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.
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Stein says, “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”
What he should have said is “For judging the effectiveness of teachers, the federal government should require states and districts to develop separate longitudinal data systems that allow school administrators and principals to use value-added data to measure and track the impact of parents, of home environment, of school administrations, of the local political environment, of community standards and community financial support, of mainstreaming handicapped students, on individual student achievement, etc. etc.”
Unless and until all these plus similar and uncontrolled variables can be assessed and weighed, teachers will never feel comfortable with merit evaluations and merit pay.
I absolutely, wholeheartedly agree!
I'm not seeing the rush of folks who have high paying jobs into teaching..
The problem is a lack of leadership. Administrators come and go in my district on an average of every three years. They come in. Try to shake things up. Pad their resumes. Leave us teachers to clean up the mess and train the next guy.
Fortunately, seeing the growth of my students over four years of high school makes all the idiocy worth it.
As a teacher I feel your pain. Just keep speaking the truth. I've recently had some great success in the classroom. That makes the business worth it.
In this computer age, why is education still about chalk boards, number 2 pencils, and the perpetual drama over teachers?
Let's develop some really good interactive computer programs for all the basic subjects and let kids learn at their own pace. Students would receive immediate personalized feedback and their education would not depend on the luck of getting good teachers.
Classroom lectures are boring for the good students and ineffective or embarassing for those struggling with the material. And for this we pay how many billions?
First paragraph: Money.
Second paragraph: Teachers' unions and Parents.
Third paragraph: Too many.
Good data.
Where'd you get such useful information?
Sounds like you know a great deal on the topic.
lol
Are you serious? . . . Really? . . . Now, I am no opponent of using technology for educational purposes. However, I would be very suspicious of using these technologies for rudimentary instructional purposes. Would interactive software be able to see the expression of a students as they either struggle or succeed? There are too many unquantifiable aspects to the learning process to rely solely on interactive software. Use it as a supplement to existing instruction? Certainly.
What many seem to miss is that teaching is neither art nor science. It is a craft. Teacher education programs can help to prepare aspiring teachers. Experience, desire, and aptitude are the ingredients that transform a beginning teacher into his or her best.
However, teachers are but one component of the educational system in America.
Chalk boards and lectures? What decade did you go to school?
Interactive computer programs exist. They've been developed, and promoted, and bought, and implemented, and junked, for decades. My school is buying an expensive new program for next year.
Most of them are cr@p. Snake oil from profit centers. But even when they aren't, the main problem with intensive computer instruction is that people are social. Learning is social. Computers are impersonal.
I love my computers. I love my projection system. I love using BrainPop and youtube and Google earth and a hundred other resources with students. Technology can be fun, and it can be productive.
But the reason kids can stand to come back to class day after day, year after year, is to be with other kids. And the best education takes place in the midst of social interaction. Computers can't come close.
I think this is the way it will go. I predicted years ago that most secondary education would be done by computers. Students can go at their own pace; it would be cheaper; you could just hire some "bouncer" to monitor behavior. ( If a student acted up you'd have to send them home--don't know how that would work out) When the material was mastered, the student would move on. I think that it would end up being more boring than having a teacher though.
You last sentence is the most correct.
That's the main problem.
My kids are grown, so I have not followed developments in public education closely. I found the discussion here with the first-hand experiences of teachers, ex-teachers, parents, etc. really valuable.
I don't know the facts about merit pay and teacher tenure. I do know from a daughter who works with teachers that the classroom pressures are already excessive and likely to increase with the economic problems we face.
I also know from reading "The Daily Howler" online (where public education is a closely followed topic, even though the general focus is on mass media) that we tend to find the worst information coming from the msm. The general prejudice is that public schools are failing, but there is evidence that they do better than usually given credit for. That's only a little comfort but dumping on our schools is a cheap shot.
The weak links in the chain of teacher effectiveness must begin with the colleges and universities that train (or fail to train) student teachers, and then with the all too weak administrative cadre within the schools that is supposed to "evaluate" their performance once they are hired.
The problem with a strictly value added and statistical approach is that it looks only at results, which in a few extreme cases are beyond the ability of even the best of teachers to manage or control.
