Teacher Beat

Fla. Uses Test Data to Review Teacher Preparation

2009-11-21T00:01:01Z

U.S. Secretary of Arne Duncan has been praising Louisiana's model for using "value-added" data to gauge the strengths of its various education programs, but it looks like a bunch of other states are coming on board, too.

First, we heard that Texas had plans to do something similar, also using value-added data.

And now there's this story from Ron Matus in the St. Petersburg Times that says that Florida is using data from the state test to gauge whether at least 50 percent of each training program's graduates are helping their students to grow a year or more on the tests.

I can't tell from the story if Florida is using a "value-added" methodology like Louisiana's, or some other format. The story uses the term "value table," usually a somewhat simpler growth model that looks at the breakdown of students into the various categories on the state test (i.e., "proficient," "basic," etc.) But in any case, it looks like there's a bona fide interest among the states to do something similar.

Now, I wonder, how will these states intervene in those programs that don't seem to be producing effective teachers?

UFT Head Gains Ability to Declare Impasse

2009-11-19T16:38:01Z

Just 20 days after its previous contract with New York City expired, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew is signaling that he doesn't think the union will easily reach agreement with the city on a new one.

The union's delegate assembly agreed to his request to declare impasse if talks don't improve, GothamSchools reports.

After impasse is declared, the contract moves toward mediation. If that fails, it moves to "fact finding," in which an independent board makes recommendations for reaching a pact. GothamSchools notes that fact-finding has backed the union on a couple of issues in the past.

In any case, there are certainly a lot of hot-button issues on the table for this contract go-around. They include the absent-teacher reserve pool, the performance-pay program that then-UFT President Randi Weingarten negotiated in 2007, and with all the bad New Yorker press, possibly even the "rubber rooms" for teachers under investigation.

Pay Bonuses for AP Teachers Only?

2009-11-18T17:06:01Z

This story by the Boston Herald brings up a lot of relevant issues about the structuring of incentive-pay programs.

In essence, the program in question would give AP teachers bonuses based on the number of students who earn passing scores on the test. But the union thinks that all teachers should share in the payout. There is a lot of requisite finger-pointing on both sides, and the reporter refers to "union grinches." (Bet you didn't know that even journalists are getting into the Christmas spirit early, too.)

One of the things that I hear a lot from my union sources is that all teachers, not just a select few, should at least be eligible to win pay bonuses, so it's not hard to see why the Boston Federation of Teachers would be unhappy with this program. On the other hand, just spreading money to all teachers regardless of some kind of criteria doesn't really amount to performance pay at all; it's a raise for everybody.

Can you think of a compromise here? Let us all know how you'd structure this program.

Bill Would Amend, Expand Troops to Teachers

2009-11-16T15:44:01Z

Here's an important story about recently introduced legislation to amend the Troops to Teachers program and make many more school districts eligible to host these teachers.

The program gives stipends for veterans with a certain number of years of active military service to get their teaching credentials if they agree to work for three years in a school serving a high percentage of poor students.

For veterans who left the military on or after Jan. 8, 2002, The bill would decrease from six to four years the number of years of active service a veteran needs to qualify. It would also allow individuals serving on or after Sept. 11, 2001 to qualify if they completed 90 days of active service. Finally, the bill would also expand the program from "high-need" school districts to all school districts that receive Title I funds for disadvantaged students.

It seems like an admirable idea to expand the talent pipeline through such changes, but there are potential tradeoffs to consider. For instance, most school districts receive Title I funds of some kind, even though poverty levels are quite variable within Title I districts, which means that this program would not be nearly as targeted with these changes in place. Is it possible such a change would mean that the most challenged schools would no longer get dibs on these teachers?

It's something for Congress to think about during the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which will likely incorporate some version of this bill.

How Should Teachers Be Involved in Assessment?

2009-11-13T16:27:01Z

You may remember that I moonlight as Education Week 's assessment reporter in addition to covering teacher issues. Right now, I'm in Boston covering the U.S. Department of Education's first public forum on the $350 million that it'll be putting toward consortia of states that create common assessments aligned to common reading and math standards.

The panelists are having very rich conversations on everything from how to use technology to improve what cognitive skills can be measured to how to structure consortia that work together effectively (do you need an executive director?). Yesterday, though, much of the conversation focused on the role of teachers in the assessment process.

A number of the panelists brought up the idea of using performance-based tasks and extended open-response questions, and engaging teachers in the design, use, and even the scoring of these tasks. A Canadian testing official, Jim Dueck, talked about how the province of Alberta has done this for a number of years. To minimize bias and scoring snafus, teachers read all of the responses blind, and the responses pass through many scorers and review levels.

