NCTAF News Digest:

A Weekly Digest of News Articles & Reports

March 6, 2008

In this Issue:

--NCLB Watch

--Commentary: New National Strategy for Improving Teaching in High-Needs Schools

--Opinion: Poorest Schools Should be Home to Best Educators

--Pilot Pan for Incentive Pay Unveiled

--In Final Months, Ed. Dept. Seeks Teachers' Advice

--Education Funding Bill Passes House, Awaits Senate Action

--State Schools Group: Proposed Funds are Not Enough

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.

Commentary: A New National Strategy for Improving Teaching In High-Needs Schools

-Education Week; March 4, 2008

Every year, educators, urban leaders, and parents bemoan the fact that students in our lowest-performing schools lack the teachers they need to meet ever-higher standards. Students in high-poverty secondary schools are nearly twice as likely to have teachers who do not have a degree in the subject they are teaching. The problem is worst in math and science, where schools struggle to compete with the private sector for top graduates. A recent study by McKinsey & Co. of education in industrialized nations found that the top-performing countries put a premium on high-quality teachers: They select teachers carefully, pay them well, provide ongoing training and support, and give them time to work together. Finland’s teacher education system, for example, accepts just one in six applicants, and Singapore’s takes only one in five—some U.S. programs take virtually everyone who applies. Starting salaries for teachers in South Korea and Germany are 141 percent of their nations’ gross domestic product per capita, compared with 81 percent in the United States. And Japan’s novice teachers get up to two days a week of continued mentoring, with more collaborative-planning time for all teachers.

These findings reflect not just cultures that value learning, but countries that make education a top priority, committing real resources to their teachers and the mechanisms that assure high-quality teaching in every classroom. By contrast, U.S. school leaders in recent years have sought to mitigate teacher shortages through quick fixes, such as rushing ill-prepared liberal-arts graduates into classrooms or recruiting teachers wholesale from other countries. But many of these teachers lack the knowledge and skills to thrive in the classroom—especially in the nation’s most challenging classrooms—for the long haul. Hiring in hard-to-staff schools is a revolving door. Almost half (46 percent) of teachers leave the field in their first five years. High-poverty urban schools lose about twice as many teachers each year as low-poverty schools. New teachers rarely receive adequate mentoring to be successful in diverse and demanding classrooms, and teacher-preparation programs are highly uneven. Arthur E. Levine, the former president of Columbia University’s Teachers College, dubbed the field of teacher education “Dodge City” because of its haphazard quality control and disconnect from classroom realities. Too few of the nation’s teachers are prepared in programs where high standards, relevant courses, and close connection to school practice and effective practitioners are the norm.

For the full article, click here.

In Final Months, Ed. Dept. Seeks Teachers' Advice

-Education Week; March 3, 2008

By next fall—only months before she leaves office—U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings plans to have five teachers on her staff and set up a group of 20 ad hoc advisers still working in classrooms. “It’ll be very useful in both directions for teachers to understand what the issues are at the macro level,” she said in a recent interview. “But it’s also hugely beneficial for us to make sure we know: Is this policy implementable, doable, realistic, and righteous by the classroom teacher?”

Teacher advocates applaud the effort, but they also wonder: Why did it take so long? “Unfortunately, they waited until the last year of the administration to bring the voice of teachers back in,” said Segun C. Eubanks, the director of teacher quality for the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. “They haven’t had any systemic way to put the voice of classroom teachers in any decision making role within the Department of Education or within the [Bush] administration.”

What’s more, others suggest that the teachers’ voices may be muted once a new president takes office in January, pointing specifically to the Bush administration’s decision in 2001 to cease a teacher-in-residence program that had been established by the Clinton administration.“I’m not sure how they’re going to make sure it’s permanent,” said Terry Knecht Dozier, a former National Teacher of the Year who helped establish the teacher-in-residence program when she worked at the Department of Education during President Clinton’s term. “I would want to figure out in some way how you would sustain those people,” said Ms. Dozier, the director of the center for teacher leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond.

To read the full article, click here.

Pilot Plan for Incentive Pay Unveiled

-Washington Post; March 5, 2008

Prince George's County education and labor leaders unveiled a much-anticipated pilot program yesterday that will offer teachers and administrators at 12 schools incentive pay for good performance. The voluntary program, called Financial Incentive Rewards for Supervisors and Teachers, or FIRST, will allow teachers to make as much as $10,000 above base salary for improving the performance of their students, teaching in hard-to-staff schools and subjects, and participating in evaluations and professional development. Principals and assistant principals will be able to make up to $12,500 and $11,000, respectively. County education leaders hope the offer of extra pay will help Prince George's recruit talented teachers and attract the best teachers and administrators to academically struggling schools. The extra pay would represent a sizable bump for a starting teacher salary of about $41,000.

