classrooms?
Teacher training should focus on specific practices of teaching
that are most effective at helping students learn specific content.
Preparation for teaching in diverse classrooms should focus on the
actual tasks and skills of high-quality instruction, and on the
knowledge, skills, and understandings that such skilled practice
requires. Traditionally, teacher education for diverse classrooms has
centered more on changing teachers' beliefs and orientations than on
improving their skills with teaching academic content, relating to
students, managing the classroom, and building effective connections
with the home. Believing that all students can learn, and understanding
how inequality is produced and reproduced in our society and schools,
is of course vitally important. But beliefs and knowledge of this sort
are insufficient for being effective with students of a wide variety of
backgrounds. What beginning teachers need most is mastery of an
essential set of professional skills and knowledge that they can put to
effective use in real classrooms.
For example, all teachers should understand how to facilitate a
whole-class discussion with students who lack experience in academic
discourse. Teachers should know how to present mathematics problems
that enable students to connect math to everyday contexts in ways that
take advantage of students' out-of-school experience. Teachers must be
able to interact effectively with parents and guardians who do not
speak English, or who are unfamiliar with the curriculum, and help
those parents support their children. Teachers should be able to
diagnose the sources of students' difficulties and know how to remedy
the problems efficiently. Given the rapidly growing diversity of
American school population, all teachers need to be skillful in working
with a wide range of young people. This requires effective, focused
professional training. Prospective teachers need carefully supervised
clinical experience working with diverse students, and they need close
coaching to learn to improve their instructional and relational skills.
3. What are the barriers to remedying the ineffectiveness of many
classrooms? Is it unions? Is it too much federal involvement or not
enough?
Many barriers exist to remedying the ineffectiveness of classrooms.
One crucial obstacle is the lack of a common K-12 curriculum that would
enable a coherent system of instructional materials and comprehensive
teacher training to achieve that curriculum. Other industrialized
nations with high-achieving school systems take for granted the reality
of a common student curriculum and professional education that is
closely tied to it. Another barrier is that most U.S. schools are not
organized to support high-quality education through the systematic
analysis of data and examination of results, strong leadership, and
resources for continuous professional improvement tied to
effectiveness. Incentives for improvement are weak. Still another
barrier is an incoherent ``quick fix'' orientation to educational
improvement, marked by a stream of uncoordinated and often unproven
interventions, and a significant lack of resources. And challenging
social, health, and economic problems further complicate efforts to
improve educational outcomes.
Despite this daunting list of barriers, skillful teachers can
dramatically increase the probability that their students will learn.
Such teachers can mediate between the barriers in the environment and
students' engagement in academic learning. They make crucial decisions
about how to interpret and implement curriculum, they manage
interpersonal relationships in the classroom, and they respond to and
strategically buffer outside pressures and interferences. What
effective teaching can do is crucial. We must overcome our collective
failure to appreciate the fact that skillful practice can--and must
be--learned, and hence, taught. To achieve this, we need to build a
system, at scale, for ensuring that teachers who enter the classroom
have the requisite professional skills and know how to use them.
The federal government could play a pivotal role in aligning
resources and commitment to support the design and implementation of a
system of teacher training and continuous improvement of practice.
Allocating resources for collective work could mitigate against the
strong tendency for every state to work on its own, without sufficient
resources or expertise to accomplish this crucial task. Although states
and districts could work on these tasks independently, a coordinated
effort would be the best way to ensure well-prepared teachers across
the country.
______
[Via Electronic Mail],
Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction,
May 18, 2010.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, 2181 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Miller: Thank you for the opportunity to respond to
Representative McMorris Rodgers' questions regarding my May 4, 2010
testimony before the House Committee on Education and Labor.
Each state faces its own set of unique challenges and underlying
barriers in dealing with teacher ineffectiveness. As discussions
cropped up nationwide around this issue, education stakeholders in
Indiana also began having more conversations about teacher quality.
As many people from Indiana will tell you, I do not sneak up on
anyone. As Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction, I have been
consistent, transparent and honest about my hopes and plans for the
future of education in Indiana. That includes my stance on what some
people consider controversial education reform topics such as measuring
student growth and using the results for teacher and school
accountability and rigorous annual teacher and principal evaluations
that use performance data to inform decisions regarding layoffs,
salaries, bonuses, and more. My main concern is that students in
Indiana receive the best education possible so they can compete with
students from around the world in the 21st century economy. I have
never been afraid to challenge adults and make them uncomfortable if
that discomfort could lead to positive changes for kids in Indiana.