The benefit, proponents say, is that teachers then have much more understanding of the standard at hand and whether students truly demonstrated mastery of that standard. They also feel more ownership of the assessment process, rather than facing decontextualized assessements dropped out of the sky.

The panelists didn't agree, though, on whether such tasks should be performed in a low-stakes context in the classroom, to guide instruction, or whether such tasks could be rolled into an accountability context in a fair, reliable way.

The only state that did anything like this under the No Child Left Behind Act, Nebraska, faced a lot of skepticism about the system because its assessments were locally designed, making it harder to develop comparability across districts. And in 2007, when House education leaders proposed allowing 15 states to develop a similar system for NCLB, I remember that Dianne Piche, then at the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights (now at the Education Department), likened permitting teachers' scoring of their students' tests to allowing 16-year-olds to score their own driver's-license exams.

But could it work if the tasks were standardized across a consortium? What if scoring were done blindly, as in Alberta? How about some kind of centralized auditing process of teacher scoring to increase reliability and comparability?

Do the challenges outweigh the costs, or vice versa?

Tell us what you think.

Teacher Elements of Final Race to the Top Guidelines

2009-11-12T13:53:20Z

The final Race to the Top guidelines are here! There are some interesting new details on the effective-teacher policies. And of the four pillars or "assurances" in the economic-stimulus legislation, teacher effectiveness, it turns out, gets the most weight (28 percent) in the scoring process.

Let's dig in.

The first thing I noticed here is that it is not an absolute requirement that states gain teachers'-union approval of the state RTTT proposals. As colleague Michele McNeil writes in her story this morning, teachers' unions are just one of a number of stakeholders that states are supposed to get to sign off on the application.

The definition for "effective teachers" has changed, and as Teacher Beat predicted not long ago, the guidelines now explicitly state that teacher evaluations must include "multiple measures" in addition to basing a "significant part" of the evaluation on test scores or other measures of student growth.

The supplemental measures the guidelines recommend include observation-based assessments of performance and evidence of leadership roles, such as serving as a mentor or the leader of a professional-learning community.

But the notice still does not define what a "significant part" means with respect to test scores. That could, potentially, be problematic. (Is 10 percent significant? 50 percent?)

The teacher-quality criteria that will by far garner the most points for a state is by putting into place systems to tie the results of teacher and principal evaluations to decisions involving professional development, compensation, promotion, tenure-granting, and dismissal.

In a new element that is almost sure to upset folks at teachers' colleges, the scoring criteria direct reviewers to give more points to a state that permits alternative routes to operate outside of schools of education than those that restrict such routes to schools of education.

The American Federation of Teachers has a few interesting things to say on the final criteria. First, it seemed pleased with the changes to the teacher-evaluation language and even seems to feel that its input was instrumental in shaping it. Then there's this paragraph:

"We know that many states have begun the application process, but that not all are involving teachers and their unions in a meaningful way. We take Education Department officials at their word when they say they will look for meaningful collaboration in the state Race to the Top applications."

Randi Weingarten threw a fit about the lack of attention to collaborative union-managment reforms in the SHMC report earlier this month, so to be honest, I expected something a bit more, well, colorful, from her on the Race to the Top guidelines. After all, there's still a lot of attention to using test scores to measure teacher performance here. And one of these state applications could presumably still get funded without having any union people sign off on it. (Where's the collaboration meter when you need it??)

On the other hand, I know she'll be closely watching the state application process. And, as New Teacher Center blogger-staffer Liam Goldrick points out in this intelligent item, a lot of implementation power lies in the hands of local unions.

Fasten your seatbelts...

Wisconsin Teacher 'Firewall' Law Too Lax, Critics Say

2009-11-09T15:16:01Z

President Barack Obama and his administration have made quite a big deal about the Wisconsin legislature's move to undo a law barring student test-score data from being considered in teachers' evaluations.

You may remember that having such a "firewall" between teachers and students essentially disqualifies a state from participating in the $4 billion Race to the Top Fund. Both Wisconsin and California have been scrambling to rectify the issue, although two other states with similar restrictions, New York and Nevada, are passing on it for now.

Last Thursday, I wondered if Wisconsin's law really had the teeth it seems to have, since the bill doesn't actually permit the data to be used for disciplining or dismissing teachers. Additionally, the bill also requires every district to bargain the evaluation system with its local teachers' union, and does not affirmatively demand that the test-score data be used.