That said, what we all know from visiting schools that all children can be taught more effectively than they currently are in far too many classes--and a substantial number of veteran teachers are as much in need of re-education in this area as new teachers are.
A system must be devised that is cut loose from mere measurements as to outcomes, but which instead focuses on a teacher's ability to meet students where they are, to engage them, and that requires full participation and productivity from all who are in the classroom.
Our most significant obligation, it seems to me, is not to guarantee outcomes or to close gaps. That's too tall an order, and would require some substantial conjuring. What we can do, however, is ensure that each and every teacher in the classroom is a true teacher in the fullest sense of the word.
Ever heard of mainstreaming?
You have to mix in the ADD kids, those with learning disabilities and other problems ("different learning styles"), right in with the ones who might learn normally. Let's call them special needs kids. You can't evaluate their success very well using standardized tests. Some of them have to be tested orally, etc.
But over and over everything gets piled on the teachers. It is all their responsibility.
Mr. Klein sounds like the typical administrator, the bane of education. Lets name some ideals, things that are impossible, and make the teachers responsible for getting it done. Nobody will help the teacher, nobody will remove the kids who can't learn in a normal classroom. but we can sure blab about lofty ideas the teacher should accomplish. OK, here is a sure fire way to raise the test scores of those kids: increase the income of their parents enough to put the family in a higher SES category.
Don't get me wrong. I had one of those ADD kids. He had to learn by actual experience, top quality private schools, etc. But I can see it from the teacher's viewpoint.
Hear! Hear! The Special Education Industry has successfully dumbed down public education for all. The NCLB testing has just hastened the dumbing down process.
There you go.This is what I've thought for a few years; teaching high school, I have seen the deleterious effects of No Child Gets Ahead. It's amazing how much of what gets implemented is driven by Sp. Ed. They're all afraid of lawsuits; i.e., "you're leaving my kid behind with your complex and abstract curriculum. You must dumb it down so that my child can pass." Ridiculous !
Mr. Klein:
I've taught in many underprivileged schools and, of course, have seen the achievement gap. However, sad to say, the answer to this chronic problem is not primarily within the schools. The answer is within the families that these children are raised. As I'm sure you know, the Hart-Risely study has shown the devastating effects that the lack of exposure to language has on youngsters. There is no way that the schools and teachers can magically undo this. Granted, all schools should try to find new ways to reach children who have not been exposed to language, reading, and learning in the home, but it is an uphill struggle. It's so easy for people to blame the schools and teachers, rather than the parents. Though there are some bad teachers, the vast majority want only the best for those they serve. Wake up, America. We need intervention in the homes of the most needy in order to see any real change in the "bad" schools.
I totally agree with you. Parental involvement is the catalyst that is necessary to create the Elixir of Success.
Mr. Klein is living in a fantasy world. The first mistake he made in his article is proposing the micromanaging of teachers and educators for the purpose of pretending; therein lies the solution. The first mistake Blacks and Hispanics make in soaking up the plethora of educationa
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Hear hear ... I taught in the US in the late Seventies. Now I'm looking to come back to the US and teach again. I avoided the Education School at my university like the plague. Early on, I was told it was 'cut and paste' and - to teach foreign languages - I was told I had to take a plethora of education theory courses and a minimum of language courses. I was striving to teach living languages. In the end, I took the absolute minimum education courses I needed to get certified: Child & Adolescent Psych and Practice Teaching. At the end of the day, a good teacher is a good communicator. If you can't get the message across in an effective manner, you have no reason being at the front of a classroom.
Education was ruined years ago when politicians found that they could get votes by promising to make the voters' children smart. The crap that they have loaded onto the system through the years ensnares teachers in a spider web of folly. Most of the lawmakers who add the crap have no clue what happens in a classroom. It's all for votes. They would encourage parents to take part in the process and require their offspring to study and work to learn, if they were leaders, but we do not have leaders in office much any more. They chase votes and then turn around to find a lobbyist to hand over the lucre while they pass the laws preprinted for them to introduce in order to benefit a host of shadowy entrepreneurs.
