Contact: Bridget Curran
Education Division
What challenges do you think are inherent to elevating teaching quality and meeting the Act's requirements?
Teaching quality has been preeminent on the education agenda of state policymakers since the mid-1990s, catalyzed by emerging research on the importance of teaching quality in raising student achievement and impending teacher shortages. However, due to a lack of data and a reactive approach, states have adopted piecemeal policies rather than a coherent strategy that looks systemically at quality issues, including preparation, licensure, recruitment, evaluation, dismissal and professional development.
No Child Left Behind provides states with the opportunity to reassess their state systems by requiring a focus on defining a "highly qualified" teacher. Yet, to do this in a way that will address all aspects of quality, states should focus less on the act's requirements and more on reaching a consensus on what a highly qualified teacher should know and be able to do at various stages of their career. This will not be easy. No Child Left Behind's "highly qualified" standards are really more about minimal levels of competence. All teachers must have a state license--which have traditionally been used as a screen to weed out the most minimally qualified teachers--and pass a subject matter exam; which, since states can select a test and set their own cut scores, may not necessarily ensure teacher competence. Ideally, states will use the minimal federal definition to guide their own conversations about what teaching quality looks like, how to assess it, and how to prepare new candidates and support existing teachers to reach the highest standards.
Even using the federal definition, most states will struggle to ensure that all Title I schools have a highly qualified teacher this year and all classrooms have highly qualified teachers by 2005-2006. Nationally, six percent of teachers are on waivers and are therefore not highly qualified, but that ranges from virtually none in several states to as many as 16 percent in others. In California and Louisiana , almost one-quarter of all teachers in high poverty districts are on waivers. Several challenges face states as they move to ensure a sufficient supply of highly qualified teachers.
In many states the teaching population is aging rapidly. Nearly half of teachers will require over the next decade. At the same time, enrollment (particularly in the western states), as well as policies such as class size reduction, are creating additional demands for educators. Even in states where student enrollment is not projected to increase, the "baby boom echo" elementary students are moving to the secondary level, necessitating a reevaluation of staffing.
Teacher preparation programs are overproducing in some fields such as elementary education, and not enough in others (special education, English language acquisition, math and science). Furthermore, only about half of those prepared go into teaching. Only 9 percent of math, computer science and natural science majors prepared to teach entered the profession.
Teacher retention creates additional needs even if there are sufficient numbers prepared and licensed. Between 30 and 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within the first five years, citing lack of support and autonomy and working conditions as major factors in their decision. A recent study of turnover in Texas--turnover is 16 percent after the first year and 40 percent after three--estimated the cost of replacing teachers to the state of a minimum of $329 million and as high as $2.1 billion annually.
State policies often focus more on the supply of teachers than the distribution across varying districts. Hard to staff schools--most often in urban and rural areas--may need targeted incentives, yet even with those policies (Mississippi, South Carolina and California have been particularly aggressive in offering incentives) states have found it difficult to ensure highly qualified teachers across all schools and districts.
Given the economy in most states, it will be difficult to make significant new investments in teaching quality or other policy priorities. While the federal government is providing $2.85 billion in teaching quality funds as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, this may not be enough without significant state and district level investments to address teaching issues systematically.
What advice do you have for states generally, and Governors specifically, including how Governors can affect teacher quality?
As Governors and other state policymakers grapple with strategies to ensure highly qualified teachers, emerging program data can provide some guidance in ensuring that policies will both increase student achievement and be cost effective. While these policy options are separate, states should address the challenge of teaching quality through a coherent, systematic policy strategy as opposed to discrete policy solutions that deal with one aspect of the dilemma.
States should examine teacher preparation--both traditional and alternative routes--and ensure that all graduates meet the same expectations of what teachers know and are able to do. While all states accredit preparation programs and use licensure requirements to leverage universities to offer certain coursework, little has been done to ensure that all programs consistently produce graduates that meet high standards. States such as Texas , New York and Georgia are holding programs accountable through the use of state licensing tests, but these programs focus more on knowledge than the ability to teach it to a diverse group of students.