Turns out I wasn't the only one to be asking these questions. There's a lot of discussion out there on Wisconsin's law this morning.

The Wisconsin State Journal accuses Democratic legislators of "watering down" the bill. At Flypaper, Andy Smarick suggests that states are just after the Race to the Top money, not necessarily the accompanying reforms.

Now, the question is whether the Obama administration thinks that this law aligns closely enough to its priorities for teacher evaluation to fund the state's RTTT application.

Thursday Odds 'n' Ends

2009-11-05T15:35:01Z

I'm swamped again on some long-term stuff but my wonderful colleagues have some important teacher-related stories.

• Read Lesli Maxwell's write-up of the Strategic Management of Human Capital report here.
• Catherine Gewertz highlights the lack of research about high school instruction in this story.
• And Debbie Viadero has a must-read item up about new research on a Texas performance-pay program.

Second, the mail has been pouring in on this blog item about the SHMC report. (Reminder: I love getting direct mail from readers and I encourage you to send it. But don't forget that your thoughts get out to a lot more people if you use the comment function on the blog.)

A few readers felt I was being glib when I said in this item that the AFT might have had a different reaction to the report if it had included more references to collaborating with unions. I assumed that this was just an oversight from the report's drafters because many of the most high-profile changes to the teacher-quality continuum have been done with union support (think Denver Pro-Comp). But these readers admonished me for making that assumption, and argued that the report needed to be more careful and deliberative about that point. Food for thought!

A colleague of mine had an interesting perspective on the report. Her read was that it seemed to focus on individual teachers more than on teachers working together in their schools collaboratively. It's an interesting observation, and researchers like Harvard's Susan Moore Johnson have been wrestling with this question of individual vs. collective improvement in schools.

Finally, all eyes are on Wisconsin as it works to remove the "firewall" between teacher and student data. Apparently, if the law goes through, such data could be used in evaluations but couldn't be used to dismiss a teacher.

I'll confess to being a bit confused about that. Don't evaluations, after all, ultimately factor into decisions to dismiss teachers? I'll start sniffing around on this today, but if you have immediate details or thoughts, do enlighten us!

UPDATED: AFT Slams 'Top Down' Report on Effective Teachers

2009-11-03T20:37:16Z

The Strategic Management of Human Capital initiative released a report today outlining new strategies for attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective teacher workforce, and in doing so, has managed to really tick off Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers. She calls the report "top down" and "disrespectful" of teachers and unions. UPDATED: Here is the link to the report.

Among the recommendations, the report says states and districts should raise entry requirements for teacher preparation; institute a tiered licensure system requiring teachers to complete an induction program and demonstrate teaching effectiveness before receiving tenure; and overhaul professional development and evaluations to be standards-based and to provide pathways for teacher improvement.

AFT has both substantive beefs with the proposals at hand, and feels that feedback from its representatives to the task force wasn't adequately taken into account in the report's drafting. A letter that Weingarten sent off to the task force chairs, Allan Odden and James Kelly, says that the report "relies too much on untested ideas for finding excellent teachers, and not enough on supporting and developing teachers to make them great."

She says the proposals don't pay enough attention to the context in which teachers teach, and that accountability for student outcomes is focused too heavily on teachers, and not on the administrators and other environmental factors that affect working conditions. And finally, there is not enough focus on developing reforms in collaboration, with unions, she asserts.

"The work of the task force so far, however, has focused almost exclusively on how teachers need to change rather than how the system and all its actors need to change and work collaboratively to support effective teaching and student learning," Weingarten writes in the letter.

Let's take all of this in turn.

On the "untested" piece: It's true that there are only a handful of experiments to reward teachers on anything other the basis of longevity and credentials. But most of these examples are bonus programs rather than true-blue overhauls of teacher compensation and some of them were done with unions. The general idea is hardly revolutionary, and there are some interesting new studies in the works to help flesh out the research literature on this topic.

As for some of the other ideas, New Mexico and a handful of other states already have a version of tiered licensure. Rhode Island and Indiana are contemplating raising the entry point on teacher-licensing examinations. Unions and administrators alike think professional development and evaluations are lousy and need to be more closely tailored to professional standards to offer quality feedback for improvement. I've never heard anyone from the AFT knock teacher induction. And one of AFT's own locals, Minneapolis, has a rather elaborate process for tenure-granting that includes the submission of a portfolio. (Read more about it in this report.)

I don't know whether all of these examples have really great scientifically based evaluation procedures in place so that we can learn from them. (One hopes so, because otherwise it will be hard to figure out if they're superior to current systems.)

