NCTAF News Digest:

A Weekly Digest of News Articles & Reports

Thursday April 24, 2008

In this Issue:

--NCLB Watch

--Prominent Educators Urge Greatly Expanded Federal Role in Improving Schools

--Closing the Teacher Quality Gap

--Testing the Teachers

--Rhee Says Schools Overhaul May Take Years

--Podcast: Ga. Program Pays Low-Income Students to Study

--Colleges' Assessments of Candidates' Impact on Students Detailed

--Texas Looking West for Teachers

Greetings,

This is the NCTAF News Digest, a timely news service provided to our partner states, commissioners, and the education policy community. This Digest is for the personal educational use of the recipient. At publication time, all links were active. Some publications may require free registration. You may wish to bookmark links for future reference.

Prominent Educators Urge Greatly Expanded Federal Role in Improving Schools

-The Chronicle of Higher Education; April 23, 2008

A panel of well-known education experts today called on the federal government to take a much bigger role in overhauling elementary and secondary education, partly by establishing large new training programs for teachers and principals and by pumping much more money into education research. In a report timed to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the issuance of the landmark “A Nation at Risk” study, the panel of educators, who call themselves the Forum for Education and Democracy, argues that the nation’s schools are farther behind now than they were when the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued that widely publicized 1983 document calling for sweeping education reform. “While other countries have made strategic investments and transformed their schools to produce results, we have demanded results without investing in or transforming schooling,” Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University and co-author of the report, said in a news release.

The report urges the federal government to adopt a sweeping plan for training educators, to include new scholarships for prospective teachers, the establishment of the equivalent of a West Point for principals and other school leaders, and the creation of new professional-development schools that would work with universities to ensure that both prospective and veteran teachers learn new skills. “For an annual investment of $4-billion, or less than what we are currently spending per week in Iraq, the nation could underwrite the high-quality preparation of 40,000 teachers annually (enough to fill all the vacancies that are filled by unprepared teachers each year), seed 100 top-quality urban teacher-education programs, ensure mentors for every new teacher hired each year, provide incentives to bring expert teachers into high-need schools, and dramatically improve professional-learning opportunities for teachers and principals,” the report says.

To read the full article, click here.
To view the full report, click here.

Closing the Teacher Quality Gap
-Educational Leadership Magazine; April 2008

Many of us educators, in our roles as parents, have worked hard to get our own children into the classroom of an unusually good teacher—or out of the classroom of a teacher who does serious damage. But interestingly, in our roles as educators, we often deny that such differences exist. When those pesky parents ask us to assign their children to a particular teacher's classroom, what do we say? "Oh, don't worry. Your child will learn what she needs to learn from any teacher in our school." Well, that turns out to be a lie. There are big differences in the amounts and kinds of learning that different teachers help produce. As a study (Gordon, Kane, & Staiger, 2006) in Los Angeles showed, students taught by teachers in the top quartile of effectiveness advance, on average, approximately five percentile points each year relative to their peers, whereas those taught by teachers in the bottom quartile of effectiveness lose, on average, five percentile points relative to their peers. Moreover, these effects are cumulative. The same study suggested that if all black students were assigned to four highly effective teachers in a row, this would be sufficient to close the average black-white achievement gap.

So teachers are hugely important. But no matter how you measure quality, good teachers are not evenly distributed across all kinds of schools and students. For years we've had only proxies for teacher quality, and often not strong ones at that. We've known whether teachers are licensed or not, are teaching in-field or not, and are experienced or novices. Sometimes we've known how they performed in college or on licensure tests. Year after year, decade after decade, countless studies told us that on these measures, we didn't have a fair distribution of teacher talent (Darling-Hammond, 1995; Kain & Singleton, 1996; Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002; Presley, White, & Gong, 2005; Shields et al., 1999). Minority and poor students in particular were typically taught by significantly more than their fair share of unlicensed, out-of-field, and inexperienced teachers who often didn't have records of strong academic performance themselves. However, these data were often dismissed as being of questionable import. Are unlicensed teachers really worse than others? Aren't most private school teachers uncertified, and aren't Teach for America corps members unlicensed—and are they so bad? As for this matter of experience, we all know teachers who are better in year two of their practice than others are in year 20. So who are we to moan about statistics suggesting that teachers in high-poverty schools are less experienced than those working in more-affluent schools? People in and around schools might feel this way about the data, but the U.S. Congress didn't share that ambivalence. "Wait a second," said congressional leader George Miller (D-CA). "We're giving these schools funds to provide extras for low-income students, but they keep shorting these kids in the thing they most need—quality teachers."

To view the full article, click here.