Before I go any further, let me be clear: there is a distinct
difference in our state between the elite group of state-level Indiana
State Teachers' Association (ISTA) and the Indiana Federation of
Teachers (IFT) leaders who care most about protecting their unions'
financial solvency and the teachers who are working hard in our school
buildings every day to prepare students for successful futures. The
state-level leaders of these two organizations have done a horrible
disservice to their members by not being transparent about their plans,
their efforts or their intent. In light of recent events, I would
categorize the actions of this handful of state-level union leaders as
obstructionist at best. Their unwillingness to tell the public where
they stand on important issues surrounding teacher quality is nothing
short of disheartening.
I would like to outline a disappointing turn of events involving
the leadership of our state-level teachers' unions; I believe it is
emblematic of a broken system. Since I took office in 2009, Indiana
Department of Education (IDOE) senior staff members and I have
conducted more than 30 substantive meetings or conference calls with
leaders from ISTA and IFT, including discussions surrounding the
development of a system for teacher and principal evaluation which
would help identify and support effective teachers.
While IDOE was hoping for agreement on an evaluation tool to be
adopted by all schools statewide, we engaged in much healthy debate and
were willing to compromise. IDOE agreed to a set of guidelines for
teacher and principal evaluations. So long as they followed the
guidelines, local leaders could develop their own tools or systems for
evaluation. Despite IDOE's willingness to compromise and the larger
group's consensus on the guidelines, state-level ISTA and IFT leaders
would not acknowledge publicly to their local union leaders and members
that they had joined IDOE and others in developing these evaluation
guidelines (included as an email attachment).
While many of these conversations occurred in the context of
Indiana's Race to the Top efforts, this new system for evaluation
offers the objectivity individual teachers have been requesting for
years, and it is key to the state's ability to identify and reward
great teachers. We all understand the invaluable role great teachers
play in the lives of children, and as Indiana's superintendent, I
believe it is morally imperative that we ensure all our students have
the best possible teachers in their classrooms each day.
Given the absolute unwillingness of the state-level teachers'
unions to have an open and honest discussion about these issues in full
view of the public, IDOE will instead continue to conduct useful
conversations with individuals and groups of teachers throughout the
state and work with teachers at the local level to develop policy for
the future of our students and our state.
I would also like to respond to Mr. Rodgers' question regarding the
appropriate level of federal government involvement. In Indiana, we
truly appreciate the unique attention and focus the President and
Congress can bring to an issue. In the case of education reform,
President Obama's Administration's support has certainly offered
Indiana the opportunity to embark upon a much-needed reform journey,
and I greatly appreciate that opportunity.
We want the federal government to set the bar of expectations high
and then allow each state to find its own way to jump over the bar. If
Indiana and other states are able to meet or exceed expectations, I
hope we will be rewarded for our success--perhaps by way of loosening
restrictions on the use of some education funds like Title I or
investing more in Indiana so we can duplicate our successes. If states
are unable to meet expectations set forth by the federal government and
achieve results for students, those states should be held accountable
as it makes no sense to continue funding failing programs.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to additional
questions regarding my recent testimony before the House Committee on
Education and Labor. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Tony Bennett,
Indiana Department of Education.
Guidelines for Measuring Teacher and Principal Effectiveness
``The Obama administration aims to reward states that use student
achievement as a ``predominant'' part of teacher evaluations with the
extra stimulus funds--and pass over those that don't.''
Joanne S. Weiss,
NewSchools Venture Fund and Race to the Top Director.
The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) is committed to
improving the quality of instruction and leadership in Indiana's
schools. To reach this goal we must focus on teacher and principal
quality by accurately assessing individual performance. Recognizing
that teacher and principal effectiveness are the most important factors
in improving student achievement, teachers and principals must be
credibly evaluated on their ability to impact student outcomes and
growth. Districts must reexamine their evaluation tools and begin to
use them to inform district policies regarding hiring, laying off,
professional development, compensation, promotions, and retention. IDOE
has established these guidelines to provide a clear bar for developing
teacher and principal evaluation instruments. By adopting these
guidelines, a district still must follow applicable state laws.
In considering teacher and principal evaluation system, districts
must:
Adopt a common evaluation tool for teachers and principals.
Incorporate student performance/growth on ISTEP+ to count for at
least 51% of the total evaluation score.
Use a multiple rating scale consisting of 4 categories: highly
effective, effective, improvement necessary, and ineffective.
Ensure teacher and principal performance data shows meaningful
differentiation of effectiveness across the ratings spectrum; the State
will expect that the school corporations aggregate evaluations show a
credible distribution across the spectrum. Moreover, there must be
parity in distribution between tested and non-tested grades/subjects.