On Weingarten's criticism that this report focuses too heavily on teachers: It's not invalid to say that things like community organizations and parents and wraparound services should be part of the conversation, but can you fault a task force on teachers and principals for focusing, you know, on teachers and principals?

On the other hand, she does make a good point with the environmental-issues factor. She notes that the report says principal evaluations should include consideration of school context, but doesn't mention context with respect to teacher evaluations. (It would be very interesting and enlightening to see whether SHMC, in subsequent work, specifically addresses school context within an improved system of human capital management.)

I am not privy to how the SHMC folks worked to craft this report. But If the drafters had fixed that language on environmental factors (an additional sentence would've done it) and liberally sprinkled the phrase "in collaboration with unions" in the report, would AFT would have had a different reaction?

Two on Teacher Preparation

2009-11-03T14:45:01Z

Two recent news stories illustrate nicely two ways of looking at teacher preparation: an "output"-oriented view of teacher preparation that focuses on student achievement, and an input-oriented one that focuses on credentials and curriculum.

Texas is looking to institute a state system for approving schools of education that puts a heavier focus on teacher effectiveness. It sounds very similar to Louisiana's system, which tracks graduates of teacher-training programs into their classrooms to gauge their ability to boost achievement.

Indiana officials, on the other hand, are duking it out over proposed regulations that would allow for more alternate-route teaching programs, reduce pedagogy coursework in education schools, and require candidates to take more content-area preparation.

In both stories, the common theme is one of the state's role in overseeing teacher training. That's an important if overlooked aspect of teacher preparation: Teachers' colleges and alternative routes get a lot of criticisms about their quality, but ultimately states are charged with identifying and closing poor-performing programs. (The Texas story notes that not once in 16 years did the state accreditation body actually close down a program.)

What mix of "inputs" and "outputs" do you think states should be regulating?

Duncan Calls for Multiple Measures in Evaluation

2009-10-30T15:47:01Z

Education Secretary Arne Duncan made a particular point yesterday of underscoring that teacher evaluations should be based on "multiple measures" that would include student achievement alongside other factors, such as peer evaluations.

He was speaking at conference here in Washington for state officials hosted by the National Comprehensive Center on Teacher Quality.

Frankly, the multiple-measures comment shouldn't come as a big surprise if you've been paying attention. A number of other ED officials have made the same point in other forums. But a lot of the state officials told me they were nevertheless glad to hear the message. They noted that the Race to the Top proposed criteria make a big deal about incorporating student achievement as a "significant" factor in evaluations but are silent about what other measures could or should be included.

Perhaps all of those comments worrying about whether value-added is ready for prime-time hit home at the Education Department. If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the final Race to the Top guidelines will retain the requirements that test scores be factored in evaluations, but also make some recognition of the fact that they shouldn't be the sole measure for rating a teacher.

Duncan did stress, though, that the student-achievement element is the one that's missing from most evaluation systems. "We don't look at student work at all, we're a zero there," he said.

He demurred when asked whether he could point to a model evaluation system: "I'm hesitant to call one out because people think that that's it."

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten must be doing a victory lap around her office about now. She's been expounding upon the multiple-measures theme for months.

(Weingarten's stance on this issue has developed, too. Last year around this time she was adamant that "we have a moral, statistical, and educational reason" not to use test scores in evaluations. Now, her union is helping to fund projects to explore how it might be done fairly.)

Los Angeles TFA Teachers Outperform Peers

2009-10-28T13:41:01Z

A study financed by the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation shows that students taught by Teach For America teachers in Los Angeles outperformed peers who were taught by other teachers—including veterans with many more years of experience.

Initially, the study was performed for internal purposes. Having provided quite a bundle of financial backing for TFA, Broad wanted to get a sense of how its investment was paying off in terms of stronger student learning. But officials for the group said they ultimately decided to make the study public given the growing national conversation about teacher effectiveness.

California state test-score results of students of 119 second-year TFA teachers in grades 2-12 were compared with those of the students of 1,190 non-TFA teachers in the same grade levels, subjects, and schools as the TFA teachers, during 2005 and 2006.

The results are interesting for a few reasons. First of all, TFA teachers were linked to test scores that were 3 points higher overall than non-TFA teachers, even those who had been in the classroom much longer. And, they were even more effective than other teachers with similar years of teaching experience. (The scores for that comparison were 4 points higher for TFA teachers than for non-TFA teachers.)

It's important to know, though, that since students weren't randomly assigned to TFA teachers or non-TFA teachers, it isn't scientifically possible to say that TFA is the reason why the teachers were more effective. These data are certainly suggestive, but they aren't evidence of a causal link.

