Transforming the Teaching Profession

Eliminating the racial and ethnic achievement gap in our nation's public schools is the most urgent civil rights challenge for this generation.

I co-founded the Education Equality Project to address the injustice and inequity that African-American and Latino students confront every day in their schools.

Poor and minority students will never get their fair share of educational opportunity -- and are far more likely to lead unsuccessful lives -- until administrators and political leaders commit to fundamentally changing the way teachers are recruited, rewarded, and retained. The goal is as easy to articulate as it is hard to realize: that every classroom will one day be led by an effective instructor who demonstrably advances student learning.

Here are specific ways we can do it.

1) Lower irrelevant entry barriers to the teaching profession. Advanced degrees and certification are not linked to producing effective teachers, and traditional schools of education typically attract lower-achieving college students from less competitive institutions. Alternative certification programs, like the Defense Department's Troops to Teachers initiative, are already demonstrating that mid-career and retiring professionals could provide a rich source of new teaching talent, particularly in high-need subject areas in inner-city schools like math and science.

2) The federal government should require states and districts to develop longitudinal data systems that allow school administrators and principals to use value-added data to measure and track the impact teachers have on student achievement. To move toward a performance-based system for teachers, school districts will need to have information that tracks the effect that individual teachers are having on student performance from year-to-year for a number of years. Performance-based metrics must not only be fair but transparent.

3) States and districts should be encouraged and free to use a variety of outcome-based measures to evaluate teacher effectiveness. One proviso: any system that states devise to evaluate teacher performance should include student test scores as a key measuring stick--and should not succumb to the temptation to substitute input-based measures to gauge teacher effectiveness, like licensure status and education credentials, that have been shown to have no connection to effective teaching. While student test scores over a multiyear period should figure prominently in value-added assessments of teacher performance, they should not be the only measure of effectiveness.

4) Every school and district should assess and document the impact that probationary teachers have on student learning from the moment they enter the classroom. Fledgling teachers should receive better professional development support, including on-the-job mentoring and supervision from peers and master teachers. Just as barriers to entering the teaching profession should be lowered, barriers to earning tenure must be raised.

5) To transform tenure into a progress-based prerogative, states and districts should require tenure candidates to demonstrate that they are effectively boosting student learning. At the same time, the least-effective probationary instructors should be denied tenure.

6) To stem the suburban tide, urban school districts should pay large bonuses -- on the order, perhaps, of 25 percent of annual compensation -- to effective teachers who stay to teach disadvantaged students. Teachers who raise student achievement should receive large bonuses for teaching in high-poverty schools and extra compensation for teaching core subjects in shortage areas like math and science. At present, top-notch instructors often end up leaving inner-city schools to teach at suburban schools that are closer to home, less disruptive, and pay higher salaries.

7) Tenured teachers should periodically be reassessed to ensure that they are still raising student achievement. Tenured instructors who are doing a good job should receive significant merit pay hikes. But persistently incompetent teachers should be dismissed -- after getting a chance to improve their performance. In much the same spirit, unionized teachers should enjoy the due process protections and seniority rights afforded to other white-collar professionals -- but not be shielded by excessive due- process requirements from meaningful job performance assessments or layoffs.

Transforming the teaching profession into a merit-based system will not be easy. But urban school reform and closing the achievement gap can no longer be secondary to protecting the prerogatives of union representatives, district bureaucrats, and professors at teachers colleges. Some of the reforms we need to create real opportunity for disadvantaged students and boost learning for all students are sure to be politically charged. They threaten a vast educational establishment that for decades has privileged the needs of adults over children.

The good news is that this radical transformation of the teaching profession could again help make education the great equalizer in America -- and not an ongoing source of inequity and injustice.

On Saturday May 16th, on the 55th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education I will be joining with civil rights leaders, education reformers, students, teachers, parents and concerned citizens at the White House Ellipse to issue a call to action. That call begins with improving teacher quality in our public education system.

Comments

[hdbooth]

(...continued)
The number 1, 2, and 3 solutions should be: Pay teachers more. We used to hear: "You can't solve problems by throwing money at them," as an argument not to spend more money on education, but we throw money at every other industry (if it has good lobbyists). This is all about power. Teachers don't have the power, influence, or money. Thinking about this issue makes me realize that our education system is what you get when you make decisions based primarily on the profit motive. Who suffers? Those that can't afford private schools. Oh, and if throwing money at the problem doesn't work for education, why do the wealthy and powerful spend $15,000 or more a year to send their children to private schools?