Testing the Teachers

-The Boston Globe; April 23, 2008

MASSACHUSETTS- Senate minority leader Richard Tisei recently observed, "We always seem to be chipping away at the Education Reform Act." Sadly, he's right. First, the Commonwealth ditched the accountability piece of reform when it abolished the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability. Then it reversed more than 170 years of tradition by eliminating the independence of the state Board of Education. Teacher testing is the latest reform to come under fire. A bill that overwhelmingly passed the Senate and seems to have the Patrick administration's backing would allow some aspiring teachers in Massachusetts to be licensed even if they fail a licensure test three times. The administration says it's trying to develop alternate criteria for those whose scores are just shy of passing. Requiring prospective teachers to pass basic skills and content knowledge tests has been an important component of reform. Massachusetts students benefit from new teachers who have a strong academic foundation. Research shows a strong correlation between teachers' subject matter knowledge and student achievement. The Commonwealth's licensure tests, which are a national model, are one reason why Massachusetts student scores on reading, writing, and math tests are among the best in the country. Proponents of alternative criteria for borderline candidates make two basic arguments. First, they claim that requiring all prospective teachers to pass the licensure tests exacerbates a purported teacher shortage. Next they assert that the requirement is not fair to talented teachers who don't test well. Closer scrutiny reveals that both arguments are specious.

In general, Massachusetts doesn't have a teacher shortage. In fact, we enjoy an oversupply of elementary and early childhood teachers. The only shortages are in special education and secondary-level math, science, and foreign languages. Addressing this problem by making waivers possible for prospective teachers at all levels is an overbroad prescription for a limited malady. Even stranger is the claim that talented teachers are being denied jobs simply because they don't test well. As with the MCAS graduation requirement, context is required to understand this issue. Most people are surprised to learn that passing MCAS requires only an eighth-grade proficiency level. Most Massachusetts teacher tests require potential teachers to demonstrate high school-level skills. As for talented teachers being denied jobs, there is no way to know. The majority of education schools require their students to pass licensure tests prior to beginning their student teaching, so (thankfully) almost no one is teaching who hasn't passed the test. Prospective teachers who fail the licensure tests consistently come from the same few Massachusetts teacher-training programs. Just an 80 percent pass rate is required to maintain state approval. The only way consumers can see which programs aren't up to par is to look at the Title II reports the Commonwealth submits annually to the US Department of Education. Policy makers would be better served to focus on how to improve the weak teacher preparation programs than to develop alternative criteria for prospective teachers who fail. The facts lead you to wonder just who the proposed waiver is designed to protect.

To view the full article, click here.

Rhee Says Schools Overhaul May Take Years

-The Washington Post; April 23, 2008

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee said yesterday that it will probably be several years before the federally mandated effort to reinvent 27 academically troubled schools shows significant results. Rhee said she plans to select a reform option for each school by the middle of next month. But that will mark the beginning of a long process, she said, which means many high school students probably won't enjoy the full benefits of the changes. "It's not possible to take a chronically failing school and in a few months or a year turn it around," Rhee said in an interview shortly after speaking at a late-afternoon gathering of about two dozen parents, staff members and school advocates at Bell Multicultural High School. It was the latest in a series of meetings Rhee has organized to discuss the challenges of fixing failing schools.  Rhee is required under the federal No Child Left Behind law to make fundamental changes in the 10 high schools, 11 middle schools and six elementary schools at which students have failed for five consecutive years to make adequate academic progress. She must pursue one of five options for each school: hire an outside educational firm to run it, convert it to a charter school, turn it over to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, replace the staff or try something else. Rhee will have final say on the options after consultations with parents and staffs.

She has identified six nonprofit educational firms as potential "partners" in the turnaround effort for the high schools, and each firm has a track record of working with troubled schools in other cities. The companies can make relatively rapid changes in security and other non-academic areas, but, she said, "in most cases it took three, four, five years" for student performance to show major improvement. The organizations Rhee has mentioned are: Bedford Academy High School in New York; Friendship Public Charter Schools in the District; the Institute for Student Achievement in Lake Success, N.Y.; Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia; St. Hope Public Schools in Sacramento; and Talent Development High Schools in Baltimore. School officials said that the list is not necessarily limited to those six. Rhee said that restructuring schools is a difficult, imprecise business that does not easily lend itself to formulas. "How to turn around a large, failing urban high school is not something you have a recipe for," she told the group at Bell. She said that although the school district's central office will select what amounts to the bare bones of a new structure for each school, it will be up to local school and community leaders to flesh out the academic programs. "As much as possible, it is the school leader that has to be the one making the ultimate call," she said. Rhee also said that the consultations with parents and school staffs over restructuring options have been contentious. Without naming the school involved, she described one instance in which she answered 20 e-mails in an attempt to mediate a dispute between factions over which option to pursue. "I think this process is going to be, quite frankly, a difficult one," she said.