The average annual state investment in a full time teacher education student is about $6,200. Yet states invest similarly for both elementary teacher candidates (which most state over produce) and special education teachers. States should consider using accreditation or other incentives to get preparation programs to train teachers in fields of the greatest needs who are willing to teach in the hardest to staff schools and districts. In Louisiana , all Institutions of Higher Education receive a score not just for quality indicators, but quantity of graduates as part of the state's accountability system. To reach exemplary levels, programs must increase their production of teachers and receive bonuses for graduates who enter hard to staff schools. Those deemed exemplary receive additional funding for faculty professional development and fellowships; those who do not increase production risk corrective action.
Some state investments appear more likely to yield highly qualified teachers than others. Recruitment programs such as the South Carolina Teacher Cadet Program target high school students to pursue a career in teaching (the ProTeam program works with Middle School students). Over 2,000 cadets are currently teaching in South Carolina and the program is approximately $130 per student. "Grow Your Own" programs also appear to be highly effective in working with paraprofessionals and others who live in hard to staff areas and training them to become teachers. There is a 99 percent retention rate from 1994-2001 of teaching candidates who completed the California Paraprofessional Training Program (at a cost of $3,000 per paraprofessional). It should also be noted that signing bonuses and loan forgiveness programs that do not differentiate candidates based on their subject area and initial job placement are less likely to address the impending challenges of No Child Left Behind. For example, in Massachusetts 20 percent of the teaching candidates who receive $20,000 signing bonuses left after the first year, and 31 percent who initially chose to teach in high need districts left the profession or moved to suburban areas. Even programs that target hard to staff schools with signing bonuses and other incentives have not been as effective as policymakers had hoped. In South Carolina , despite offering a bonus of approximately $18,000 to "teacher specialists" to work in the state's lowest performing schools, the state had only attracted 20 percent of the teachers that they needed to fill these positions.
States should provide all new teachers with mentors and high quality induction programs. While more than half of the states have programs, few provide sufficient funding to ensure that mentors are well trained, compensated and granted release time to work with new teachers. By investing in its Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program, California has raised its retention rate for those participating in the program to 96 percent for first year teachers and 94 percent for second year teachers.
States should examine current professional development spending and offerings to ensure that teachers have access to high quality opportunities: professional development that is results-driven, standards-based, job-embedded, content-rich and school-focused. Programs such as the Alabama Reading Initiative strengthens reading instruction through training school teams of teachers and designating and supporting full-time reading specialists who spend half of their time with struggling readers and the other half coaching teachers. The program reaches about one-third of the state's schools at a cost of $10 million (FY 2000-2001).
How can governors best communicate the importance of NCLB, its requirements, and its potential impact on state policy?
No Child Left Behind not only requires states take certain actions around teaching quality--defining, reporting on the distribution and preparing a recruitment plan to ensure highly qualified teachers; requiring scientifically-based professional development; funding partnerships between higher education institutions and high-need districts, encouraging alternative routes, etc.--but provides additional resources to do so. Governors can use No Child Left Behind to engage policymakers, stakeholders and practitioners in a statewide conversation about teaching quality, accountability and the quality of education. Ideally, the conversation should focus more on finding consensus for state systemic reform than meeting the specific mandates of the federal act. While the mandates can provide a baseline for the discussion, states should use this as an opportunity to forge a direction that best meets the needs of their students and teachers.
These conversations will need the prestige and visibility of the Governor. A recent poll found that only 12 percent of adults and 36 percent of teachers are aware that No Child Left Behind was signed into law last year. Governors are in a unique position to provide information and convene a dialogue that will lead to policy reform through town meetings, community forums and other means. Governors should also convene state legislators, state board members and other policymakers to assess whether the direction of the state is consonant with No Child Left Behind, and if not, how to best address the federal requirements while maintaining a course that is right for the state.
Eric Hirsch is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Teaching, an organization of policymakers, stakeholders and practitioners working to ensure that all Colorado children have a quality teacher in every classroom every day. Prior to directing the Alliance, he managed the Education Program at the National Conference of State Legislatures. He has authored 25 books, articles, reports and policy briefs published by NCSL, the U.S. Department of Education, Congressional Quarterly, the University of Pittsburgh Press and the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy.
posted by AcrosticGuy @ 4:52 AM
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