I went to public school in a large poor, very racially mixed city. I went into math probably because of the wonderful math teachers I had. One became a principal (to earn more money). The other quit when the state imposed new continuing education requirements that would make hm take an extra class (he was nearly 60 and was a great teacher already). Where I live now there is - or was - an AP Calculus teacher who was so good that every single student in his AP Calculus class would get a 5 on the AP exam. Every one. But he needed to earn more money and is now working at the Board of Education. What a loss.

It's the money.

[hdbooth]

I agree that closing the gap in minority education needs to be a priority. I teach math at a state university and my minority students are woefully under-prepared in math. I don't blame them; my daughter just went through public middle school and had 2 years of appallingly poor math instruction.

You have to have no other options or be practically a saint to want to attempt the incredibly difficult job of teaching under-privileged kids a difficult subject for very little pay, very high stress, less and less freedom in how you do your job, and more and more pressures applied to evaluate you. If you can't even get good people to apply, why do you think adding more hoops to jump through, more stringent requirements to meet is going to make them want to do it more?

To be continued...

[GreenTeacher]

Merit-based pay seems to get a lot of traction from pundits with a corporate or organizational background. Unfortunately, this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of teachers: we are not principally motivated by pay, either positively or negatively. Merit-based pay, through bonuses or actual salaries, is often suggested for the purposes of attracting and retaining the “best teachers” for under-served communities. What these proposals fail to acknowledge is that highly-qualified new teachers already often seek positions in urban districts such as Chicago, but most burn out and either leave the district or quit teaching altogether within five years. Salary is almost never the chief reason given for that attrition. Teachers, above all, require support from administrators. This takes many forms, such as professional development, mentor evaluations (not tied to pay), but especially a sense that the administrators will respect and defend a teacher against unwarranted criticism from either the district bureaucracy or the parent community.

If money is to be spent directly on schools, the area of most urgent need is that of classroom budgets, not teacher pay. The neediest schools in many urban districts suffer from a critically impairing lack of supplies from textbooks to paper to pencils. A much greater improvement could be made if all the money proposed for merit bonuses were instead distributed evenly as budget increases for every classroom.

[jbax52]

GreenTeacher is right--teachers are not usually motivated by the money. They go to the suburbs for a better teaching situation--better discipline mainly. Until the money is focused at the CAMPUS level for more administrators to handle discipline, monitor hallways, classrooms, etc. instead of at central admin. things won't improve. Until people SUPPORT educators and value education (more than sports or cheerleading), things won't improve. Teachers are not miracle workers. If the parents do not value education, do not make th effort to encourage and discipline their children, the education system will not improve, no matter what you do.

[NotesFromME]

Exactly right.

[RobinSeattle]

Unfortunately, this article focuses, as too many do, on scrutinizing teachers without any proposals to evaluate and fix the gross incompetence and fiscal mismanagement of local school boards. Basically, by having school boards, we allow amateurs who have never taught one student or undergone one minute of pedagogical training to make the day to day decisions as to how our children are educated. In the private sphere, allowing amateur outsiders to tun things just isn't done and with good reason.

So you get horrible monuments to educational malpractice like the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Mississippi and South Carolina school systems (the latter sees a 53% high school graduation rate) and yes, the New York City public schools, just to name three.

Let's abolish the antiquated and no longer useful institution of school boards, dissolve the school districts and allow children to attend any public school they want rather than making them captives of those districts and come up with a way to make both teachers and politicians own the educational outcomes of their constituents. Without school board reform or abolition, any proposals regarding teachers are spinning your wheels.

[RobinSeattle]

That obviously read "to name four." among other typos in my comment. Sorry for being so sloppy.

[RobinSeattle]

That should obviously read, "to name four." among other typos in my comment. Sorry for being so sloppy.

[cqyates]

I would just like to say as a recent grad from a top tier public university....

you gotta be crazy to be a teacher!

Here in GA a new teacher,

1. has to go through up to six months of hoops and testing to have a shot at getting hired
2. makes the equivalent of 17.00 dollars an hour (about what a payroll admin makes)
3. is treated like a child with ridiculous rules about dress codes and never leaving campus during the school day.