Provide an annual evaluation for all teachers and principals.
Include close examination of key performance metrics (e.g.
purposeful planning, classroom culture, effective instructional
techniques, and professional leadership).
Create a collaborative goal-setting component for teachers and
principals to set their own instructional and growth goals specific to
student achievement and teacher or principal effectiveness.
Specify the support and intervention which will be provided for
teachers not rated as ``highly effective'' or ``effective.'' (e.g.
improvement plans, professional development and dismissal protocols)
and provide clear consequences for unsatisfactory performance.
Use teacher and principal evaluation data to guide district,
school, and individual professional development plans.
Train and support evaluators to effectively implement evaluation.
Use teacher and principal evaluations, at a minimum, to inform
decisions regarding:
(a) Developing teachers and principals, including by providing
relevant coaching, induction support, and/or professional development;
(b) Compensating, promoting, and retaining teachers and principals,
including by providing opportunities for highly effective teachers and
principals to obtain additional compensation and be given additional
responsibilities;
(c) Whether to grant tenure and/or full certification (where
applicable) to teachers and principals using rigorous standards and
streamlined, transparent, and fair procedures; and
(d) Removing ineffective tenured and untenured teachers and
principals after they have had ample opportunities to improve, and
ensuring that such decisions are made using rigorous standards and
streamlined, transparent, and fair procedures.
Train and support teachers in peer assistance and/or teacher leader
programs.
______
Board of Regents,
P. O. Box 3677,
Baton Rouge, LA, May 26, 2010.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, 2181 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Miller: I am writing this letter to respond to the
following question that you sent to me after testifying at the Hearing
on ``Supporting American's Educators: The Importance of Quality
Teachers and Leaders'' on May 4, 2010:
``Despite these programmatic changes, I fear we will still be
dealing with the same issue of teacher ineffectiveness, which leads me
to believe that we are not getting to the heart of classroom
ineffectiveness. Is it unions? Is it too much federal involvement or
not enough? Please comment on what you believe are the underlying
barriers.''
I believe three underlying barriers have existed to prevent us from
providing all students with highly effective teachers. They pertain to
access to student growth data, professional learning connected to
teacher rewards, and principal leadership. If all three are equally
addressed, achievement could improve in our country. Although the home
environment of children is a very important part of a child's
education, it can no longer be an excuse for why students are not
achieving. In Louisiana, we have identified schools that have high
achieving students who are educated in schools that have a high
percentage of children living in poverty. Thus, we now know that it is
possible for children living in poverty to achieve if they have an
effective teacher and an effective principal. These schools must deal
with the same federal, state, union, and parent issues as other schools
in the state, yet their students demonstrate growth in achievement.
The first underlying barrier is the lack of appropriate assessment
systems in states that provide teacher preparation programs and
teachers with access to achievement and other data pertaining to the
growth of students taught by individual teachers. This type of
information is especially important to programs who prepare teachers.
New teachers who complete ineffective teacher preparation programs are
at a disadvantage for they start their careers underprepared in
specific content areas. These teachers will need extensive professional
development to catch up with peers who exit effective teacher
preparation programs. Without a system that provides valid and reliable
data about the growth of student learning, neither the teacher nor the
preparation program will know if their strategies are effective or
ineffective. Louisiana is now piloting new assessment systems that
provide practicing teachers, schools, and teacher preparation programs
with access to data of this type. Continued federal support to
encourage states to develop longitudinal data systems and share systems
that work will help states overcome this barrier.
The second barrier and the most important barrier is the lack of
relevant and student focused professional development that results in
improved teaching practices, higher student achievement, and rewards
for teachers. It is not sufficient to just provide teachers with data
about the performance of their students and their own teaching
effectiveness. To improve achievement, teachers must be taught new
strategies and techniques that extend beyond their existing knowledge.
States need to move away from traditional professional development
where all teachers receive the same development to the use of
exceptional master and mentor teachers who help teachers use new
teaching strategies that impact needs identified through analysis of
student data. High quality professional development needs to be linked
to a fair reward system that is based upon multiple assessments that
examine growth in student achievement and teacher performance. This is
especially important when attempting to recruit and retain highly
effective teachers. A clear understanding must exist for how teachers
can attain rewards and growth in student achievement must be integrated
into the system. I have enclosed a copy of the Louisiana Comprehensive
Teacher Compensation Framework that was recently developed by the
State's Blue Ribbon Commission for Educational Excellence. The
framework identifies 7 key elements, 10 steps to plan implementation,
an action plan, and a question and response guide to help districts in
Louisiana select or develop a comprehensive teacher compensation model.