To view the full article, click here.

Ga. Program Pays Low-Income Students to Study

-npr.com; April 22, 2008

Some kids in Fulton County, Ga., are earning a paycheck just for doing their homework. A pilot project sponsored by a local foundation is offering a group of low-income students $8 an hour to go to after-school study sessions twice a week. Jackie Cushman, engineer of the Learn and Earn program, said she hopes the money will get the kids into the classroom, but that, once there, they'll start to enjoy learning. Cushman is the founder of the Atlanta-based nonprofit Learning Makes a Difference. She's also the daughter of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suggested paying low-income students to improve their grades in a 2005 speech at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Cushman launched Learn and Earn this year after an Atlanta businessman offered to sponsor it, and Creekside High School in Fairburn, Ga., and neighboring Bear Creek Middle School fit the right profile for it. More than 60 percent of the students are considered low-income; more than 90 percent are minorities; and the schools trail district-wide achievement rates by eye-popping margins.The students who participate in the program say it's helping them, but some educators are troubled by it.

"This message really reinforces that these low-income kids are destined to a life of wage-earning," said Richard Lakes, associate professor in educational policy at Georgia State University, who called the program "morally bankrupt." "It reinforces that these children in particular are going to be servants of the middle and upper classes," he said. Lakes said he doesn't believe that an external motivator, like money, can trigger the intrinsic love of learning and achievement that Cushman is hoping for.

To view the full article, click here.

To listen to the podcast, click here.

Colleges' Assessments of Candidates' Impact on Students Detailed

-Education Week; April 21, 2008

The belief that teacher-candidates need to demonstrate they can help their future students learn before they enter classrooms as full-fledged educators has gained strength over the past decade, especially among states. Now, a new book highlights assessments crafted by teacher education programs in recent years with the goal of doing just that. While approaches vary, the assessments usually require teacher hopefuls to gather and analyze data to show that their students are learning; to pretest and post-test students to gauge what they have learned and tailor teaching based on that information; and to tailor individual plans for students who are not learning, said officials from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, which published the book, It's All About Student Learning, Assessing Teacher Candidates' Ability to Impact P-12 Students. The publication highlights assessments from 13 teacher education programs, including Teachers College, Columbia University; Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn.; and Alverno College, in Milwaukee; as well as from three consortia of teacher programs. Arthur E. Wise, the president of NCATE, said the emphasis on performance assessments has resulted in a “dramatic change” in teacher capabilities and practice over the last few years. All the group’s nearly 700 member institutions now have such assessments, he added.Those highlighted in the book, he said, “are the ones that have come to our attention that are very good.”

Tom Carroll, the president of the Washington-based National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, said the assessments highlighted in the book are a valuable resource. “It is essential for teacher-preparation programs to be able to document the links between the way teachers are prepared and the learning of their students,” he said. Others, however, said it would take more research before colleges can come up with effective assessments. Arthur E. Levine, the president of the Princeton, N.J.-based Woodrow Wilson Foundation and a former president of Teachers College, agreed that linking teaching with learning is essential. “But are we doing it effectively? No. It is really hard right now,” he said. “We don’t know what it is that produces teachers with the capacity to improve student achievement. That research is yet to be done, and it is important that education schools get involved in that research.”

For the full article, click here.

Texas Looking West for Teachers

-Houston Chronicle; April 23,2008

Recruiters from school systems across Texas are heading west to hire some of the 14,000 teachers who have received pink slips in California, a state facing a $4.8 billion shortfall in education funding.Leaders of the Houston, Aldine and Fort Worth districts are among those taking out newspaper ads, renting billboards and hosting job fairs in California for hard-to-fill positions, including bilingual, math and science teachers. "We're constantly on the lookout. We keep track of where they're laying off teachers," said Gloria Cavazos, assistant superintendent of human resources in Aldine, which is about to place employment ads in some California newspapers. It's tradition for recruiters to prey on the weak. When Aldine caught wind that Puerto Rico was laying off teachers last year, for example, officials packed their bags and returned from the island with about 10 teachers. This year, their sights are set on California. Even though recruiting season is almost over, Cavazos said she'll head to California if the district's newspaper ads generate enough response from science and math teachers. It'll be one of the last of the 100 or so recruiting trips Aldine officials make this year to fill nearly 600 teaching openings.

To read the full article, click here.