I passed on it, so did my sister (a UCLA theatre grad with a stellar resume) and my neighbor too ( a music major who plays like 100 different instruments)

[RobinSeattle]

I had also wanted to be a teacher, but then the culture wars got out of control, school boards were shown all over to be comprised of boobs and the system is rife with non-supportive administrators afraid more of lawsuits than keeping a firm disciplinary hand on students made me decide to head for the private sector. And the layoffs and cutbacks schools have been enduring the last few years as more and more states fell into deficits show my decision was ultimately correct..

I pity teachers for the garbage they have to put up with.

[classicalgeek]

My mother pressured me to go into teaching, since I have a master's degree and speak several languages, and I had been teaching in Europe, at every level from kindergarten through university. I turned out not to be qualified for anything without another academic degree AND a teaching degree, so I gave up and decided to teach privately.

The tests to pass certification, on the other hand, are so low that I passed the practice physics certification despite my only exposure to physics being a two-week module in eighth grade, and having dated a couple of physicists. But I can't certify for anything without a bar code from an institution, which I can't get without enrolling in a program.

You are never going to convince people to switch from successful careers unless 1) there are no other jobs left; 2) you don't have to go get two more degrees for the sole purpose of passing an exam you could have passed in high school on your worst day.

So I went into private teaching, which pays me four times what a beginning teacher makes, I get to set my own rules, and I don't have to spend countless hours filling out mind-numbing paperwork or following some rule which was well-intentioned, but whoever made it didn't think about the law of unintended consequences.

[ntmessage]

More and more competent people like yourself must stand up so they can be counted and provide input or even service to this administration. I understand it is almost a thankless and even career-shaking move to work with folks on the other side of the aisle with the paranoid psychitsophrenic GOP thinking they can throw anyone with common sense under the bus for helping the United States and the American people in a form they do not like.

Please continue to provide the truly pragmatic and progressive thinking you have espoused in practice to this administration. They are demonstrating competency and we need more and more of it today, than ever we even have in our history.

Many on the far left that simply wish to demonize those with other good ideas will fail when competency becomes the norm.

[gaudete]

Want to really transform the teaching profession? Open up the public schools' virtual monopoly to competition from private schools, which can only happen when we stop double charging parents of private school kids through tuition and taxation. When you read the words 'public schools,' think 'government schools,' as in places of government propagandizing of our kids. Government schools, from the good folks who brought us the government post office and government IRS. Public school teachers and their political supporters, you're not afraid of a little competition, are you? BTW, i attended public schools in the 60's, before they had become PC bastions of left wing dogmatism. We even had young idealistic female Jewish teachers from NY, who introduced us to the dreadle, menorah etc., thus broadening our understanding of our culture, and no one felt compelled to convert to Judaism.

[jbax52]

gaudete...Give me a break--I taught in public schools and they are bastions of conservatism--not liberalism. I just love it whenever I hear this argument about public schools "competing" with private ones. I am all in favor of that competition--as long as all of us have to abide by the SAME rules. In other words, ALL schools would have to accept anyone who walks through the door. Private schools could no longer turn away behavior problems, kids with no parental support, emotionally disturbed kids, and special ed. kids. You would have to abide by all the same regulations for special education, IEPs, and the like. Competition has to be based on the same rules for both teams. Studies have already shown that when the same type/level of students are compared, public schools did just as well as private ones. I don't want the government to use my tax money to fund any school unless it operates on the same playing field as public schools. That would be unfair and unequal.

[gaudete]

jbax52 says: "I taught in public schools and they are bastions of conservatism--not liberalism. " giggle. I haven't seen a private school yet that spends half its time of showing kids how to put condoms on cucumbers, that Sally has 2 mommies, that the US is the historical source of all the problems in the world, that what someone wrote on a bathroom wall in Iowa is as worthy as Shakespeare, that we don't have to memorize our addition and multiplication tables, that the term "the middle ages" is the same as "the Dark ages," etc., rather than teaching the 3 R's.

[cornflower]

It's the students who are supposed to be competing, not the schools.

[lcdbsez]

With all due respect, Mr. K. . . .

It's the system, stupid!

What we have now, is a warehousing system, where children are dumped, each day, for 8-10 hours, so society won't have to deal with them. If one reads their history, the main reason the 11th and 12th grades were added to the curriculum was to remove idle youths from the streets, etc., b/c they were causing trouble, or had the potential to do so.

And, as any parent knows, children who are treated like pieces of furniture, will not stay passive very long.