Providing financial incentives for schools and districts to implement
comprehensive teacher compensation models and providing opportunities
for states to learn about models that are impacting student achievement
are two ways in which the federal government can help schools and
districts overcome this barrier.
The third barrier is the lack of effective principals in schools.
Effective teachers are not going to remain within schools that are not
led by effective principals. Louisiana's high poverty/high performing
schools all have effective leaders who have created the types of
working conditions and environments that support students, parents, and
teachers. Principals and their faculty need to be provided the
flexibility to hire teachers who possess the values and skills that are
important for their community of learners, and they need the
flexibility to determine how funds can best be used to address needs at
their schools. The continued focus at the federal level on principal
effectiveness needs to be continued.
Please feel free to contact me if you are in need of additional
information.
Sincerely,
Jeanne M. Burns, Ph.D.,
Associate Commissioner for Teacher and Leadership Initiatives.
______
[The material referred to may be accessed at the following
Internet address:]
http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/testimony/
20100504JeanneBurnsRespondsToQuestionsForTheRecord.pdf
______
Teach Plus,
220 Congress Street, Suite 502,
Boston, MA, May 18, 2010.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, 2181 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Miller: Thank you for forwarding the thoughtful
questions of the Committee.
Response to the inquiry by Representative Chu:
The process of moving T3 to implementation had multiple stages and
involved teachers in different ways at each stage.
Unifying the Teachers. Ready for the Next Challenge, the teacher-
developed proposal that evolved into T3, was a product of the first
Boston cohort of the Teach Plus Policy Fellows program. The Policy
Fellows program is a highly selective program for teachers in years 3-
10 of their careers who are interested in taking an active role in
education policy. This group of 16 teachers:
Met on a monthly basis for 18 months;
Studied the research on teacher quality policy; and
Received guest lectures from top policy leaders such as
the state Secretary of Education and several Harvard University
professors.
The goal of the Policy Fellowship is for teachers to advocate for a
policy change (or changes) that will improve urban schools and promote
the retention of top teachers.
This particular group of teachers was galvanized by the research on
the inequitable distribution of effective teachers. Most of them
entered teaching to work with the most underserved students and felt
better equipped to be successful with those students now that they had
a few years in the classroom under their belts. They saw the dearth of
experienced, effective teachers in low-performing schools as a solvable
problem.
At the same time as they were reading this research, they were
meeting with state education leaders in their monthly sessions. These
leaders repeatedly talked about the need to determine intervention
strategies for newly identified ``turnaround'' schools. They were
interested in the ideas of teachers. This helped the teachers to
recognize this as a possible policy opportunity.
In sum, it was Teach Plus that provided the forum for the teachers,
but it was the research and the emerging focus on turnaround among
state and district policy makers that sharpened the teachers' focus.
Building Public Support. The teachers launched Ready for the Next
Challenge at a public forum in Boston in April 2009. Approximately 150
leaders from the Boston area attended. Kati Haycock of the Education
Trust gave a keynote address was followed by a presentation by the
teachers. Prior to the event, the teachers met with the Superintendent
of the Boston Public Schools, the President of the Boston Teachers
Union and the state Deputy Commissioner of Education to describe their
proposal.
There were two key constituencies whose support was critical to the
program moving forward:
1. The Boston Public Schools was in a major budget deficit. Also,
while a proposal by teachers had a basic appeal, the district did not
have the capacity to implement it. Teach Plus staff helped to move the
proposal forward to action by meeting regularly with the district and
helping to fill in the details needed for implementation. A joint Teach
Plus-BPS planning committee (which involved one of the teachers who
wrote the proposal) started to flesh out the details of recruitment,
selection and support for the program. Teach Plus staff played a
pivotal role in fundraising for the program.
2. The Boston Teachers Union might object to a program that
conferred elevated status on some teachers and paid them differently.
This objection by the union was a very real possibility throughout the
process. Two reasons it gained union acceptance were a). it was
developed by teachers and b). we proposed it directly to the union
leadership before the public event and engaged them on a regular basis
thereafter. Several of the Policy Fellows who wrote the proposal had
been (or became) active in the union. Thus, it wasn't just an anonymous
group of teachers without relationships to the union leadership. We had
strong bridges in a few teachers. In addition, we held large public
events for groups of about 100 teachers four times during the year. The
union leadership knew Teach Plus was working with a large subset of the
union.
Implementation. Implementation was done in large part by Teach Plus
staff. We hired a T3 Director to coordinate and lead the program. She
worked with a design firm to develop our marketing materials, scheduled
regular meetings with BPS to plan the selection process and the summer
training. Going forward, she will be the liaison between Teach Plus and
the 3 schools that are a part of the T3 pilot.