Although labor organizations across the country have often opposed pay-for-performance programs, saying they can be imposed unfairly by management, union leaders at yesterday's news conference said that they like the voluntary nature of the county's program and that they had been invited to help design it from the beginning. The program, in the works for more than a year, is funded by a $17.1 million grant from the federal government. It begins next school year at 12 elementary, middle and high schools, and Superintendent John E. Deasy said he hopes to expand the program to the entire system in succeeding years. The schools in the pilot program are: Largo and Crossland high schools; Oxon Hill, G. Gardner Shugart, William Wirt and Nicholas Orem middle schools; and Bladensburg, Bradbury Heights, Clinton Grove, Morningside, Arrowhead and James H. Harrison elementary schools. Teachers will receive up to 50 percent of the $10,000 reward if their school and students meet targets for growth in academic achievement. They get 15 percent if they work in a hard-to-staff subject area such as math or science, another 15 percent if they complete an evaluation, and 20 percent for engaging in professional development and assuming positions of leadership.

For the full article, click here.
See related article: Performance-Pay Results Show Need for More Work on Concept, Education Week, March 3, 2008

Opinion: Poorest Schools Should be Home to Best Educators

-The Baltimore Sun; March 6, 2008

Would you put the least-experienced principals and lowest-paid teachers in Maryland's most troubled schools and expect the students there to succeed? Of course not. And yet, as Maryland State Board of Education President Dunbar Brooks recently pointed out, Maryland has many "high-cost" and "low-cost" schools that largely reflect the race and socioeconomics of the student population. In fact, these disparities have existed for a long time and remain severe, based on several studies completed by Advocates for Children and Youth. It's past time for the state to get serious about directing funds toward putting proven leaders and experienced teachers in some of our neediest schools.In 2003, Advocates for Children and Youth found that average teacher salaries in high-poverty schools in the city and Baltimore County were significantly less than teacher salaries in low-poverty schools. The differences meant that districts were spending as much as $1 million more on salaries for teachers in affluent schools.

Since then, salary differentials have widened as school districts have given large, flat-percentage salary increases to teachers. This provides more money to teachers who make higher salaries. The difference in average salaries among schools largely reflects the fact that high-poverty schools have teachers with less experience who transfer to more desirable schools as soon as possible. Last year, more than a third of classes in high-poverty schools statewide were taught by teachers who were not "highly qualified" as defined under the federal No Child Left Behind law. This was more than four times the rate in low-poverty schools. The same situation exists for principals. Advocates for Children and Youth recently found that principals in high-poverty schools often have no experience as instructional leaders. So those facing the greatest challenges often have the least experience to draw upon. Weaker instruction and instructional leadership are significant factors in persistent achievement gaps in Maryland. They also help explain a rise in school suspensions across the state.

For the full article, click here.

Education Funding Bill Passes House, Awaits Senate Action

-The Salt Lake Tribune; March 5, 2008

After about two hours of debate, the House today passed SB2, a far-reaching education funding bill into which lawmakers earlier this week merged 12 different measures. However, the omnibus education bill still must return to the Senate this afternoon for approval of an amendment dealing with a provision in SB2 that asks school districts to help fund charter schools. Representatives earlier in the session defeated the charter school bill, and many were unhappy the measure had reappeared in the omnibus bills. Under an amendment the House approved, school districts still will have to help pay for charter school students, but their obligation will be lower than originally planned.

In addition to the 12 education bills it encompasses, SB2 also includes $1,700 raises for educators and a 2.5 percent increase in per-pupil spending. Still up for debate in the House this afternoon is SB281 which would put, for one year, an additional $25 million toward $1,000 signing bonuses for new teachers, performance pay for teachers determined by districts and incentives for those seeking American Board Distinguished Teacher certification.Today, the final day of this year's legislation session, will be the first time the full House considers the bill, which prominent education groups oppose, saying they'd rather see the money simply added to per-pupil spending.

For the full article, click here.

State Schools Group: Proposed Funds are Not Enough

-The Virginia Pilot; March 5, 2008

Education advocates warned Tuesday that localities would be forced to cut programs, employ fewer teachers or raise real estate taxes to pick up the slack in public education funding in the House of Delegates' version of the two-year budget. Part of the more than $7 billion in proposed public education spending in each year of the biennium is dedicated to paying so-called rebenchmarking costs, which is new funding for schools to maintain basic standards. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has proposed about $943 million in new education funding in the upcoming two-year budget. The Virginia Education Association, which represents teachers, said the Senate budget plan sets aside about $874 million for those costs; the House budget has roughly $780 million. At a news conference Monday, education officials said the House proposal would devastate the ability of local governments to pay for schools.

The House proposal will not reduce the cost of educating our young people, but only serve to shift the costs of providing a high-quality public education for years to come," said Stu Gibson, a vice president with the Virginia School Boards Association. Opponents of the House plan say it will provide less state money to schools for salaries and other costs in future budgets because its assumptions are based on costs four years ago, not costs from the previous two years that are traditionally used.Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-Newport News, said such criticisms are invalid because within the entire budget, there is enough money for education. VEA officials said the House budget cuts $121 million in education funding that otherwise would go to pay raises for school employees, provide some health insurance coverage and offset federal funds.The House budget includes a 2 percent raise for teachers in the first year of the biennium, while the Senate has a 2.5 percent pay raise in the second budget year. Senate Republicans insist that the Senate's budget proposal is unconstitutional because of the way it handles lottery money earmarked for education. All of these issues are being worked on by 12 legislators - six from each chamber - appointed to craft a budget compromise before the General Assembly session ends Saturday.

For the full article, click here.