What's needed is a process by which students can be taught the basics until the age of 13, then directed towards a career path -- of their choosing -- with a goal of entering the job market at the age of 16 for apprenticeship with a partnering business concern (technology, manufacturing, hospitality, sports, arts, etc.), or proceed to an academic institution for preparation for college.

The bottom line is, these kids cause trouble in the classroom -- and trouble for the teachers -- b/c they simply don't want to be there. Get them out of the classroom, and into a job.

If they want to be a drain on someone, let it be the parents -- or some other entity in society other than the schools -- they're not equipped to handle a job that big.

[RobinSeattle]

Sorry lcdbsez, but your proposal is way too sensible and thus will never happen.

My proposal is likd of like yours: finish all basic education by ninth grade with the high school years devoted to polishing academic (for college) or vocational skills, each with its own track and only the students, in consultation with their parents, choosing which track they resort to.

But again, that makes too much sense, so it won't happen.

"The bottom line is, these kids cause trouble in the classroom -- and trouble for the teachers -- b/c they simply don't want to be there. Get them out of the classroom, and into a job."

Absolutely true. I knew lots of kids who were intelligent enough, but lit and math just didn't interest them. They would rather have been working on mechanical stuff because they found machines interesting or working construction or something.

[jbax52]

I agree with lcdbsez. When schools did away with vocational programs and began trying to force every student to move to the college prep track, things started to go downhill. Face it people, not all kids want to go to college. Not all are equipped for it. That does not mean they are any less "valuable." Heck, people that have a trade today make more than most college graduates. When we try to guarantee that everyone can go on to college, we end up lowering standards and shortchanging both academically oriented and the more hands-on type of student. A college education is no more valuable to society than a plumber, carpenter, mechanic, artist, etc. Supposedly, we value individual student abilities and learning styles, but then we want to use the same test for all students to evaluate achievement. It doesn't make sense.

[idealisticNM]

jbax52 said: "Supposedly, we value individual student abilities and learning styles, but then we want to use the same test for all students to evaluate achievement."

Spot on! You are totally right.

I am a high school English teacher in a medium-sized city; I love it the challenges of teaching these nutty teenagers. But this No Child Gets Ahead act has really wrecked the system. And it is precisely your statement that encapsulates the problem. All this business of bending over backwards to accommodate different learning styles and all that, merely has the effect of diluting the curriculum so that they can all pass. It's insane. I love my job, but you should all teach for a day to see the insanity that gets passed on down to us from on high.

[RobertHenryEller]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html?em

David Brooks' article, The Harlem Miracle, is apropos

[ExpatriateNotExpatriot]

How about more learner centered constructivist educational philosophies being embraced by the schools so that students can learn to problem solve not just spit out what they are supposed to memorize?
How about updating technology in the school and using more vibrant interactive media to engage students and allow teachers more time to work with students individually?
How about not forcing students into a classroom environment that was popularized in the early 1900s? (Teacher centered , little rows, all children the same age. It doesn't work without behavioralist bullcrap.)
How about allowing and paying for teachers to update their skills every year if they wish? (Trust me good teachers are going to want to do this!)

We are living in an era where we can get any information we want on the web. Students are used to being able to research anything at their fingertips. Waiting for information out of a teacher who has to deal with behavioral problems just so she can speak? It dulls the mind of the bright and interested.

My husband and I live overseas teaching where we are paid well and treated respectfully by students and administration. We will come home to teach once he gets additional schooling in mathematics, and try our hand at the educational system there under the changes we hope to see with the Obama administration. I am not sure if we will stay if it's anything like it was even 10 years ago.

[nsmavrik]

He we go again.

Every Tom, Dick, and Joel thinks they know the secret to fixing education. I am here to say, that you don't know jack, Joel.

Blame the teachers. Blame the teachers. Blame the teachers.

I have heard that by so many naysayers that I have to quote a movie "Clerks", "You sound like an A$$#@!& when you say that".

There will NEVER be an understanding of education without addressing THE key issue.

You CAN NOT EDUCATE EVERY SINGLE STUDENT. Case closed.

Everyone thinks and assumes that you can. There used to be a class of people called "high-school drop outs". Where are they now? Nowhere. You know why? The public high-school system DOESN'T FAIL ANYONE ANYMORE. They pass them along.

Ever wonder why there has been a sharp increase in enrollment in Community Colleges? It is of all those high-school students who don't have the grades to make it into a four-year college, but somehow ended up "passing" high-school.

And you think that teachers are solely responsible for this?