Response to the inquiry by Representative McMorris Rodgers:
Ineffective teachers are a drain on both students and other
teachers. My greatest concern, in talking with hundreds of high-
performing teachers is that low-performing teachers drive high-
performing teachers away from the profession because they do not want
to be a part of a mediocre enterprise.
We believe the strongest lever to removing ineffective teachers is
reform of the tenure process. Unlike the rigorous process by with
tenure is granted in higher education, tenure at the elementary and
secondary levels is largely a non-event. Most all teachers who make it
to about their third year in the classroom earn tenure. This amounts to
a $2 million decision per teacher for districts when lifetime earnings
and pension are calculated. Yet, districts pass most teachers through
without serious consideration.
High-performing teachers are looking for something to aspire to in
the second stage of their careers; tenure could be a mark of
distinction for our best teachers. Instead, it is insulting to high-
performing teachers. The lack of process and rigor clarifies to them
that they are not part of a real ``profession''.
Early in their careers, low-performing teachers do not yet have the
job assurances that come with tenure. This is the time to evaluate them
carefully, based on transparent, rigorous standards and build a case
for the dismissal of teachers who show little competence or improvement
in their first few years.
Thank you again for your interest.
Sincerely,
Celine Coggins, Ph.D., CEO,
Monique Burns Thompson, President,
Teach Plus.
______
Marie Parker-McElroy's Response to Question Submitted for the Record
It is true that we have invested substantially in improving
education in the last several decades with little dramatic change in
student learning. The students we educate in the U.S. and what we
expect them to learn changes with societal, political, and economic
changes. For example the current plan to establish national standards
is one example of a change educators experience. As professionals,
teachers are eager to continue to learn, yet for too long what they
learn and how they learn has been so removed from what their day-to-day
work is. Rather than sending teachers out of school to learn or to send
students home so teachers can learn, it is time to redesign schools so
learning is an integrated part of every educators' workday. I
personally want to be able to work more closely with my peers to
explore learn more about how we can adjust instruction to meet the
needs of the all learners we serve in our school. We want to learn how
to engage English language learners in content for which they may have
no background. We want to learn how to adapt what we teach to challenge
our most successful students. We want to learn how to ensure all
students, regardless of their background or previous academic
performance, rigorous content standards. We want to know how to assess
student learning so that learning is not temporary, but rather
meaningful and related to students' life experiences.
Teachers' roles have increased dramatically and expectations of
them have changed accordingly. To support them and expand their
teaching expertise, school and district leaders can alter the type and
amount of professional learning teachers experience. Up to now, many
teachers have participated from professional learning that is distant
from their day-to-day work, even physically removing them from
classrooms to send them to workshops. When they return to school filled
with great intention, new ideas, and renewed passion for their work,
they have little or no support to implement what they have learned and
expectations that the transformation in their practice is
instantaneous. Refining and expanding practice requires sufficient time
to integrate the new ideas into their classroom practice. It requires
feedback and support from coaches, peers, supervisors. It requires
opportunities to assess and reflect on their practice to make ongoing
improvements so they continue to grow.
To ensure all students are successful, I recommend that teacher
professional learning occur at school, among teams of colleagues,
within their workday, be directly connected to the content they
teacher, be facilitated by teacher leaders, school leaders, or others
with special preparation to guide this form of professional learning,
be evaluated for its impact on teaching effectiveness and student
achievement, and occur continuously throughout a teachers' career.
Rather than paying teachers extra for learning, a system most common in
school districts with a lane approach to salary that has increases
inequity among the quality of teaching in classrooms, I want teachers
to have a fair salary, a workday that embeds learning into it, and a
requirement to for continuous improvement. I am confident that students
can reach their full academic potential when teams of teachers are
actively engaged in professional learning based upon data and the needs
of their own students and organized in a structure that offers timely
and embedded team and classroom-based support. I believe that this is
getting to the heart of classroom ineffectiveness. Congress can help
establish the standards and expectation for this form of professional
learning for every educator. I, personally, do not believe the answer
is driven by unions. I do believe that students can reach their full
academic potential when teams of teachers are actively engaged in
professional learning baswed upon data and the needs of their own
students in an organzied structure that offers timely and embedded team
and classroom-based support. Federally funded professional development
should be evaluated for its impact on teacher performance and student
learning. If it is not working, we need to go back to the `blackboard'.
This, in my opinion, is the heart of improving effectiveness of our
teacher workforce and ensure all students are successful.