And with any study, there are a couple of caveats. For instance, the findings here combine reading and math, so it's not entirely clear how to interpret them for subject matter. Content area is an important distinction because previous studies of TFA have shown that the group's high school instructors had a particularly strong correlation with improved math achievement.

The folks at Broad think this type of analysis could be indicative of what will be possible once data systems continue to grow and students can be linked to teachers. One interesting feature of the study is that analysts used two different growth methodologies and found that one was much better at explaining variability in test scores. That's important because there isn't really good consensus on the "best" methodology for gauging teacher effect on student achievement.

Second, the paper is an example of the kind of analysis that might be useful for higher ed institutions and programs that prepare teachers as they consider ways of improving the effectiveness of their own programs.

TFA has already begun those efforts, as I reported earlier this year.

UPDATED: Will Reforms to Seniority Catch On?

2009-10-26T14:54:01Z

Rhode Island Commissioner Deborah Gist has instructed districts to work to eliminate hiring practices based on seniority provisions when the districts' collective bargaining agreements come up for renewal this year. (Hat Tip to Eduwonk.) She wants hiring to be based on performance-based criteria instead.

So Teacher Beat asks the question: Is seniority poised to emerge as a major reform priority?

We're seeing efforts to experiment with a lot of traditional structures that affect teacher quality, like compensation, professional development, and evaluation. And even though no one seems ready to chuck out tenure, the conversations around evaluation could make the tenure-granting process a more meaningful one.

So far, though, seniority has been mostly ignored. For instance, the New Haven contract is being held up by union, district, and federal officials alike as a model effort for collaborative reform. But a few people have written me to point out that, even in the "turnaround" charter-like schools, teachers would maintain their transfer rights. That means teachers who aren't rehired by their principals or choose to leave the schools after the two-year commitment can ~~pick their~~ bid on positions based on seniority. UPDATED: There appears to be some language in the contract that gives the board the ability to staff based on the instructional needs of the school before seniority kicks in. Working to get some clarification on what that means in practice.

And practically all districts still use the system for things like layoffs, even if they've done away with seniority-based transfers.

The argument, as it's been explained to me, is that seniority is way of ensuring that teachers are treated fairly, since there's an objective rather than a subjective method of deciding who gets raises and privileges. But the definition of "fair" is sort of in the eyes of the beholder. Seniority doesn't, for instance, take teacher effectiveness into account into things like pay or layoffs, presumably a difficult thing for teachers with fewer years of experience.

But efforts to use performance-based criteria in instances such as reductions-in-force have been quite controversial. (Witness the District of Columbia or Charlotte, N.C.)

So what do you think? Is seniority still necessary as the push continues to define teacher quality in terms of student learning? Or do we risk making things even worse in school or returning to the days when it was easier for boards and principals to play favorites?

AFT Files Federal Complaint on Behalf of Immigrant Teachers

2009-10-23T17:21:08Z

The American Federation of Teachers just stepped up its effort to shut down a teacher-recruiting company that it alleges bilked more than 200 teachers from the Philippines out of thousands of dollars in fees.

It filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor on Oct. 20 claiming that Universal Placement International violated federal laws requiring such fees to be paid by employers—school districts—not by employees. And in a release, the union also said that both the firm and the school districts who employed these teachers in Louisana may have tried to circumvent federal caps on H-1B work visas.

You can read more about it on AFT's Web site here.

Contracts signed by both state-level officials and those in New Orleans' Recovery School District show that federal Hurricane Katrina recovery dollars disbursed by the U.S. Department of Education were used in part to pay for this recruiting service.

Could an inquiry over at ED be next on the list?

Few Policy Details in Duncan Speech

2009-10-22T17:08:01Z

Like many of you, I just finished watching Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Teachers College speech. We'll have more reaction for you later, but just to make a general point, few new policy tidbits emerged, even during the Q & A.

The genial, if always on-message Duncan didn't really say much we haven't heard before. About the third time he began answering a question with the line, "We have $10 billion in discretionary funds at our disposal," the audience started giggling.

(You've got to hand it to Margaret Spellings. As EdSec, she was ever-quotable, with her talk of Ivory soap and big-girl panties.)

I was particularly intrigued by a question from one audience member, who wanted to know whether the administration would support "incorporating a multisensory phonics-based reading program" into teacher training.

An interesting question, now that funding previously earmarked for Reading First apparently will be shifted to Title I. But Duncan didn't bite. "We're going to look to those places that are getting great results for students," he said.