[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 14 (Wednesday, January 28, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S585-S586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SUPPORTING TEACHERS AND SCHOOL LEADERS

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of 
my remarks at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions 
Committee hearing yesterday be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 Supporting Teachers and School Leaders

       Today's hearing is all about better teaching--how we can 
     create an environment so teachers, principals, and other 
     leaders can succeed.
       Governors around the country are focused on one issue: 
     better jobs for the citizens in their states. And it doesn't 
     take very long for a governor, which I once was, to come to 
     the conclusion that better schools mean better jobs and a 
     better life.
       Since no one has figured out how to pass a better parents 
     law, it doesn't take long to realize how important a great 
     teacher is.
       I certainly came to that conclusion quickly in 1984, when I 
     was governor of Tennessee and I considered the holy grail of 
     K-12 education to be finding a fair way to encourage and 
     reward outstanding teaching.
       I spent a year and a half, devoting 70 percent of my time, 
     persuading the legislature to establish a career ladder--a 
     master teacher program that 10,000 teachers voluntarily 
     climbed. They were paid more and had the opportunity for 10- 
     and 11-month contracts.
       Tennessee became the first state in the nation to pay 
     teachers more for teaching well. Rarely a week goes by that a 
     teacher doesn't stop me and say, ``Thank you for the master 
     teacher program.''
       It was not easy. A year before I'd been in a meeting of 
     southern governors and one of them said, ``Who's gonna be 
     brave enough to take on the teachers union?''
       I had a year and a half brawl with the National Education 
     Association before I could pass our teacher evaluation 
     program.
       Since then, there's been an explosion of efforts to answer 
     these questions a great number of states and school districts 
     are tackling: How do we determine who is an effective 
     teacher? How do we relate student achievement to teacher 
     effectiveness? And, having decided that, how do we reward and 
     support outstanding teaching so we don't lose our best 
     teachers?
       In 1987, the National Board for Professional Teaching 
     Standards began to strengthen standards in teaching and 
     professionalize the teaching workforce. To date, more than 
     110,000 teachers in all 50 states and DC have achieved 
     National Board Certification.
       In 2006, the Teacher Incentive Fund was created to help 
     states and districts create performance-based compensation 
     system for teachers based on evaluation results.
       According to the National Center on Teacher Quality, in 
     2014:
       27 states required annual evaluations for all teachers
       44 states required annual evaluations for new teachers
       35 states required student achievement and/or student 
     growth to be a significant or the most significant measure of 
     teacher performance.
       So when I came to Washington as a United States Senator in 
     2003, everyone expected--since I thought rewarding 
     outstanding teaching was the Holy Grail--that I would make

[[Page S586]]