______
Response From Dr. Pamela Salazar--Ensuring a Qualified Teacher in Every
Classroom: Five Considerations
Students should be prepared for success beyond high school. Whether
students choose to pursue a career or higher education after high
school it is certainly our moral imperative that they have a choice.
The contribution of teachers to student learning and outcomes is
widely recognized. A teacher's effectiveness has more impact on student
learning than any other factor under the control of the school. It is
well-documented that the difference between the performance of a
student assigned to a top-quartile teacher as compared to a bottom-
quartile teacher can exceed 10 percentile points on a standardized test
(Gordon, Kane, & Staiger, 2006). However, in spite of knowing how
critically important the need for effective teachers is, the education
community has not sufficiently focused on improving teacher
effectiveness through recruitment, evaluation, development, placement,
and retention of highly effective teachers.
This leads to five considerations:
Teacher Tenure
Teacher tenure is a concept that should be re-examined in
the context of due process procedures that are now in place, but were
not when teacher tenure was implemented. It must be made harder for
ineffective teachers to be promoted to tenured positions. Teachers can
no longer earn tenure for merely surviving the first two or three years
in the classroom; instead, probationary teachers should be required to
demonstrate that they are effectively boosting student learning.
Tenure should be a significant milestone that successful
teachers earn--not a nearly automatic benefit.
Evaluation Systems
Evaluation systems should be designed to improve teacher
effectiveness for all teachers and not with a primary purpose of
weeding out the weakest performers. Evaluations need to be fair,
objective and transparent and be used as a tool to develop more
effective teachers. Evaluation of individual teachers should be based
on a various measure of teacher performance on the job. These measures
might include classroom observations, administrator evaluations, some
measure of ``value-added,'' or the average gain in performance for
students assigned to each teacher, teacher work samples, student work
products, and school growth indicators. Key to the success of this
proposal is for states to have data systems to link student performance
with the effectiveness of individual teachers over time so that teacher
quality can be measured at the state level as compared to the district
or school level.
Emphasis should be on effective teachers--how to use them
not only in classrooms but, in mentoring new and struggling teachers
and as leaders in the school to improve ALL teachers.
Bonus Pay
Current pay practices encourage too few of the strongest
teachers to work in schools where they are needed the most. Bonuses
should be paid to highly effective teachers who are willing to teach in
schools with a high proportion of low-income students. Unfortunately,
it is more common to see the lowest achieving teachers clustered in the
poorest schools where students are most in need of effective teaching
(Education Trust, 2003). Yet, even the best teachers at these poor
schools are typically paid no more, and sometimes less than at
wealthier schools. Policies need to be put in place that support high-
achieving teachers to serve in these schools.
We should reward teachers who excel, more effectively help
many teachers get on the track to excellence, and remove those who
consistently do not improve from the classroom. Teacher evaluation must
be transformed from a ``check the box'' approach to a meaningful
professional activity that not only provides important feedback for
improvement, but also enables more strategic personnel and
instructional decisions.
National Board Certification for Teachers can be used to
attract and retain highly skilled individuals. Many high-status
professions, like law and medicine, have advanced certification
opportunities that recognize and acknowledge highly effective knowledge
and skills. This acknowledgement reinforces teaching as an honored
profession. In addition, there is a growing body of research that
acknowledges the contribution of this certification to teacher
effectiveness (Goldhaber & Anthony (2004). National Board Certification
for Teachers can be used as a measure to determine additional
compensation. Support for the candidacy of National Board Certified
Teachers (NBCTs) is needed throughout all states.
Principal Leadership
Effective principals play a vital role in raising student
achievement. There is wide recognition that school leaders exert a
powerful, if indirect, influence on teaching quality and student
learning. In a review of literature for the American Educational
Research Association, Leithwood and Riehl (2003) conclude that school
leadership has significant effects on student learning, second only to
the effects of the quality of curriculum and teachers' instruction.
Successful students and teachers need the support of
effective school leadership. The most accomplished principals create a
school-based learning community that involves teachers, students,
parents and the community. In addition, the demands and complexity of
21st century education require more from these leaders. As many current
principals approach retirement age, it is essential to attract, develop
and retain the best and the brightest educational leaders to the
profession to prepare students for the expectations of a global
economy.
An advanced certification for principals is being
developed in order to identify, recognize and retain quality leaders.
The challenge of establishing a high performing teaching and learning
environment rests on the ability of principals skilled in creating a
culture of learning that can advance student learning and engage the
best teachers and staff. Promote and support the candidacy of National
Board Certified Principals (NBCPs) throughout all states.