Do you honestly think that administrators have had nothing to do with the failure of public education?

[psweeii]

So with a little research one can find that Mr. Joel Klein has never taught or served in the education field. Instead he is just another corporate hack given a powerful position of authority to make horrible calls of accountability for teachers.

http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/mediarelations/ChancellorsBiography/Chancellors+Bio.htmm)

Why don't we bring in these kinds of experts to fix/improve other government programs like the police, fire, and military departments? This of course would be unacceptable without any experience so why do we constantly bring these Mr. Klein-types into education to fix our alleged education problems?

Still no one has been able to answer the real question. Should our children be treated like a factory commodity? This is exactly what we do when teachers teach to standardized testing. Our country’s education can't be constantly compared to the Asian models of year-round schooling were students are still pushed to breaking points. Education systems in other parts of the world are supported, respected, and known to be an investment in a country’s future well being. Stop blaming our underpaid teachers who have constant continual professional training, go through many assessments from administrators before they reach tenure, and weed themselves out job and quite more than any other profession.

NYC Schools and the Huffingtonpost should start looking beyond those who believe in getting tougher in education and start thinking more progressively like today's teachers about how our children learn best with the newest innovative teaching theories..

[WritusMaximus]

"...horrible calls of accountability for teachers." No one wants it, that there accountability! We must never judge, don't we know!

[JusdaTruth]

Is it accountability?. I think it's Union Busting and "education on the cheap" for the poor.

[mlaiuppa]

If you're not attracting the brightest and best to your school district maybe you should look at the competition. If the math and science majors can get an entry level job that starts at $75,000 with full medical and work in an air conditioned office with adequate supplies, why should they work for you? Working a 60 hour week rather than 40 hours in the private sector. The private sector gives employees time off and pays for advanced training. Teachers do it on their own time on their own dime.

You can't base merit pay on student test scores. Not when teachers have no control over all of the factors influencing student's achievement. Like being homeless and sleeping in their car the night before the test.

You can't base merit pay on administrator's evaluations. Principals are known to be petty and vindictive. They'll reward their buddies and retaliate against trouble-making teachers, who coincidentally are the best teachers on campus.

As a Chancellor I'll bet you want your teachers to be creative, but not to do anything different. You want them to think outside the box as long as they don't change the way things are done.

Tell me. When do your high schools start? 10 am? Studies show adolescent brains start to function about that time. If your high schools start at 7 am you're a hypocrite.

You can either put your money where your mouth is or put your foot in it.

[WritusMaximus]

Merit pay NOT based on student academic achievement. Quite a brilliant idea!

[JusdaTruth]

WritusMaximus : Is this Joel? Or is it just my teacher's intuition?

[mlaiuppa]

What about students who don't value learning? Who make fun of their fellow students for being high achievers? What about black students who call other black students who study hard and get good grades "White"?

What about inadequate schools? What about high class sizes? Out of date textbooks? Not enough materials?

What about a school year based on an archaic agrarian calendar releasing students during harvest months to help in the fields?

What about an outdated curriculum based on providing minimum literacy to factory line workers?

There is so much wrong with the current system that such shallow "fixes" as bell schedules or merit pay aren't going to fix them.

You propose to "fix" teachers by "dumbing down requirements"? You really thing having a master's degree isn't an asset? You think any high school graduate should be able to teach?

[WritusMaximus]

You make too much sense. The AFT leadership is sure NOT to invite you to its next meeting.

[robco]

Home life is very important. My parents read to me a lot and encouraged me to read and learn. If I got in trouble at school, I got in worse trouble at home - they wouldn't yell at the teacher instead. I also understood early on that entertainers and celebrities were rare and that even if I were to aspire to become one, I'd need an education in case it (likely) didn't work out. I was also encouraged to think of scientists, astronauts, etc. as people to look up to and emulate as well.

But I will admit I had opportunity. I went to a working-class suburban school system. Not wealthy, but we had supplies. We had computers early on and materials for science labs. I was strongly encouraged to go to college and many of my classmates and I did. My parents did as well.

We seem to be stuck in an anti-intellectual phase in the US however. Most of the right-wing pundits are college drop-outs. Speaking and writing properly and being able to spell is "elitist". We seem to have forgotten that while JFK inspired us to go to the moon, it was a bunch of nerdy scientists and engineers that got us there. And who have made our modern means of communicating and sharing information - like HuffPost for example - possible.