     everyone do it. To the surprise of some, my answer was no--
     you can't do it from Washington. Nevertheless, over the last 
     10 years, Washington has tried.
       Here is how: No Child Left Behind told states that all 
     teachers of core academic subjects needed to be ``Highly 
     Qualified'' by 2006, and it prescribed that definition in a 
     very bureaucratic manner. That hasn't worked. I don't know of 
     many people who really want to keep that outdated 
     definition--even Secretary Duncan waived the requirements 
     related to highly qualified teachers when he granted waivers 
     to 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
       Unfortunately, the Secretary replaced those requirements 
     with a new mandate requiring teacher evaluation systems--
     first in Race to the Top, which gave nearly $4.4 billion to 
     states, and second, in the waivers.
       To get a waiver from No Child Left Behind, a state and each 
     local school district must develop a teacher and principal 
     evaluation system with seven required elements--such as that 
     it will use at least three performance levels; and will use 
     multiple measures, including student growth; and will include 
     guidelines and supports for implementation--and each element 
     must be approved by the U.S. Department of Education.
       The problem is that, after 30 years, we are still figuring 
     out how to do this.
       Our research work on measuring growth in student 
     achievement and relating it fairly to teacher effectiveness 
     was started in 1984, but former Institute of Education 
     Science Director Russ Whitehurst told the New York Times in 
     2012 that states ``are racing ahead based on promises made to 
     Washington or local political imperatives that prioritize an 
     unwavering commitment to unproven approaches. There's a lot 
     we don't know about how to evaluate teachers reliably and how 
     to use that information to improve instruction and 
     learning.''
       The second problem is that some states haven't been willing 
     or able to implement the systems the way the U.S. Department 
     of Education wants them to.
       California, Iowa, and Washington state had their waiver 
     requests denied or revoked over the issue of teacher 
     evaluations.
       In Iowa's case, it was because the state legislature 
     wouldn't pass a law that satisfied the requirement that 
     allowed for teachers and principals to be placed into at 
     least three performance levels--not effective, effective, and 
     highly effective.
       California simply ignored the Administration's conditions 
     when they applied for a waiver, particularly the requirement 
     that teacher evaluation systems be based significantly on the 
     results of state standardized tests.
       In April, Washington state's waiver was revoked by 
     Secretary Duncan because their state legislature would not 
     pass legislation requiring standardized test results to be 
     used in teacher and principal evaluation systems--instead the 
     law in Washington allows local school districts to decide 
     which tests they use.
       Whether or not this federal interference with state 
     education law offends your sense of federalism, like it does 
     mine, it has proved impractical.
       The federal government in its well-intentioned way, trying 
     to say, ``We want better teachers, and we're going to tell 
     you exactly how to do it, and you must do it now'' has 
     created an enormous backlash. It's made even harder something 
     that was already hard.
       Even in Tennessee, despite 30 years of experience and 
     nearly $500 million in Race to the Top funding, the 
     implementation of a new teacher evaluation system has been 
     described in an article in my hometown newspaper as 
     ``contentious.''
       Given all of the great progress that states and local 
     school districts have made on standards, accountability, 
     tests, and teacher evaluation over the last 30 years--you'll 
     get a lot more progress with a lot less opposition if you 
     leave those decisions there.
       I think we should return to states and local school 
     districts decisions for measuring the progress of our schools 
     and for evaluating and measuring the effectiveness of 
     teachers.
       I know it is tempting to try to improve teachers from 
     Washington. I also hear from governors and school 
     superintendents who say that if ``Washington doesn't make us 
     do it, the teachers unions and opponents from the right will 
     make it impossible to have good evaluation systems and better 
     teachers.''
       And I understand what they're saying. After I left office, 
     the NEA watered down Tennessee's Master Teacher program.
       Nevertheless, the Chairman's Staff Discussion draft 
     eliminates the Highly Qualified Teacher requirements and 
     definition, and allows states to decide the licenses and 
     credentials that they are going to require their teachers to 
     have.
       And despite my personal support for teacher evaluation, the 
     draft doesn't mandate teacher and principal evaluations.
       Rather, it enables States to use the more than $2.5 billion 
     under Title II to develop, implement, or improve these 
     evaluation systems.
       In a state like Tennessee, that would mean $39 million 
     potentially available for continuing the work Tennessee has 
     well underway for evaluating teachers, including linking 
     performance and student achievement.
       In addition, it would expand one of the provisions in No 
     Child Left behind--the Teacher Incentive Fund that Secretary 
     Spellings recommended putting into law and that Secretary 
     Duncan said, in testimony before the HELP Committee in 
     January 2009, was ``One of the best things I think Secretary 
     Spellings has done . . . the more we can reward excellence, 
     the more we can incentivize excellence, the more we can get 
     our best teachers to work in those hard-to-staff schools and 
     communities, the better our students are going to do.''
       And third, it would emphasize the idea of a Secretary's 
     report card--calling considerable attention to the bully 
     pulpit a secretary or president has to call attention to 
     states that are succeeding or failing.
       For example, I remember President Reagan visited Farragut 
     High School in Knoxville in 1984 to call attention to our 
     Master Teacher program. It caused the Democratic speaker of 
     our House of Representatives to say, ``This is the American 
     way,'' and come up with an amendment to my proposal that was 
     critical to its passage. President Reagan didn't order every 
     other state to do what Tennessee was doing, but the 
     president's bully pulpit made a real difference.
       Thomas Friedman recently told a group of senators that one 
     of his two rules of life is that he's never met anyone who 
     washed a rented car.
       In other words, people take care of what they own.
       My experience is that finding a way to fairly reward better 
     teaching is the holy grail of K-12 education--but Washington 
     will get the best long-term result by creating an environment 
     in which states and communities are encouraged, not ordered, 
     to evaluate teachers.
       Let's not mandate it from Washington if we want them to own 
     it and make it work.

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