The advanced principal certification process will define
and validate the requirements that identify an accomplished and
effective principal--supporting motivation among principals and
prestige for the profession. The program developers have a record of
developing advanced standards and rigorous assessments that are
recognized in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Similarly,
they are recognized for having the capacity to define excellent
practice for education leaders and implement a research-based,
nationwide certification.
Professional Development
Professional development can be better targeted to ensure
teachers and principals get the support they need to be effective.
Effective professional development is the lynchpin for ensuring that
there is a highly qualified teacher for every classroom and a highly
qualified principal for every school. Effective professional
development that improves the learning of all students takes place over
time, is job-embedded, organizes adults into learning communities
aligned with school and district goals, is led by skillful school and
district leaders who guide continuous instructional improvement, and
allows for adult learning and peer collaboration. We must provide all
teachers with targeted professional development, informed by student
performance data, that helps them better meet students' needs.
Strong leadership is essential to a successful school, but
many principals do not have the training or tools they need to make
strategic use of data to effectively evaluate and support teachers,
manage their schools, and lead difficult or aggressive change when
necessary. To effectively lead an evaluation process tied to
professional development support for teachers, principals need to be
strong leaders within their schools. Train principals to conduct
observations, provide feedback, and take action to develop/reward
teachers or partner with an external, objective reviewer. Doing this
will help catalyze the process and build capacity in school leadership
to become self-sustaining.
Recommendation
Provide federal grants to help states implement these
considerations. For example, only a few states currently have the
ability to measure the effect of individual teachers on the performance
of their students; this capacity must be built both to facilitate the
evaluation of teachers and to supply schools and teachers with better
data about what works and what does not. Additionally, there is limited
funding for high quality professional development. This is especially
true for principal development and for secondary schools. Data on the
impact of these practices should be carefully evaluated and if prove
sound, then with necessary adjustments, these proposals should be
implemented nationally.
Education ultimately comes down to the interaction between a
teacher and a student.
With effective teachers in every classroom, every child will have a
better opportunity to learn what he or she needs to know and be able to
do to graduate prepared for success after high school. With effective
principals in every school, every teacher will have a better
opportunity to learn what he or she needs to know and be able to
prepare all students for future success. These considerations together
could improve the standing of teaching as a profession built upon
excellence.
REFERENCES
Education Trust (2003). Telling the whole truth (or not) about highly
qualified teachers. Washington, D.C. Education Trust.
Goldhaber, D. & Anthony, E. (2004). Can teacher quality be effectively
assessed? Wahington, D.C.: Urban Institute.
Gordon, Kane, & Staiger, (2006). Identifying Effective Teachers--Using
Performance on the Job. Hamilton Project Discussion Paper. The
Brookings Institution. March.
Leithwood, K. & Riehl, C. (2003). What We Know About Successful School
Leadership. American Educational Research Association. January.
______
[Via Electronic Mail],
Office of the Superintendent,
1515 Hughes Way,
Long Beach, CA, May 17, 2010.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, 2181 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Miller: I write in response to your May 14 letter
requesting answers to questions raised by representatives Judy Chu and
McMorris Rodgers in light of your committee's May 4 hearing on
``Supporting America's Educators: The Importance of Quality Teachers
and Leaders.''
Representative Chu asks how an increase in competitive grants would
impact our long-term fiscal plans. She further inquires as to what
happens if LBUSD does not receive such funding.
While such grants would greatly accelerate the closing of
achievement gaps here, we also have in place protocols to mitigate the
impact of funding cuts, having reduced our budget for seven of the last
eight years due to California's budget crisis. Out of necessity, we
revisit our long-range planning each year to coordinate all resources
strategically, based upon student performance data. Our data-driven
approach to planning is one of the primary reasons we have raised
student achievement while simultaneously cutting our budget. We are
confident in our ability to compete for grants, but at the same time,
we also have considerable experience redirecting our human and fiscal
capital as needed.
Representative Rodgers asks whether educators and policymakers are
getting to the heart of teacher effectiveness. He requests our thoughts
on the underlying barriers, and he inquires as to whether there is too
much federal involvement or not enough.
In Long Beach, we believe that collaboration and accountability are
key to improving teacher quality. We work with our unions, parents,
local nonprofits and postsecondary institutions to refine the delivery
of instruction. Our school principals, and ultimately their teachers,
receive districtwide training in research-proven strategies. Through
diligent monitoring of data, we hold these employees accountable for
implementing these strategies. These data are in turn reported up to
our Board of Education so that we can ascertain and act upon the
results of our professional development.
As for the federal government's involvement, we believe that
academic targets should be set at the federal level, but that local
educational agencies such as ours should be allowed to decide how we
reach those targets. Such an approach provides local control while
still assuring that educators are held accountable for meeting
established national standards. The key underlying barrier here is that
federal funding currently exists in too many separate silos, in the
form of categorical programs and mandates. We need to streamline this
approach by providing one silo tied to student outcomes, and then
holding local agencies like mine accountable for those outcomes. That
is why we also support the withdrawal of federal funding for school
districts that habitually fail to show improvement. We understand that
such an approach would be a paradigm shift, but it is vital to
successful school reform.
Thank you for including our school district in this important
discussion. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Christopher J. Steinhauser,
Superintendent of Schools, Long Beach Unified School District.
______
Randi Weingarten,
American Federation of Teachers,
May 19, 2010.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, 2181 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Miller: I appreciated having the opportunity to
testify on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) at the
Committee's May 4 hearing on ``Supporting America's Educators: The
Importance of Quality Teachers and Leaders.''
As you requested, my written responses to questions from Committee
members are provided below.
While the AFT believes there is a place for student learning in
evaluating teachers, standardized assessments should not be the single
or predominant factor in teacher evaluation systems. This would lead to
even more emphasis on teaching to the test and to narrowing of the
curriculum. As you point out, current testing instruments are limited
in their ability to capture the full range of learning. Moreover,
value-added measures are unstable and provide measures of student
learning that vary enormously from year to year. Although test scores
may play a role, student achievement should include evidence of growth
in knowledge and skills based on multiple measures such as student
presentations, writing samples, portfolios, grades, or capstone
projects.
In addition to student test scores and other measures of student
learning described above, determinations of teacher effectiveness
should include other evaluation measures based on standards of practice
that define good teaching and professional practice--what teachers
should know and be able to do. These would include classroom
observations, self-evaluations, portfolio reviews, and appraisal of
lesson plans Because evaluation should help teachers to inform and
improve practice, systems of evaluation should include ways to support
teacher growth, including induction, mentoring, ongoing and embedded
professional development, and opportunities for professional growth.
Finally, teacher evaluation systems should also include the necessary
teaching and learning supports. Teachers need resources including the
time to collaborate with their colleagues and an environment conductive
to teaching and learning. Measures for assessing a school's teaching
and learning conditions should be developed and included in a teacher
evaluation system.
As I said in my testimony, great teachers are made, not born. We
must begin by ensuring that teachers receive good preparation in the
schools they attend. New teachers need assistance to develop their
skills through high-quality induction programs. All teachers need on-
going, high quality, embedded professional development. I have proposed
that we augment current federal efforts by providing federal support
for teacher centers. But in addition to these elements, the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act should
help ensure that teachers have the tools, time and trust they need to
succeed. School systems should be held responsible for providing
teachers--and students--with conditions where learning and teaching can
take place and teachers and students can succeed. These professional
learning environments should include small classes, a well-rounded
curriculum, healthy and adequate facilities, current technology,
opportunities and time for collaboration, and wrap around services for
students to help combat the effects of poverty. These necessary
supports are most likely to be achieved in an atmosphere of trust,
where there is true collaboration and teachers and their unions have a
real voice in reform efforts.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to share our views and
recommendations with the Committee.
Sincerely,
Randi Weingarten, President.
______
Marcus A. Winters' Response to Representative McMorris Rodgers'
Question
The heart of the teacher ineffectiveness issue is the current
system's insistence that all teachers are equally effective in the
classroom. We know from both empirical research and our own personal
experience that there is substantial variation in teacher quality. The
nation stands little chance of substantially improving teacher
effectiveness unless school systems develop evaluation tools capable of
distinguishing between the most and least effective teachers and adopt
policies that act upon the results of these evaluations.
There are some technical barriers to achieving these goals. While
current statistical techniques are strong enough to identify the
teachers likeliest to be the most and least effective, researchers must
continue to improve upon these techniques to measure a teacher's
independent contribution to her student's learning. Further, test
scores are insufficient for fully evaluating a teacher's performance
and thus should be only part of the evaluation system. School systems
should experiment with how much evaluation systems weigh test scores
and other forms of evaluations, including classroom observations.
But the most important obstacles to improving teacher quality are
political. In recent months we have seen some encouraging signs of
cooperation on this issue from the American Federation of Teachers and
some of its local affiliates. Nonetheless, in many other individual
cases teachers' unions have continued to lead the fight against reform.
They have opposed teacher evaluations and laws that would make it
feasible for public schools to remove their least effective teachers,
such as weakening the job protections of tenure and eliminating first-
in, last-out layoff rules.
______
[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]