First grade teachers should receive the highest pay, scaling downwards for other teachers of elementary- and middle-school years. Students need a Love of Learning--get teachers who are best at instilling that at the earliest ages. That makes it easier for teachers further along each student's path, and it best serves the students. (Of course, determining the criteria for "instilling a love of learning" is more difficult than comparing test scores... but it's worth pursuing, and worth debate on how to accomplish it.)
By high school, general education is still needed, but by then the students should also be receiving classes much more specialized than what came before. Instead of so many full-time high school teachers, perhaps we need more full-time teachers' aides--a disciplinarian, class sergeant-at-arms position (one who has gotten to know the individual students, and knows the inter-personal dynamics of class members)--with the bulk of the teaching coming from retirees of professions in all the relevant fields. That's not ideal for keeping science students up on the latest breaking-edge development, but with so many classrooms using 20-year old textbooks, we can live with it for the moment.
Dump "Abstinence Only" sex education. Where necessary to keep it to placate parents in particularly conservative areas, offer both forms, and let parents choose placement.
NEVER let a child sit bored in a class because others need to catch up. That is pure death to the spirit of the thing.
Once edited down, that 250-word limit made this come out a bit different from what I originally intended. There's a lot I would change in that post, but most important:
Quality teachers at all levels are extremely important. I emphasize first grade because, if students decide they hate school then, it's very hard to get them turned around later. Failing a subject should not require that a student repeat a year of school. Repeat the class, sure... but repeat the entire school year? That's a student who you will probably never pull out of the learning slump.
High school students should spend less time in class-rooms and more time out in the field confronting real-world problems. A sizable percentage of them are a couple years, at best, from opting out of schooling and trying to work as grownups; they need better preparation.
The conciliatory remark I made regarding sex education was dumb. Eliminate "Abstinence Only" programs completely. Sex education should consist of what society wants young adults to know about sex, and any parent who disagrees is free to spout off about it at home.
My final paragraph was perfect as is.
Loved your comment about first grade teachers. My wife taught grade 1 for most of her career and she would come home every day, energized by the wonder and innocence of her charges and would regale me with stories of their activities.
Her room was a beehive of activity, gaudily decorated and often visited by parents even as classes were going on. Politicians dropping by or out-of-town visitors didn't phase her because it was always about the children.
Even meeting them out of school was a treat for her, a reaction that was typical of the children and parents as well. She had that magical touch that I also saw in many college and university teachers that I supervised over the years. There is a special kind of enthusiasm that you can easily recognize but can never quantify that makes a successful teacher. And you either have it or you don't
Certification accounts for about 4% of student performance differences. Other than immutable factors, what else accounts for that much variance in student performance? Seriously, name one thing. I know it's popular to criticize these standard by folks who run major urban school systems, like the author and Michelle Rhee, but certified teachers do achieve better results.
I am also not sure about the value of "value-added" models. After ten years of research, the year-to-year rank order correlation of teacher and school level measures of value add are just about zero. Why? Most of it is non-random construct irrelevant variance. Example: A great teacher passes on students to a very good teacher - regression to the mean punishes the very good teacher unfairly. The very good teacher appears to be a bad teacher because they inherit great kids who might not be able to learn at the same rate going forward.
Folks like Mr. Klein need to get familiar with the performance management literature, which tends to minimize so-called "objective" or "hard" criterion measures. They are hardly objective in the scientific sense, and rarely present a complete picture of performance. The best organizations use hard criterion to inform performance evaluation based in human judgments of the effectiveness of their behaviors.
Mr. Klein,
You raised many great points but don't foget that a love for learning begins in the home.
That means parents reading to their kids while having many books in the home throughout life. It means discussion and reading a daily newspaper. It means valuing education as a way of life and not only as a means to getting employment.
A motivated student can overcome a bad school system but a great school system cannot help an unmotivated student.
I taught 18 years in inner city schools. Some of my kids went to Berkeley, Princeton, and other top-tier schools. Many went to UCLA and other UC schools. An intelligent, self-motivated kid will make it. Unfortunately, the single most reliable predictor of success in school is still the parents' educational level. Universal preschool will help, but mandatory parent education would probably help more.
I'm not the biggest fan of Joel Klein, but some of these suggestions may have merit. The one point he and almost everyone else in education reform seems to forget is that education rests on LEARNING. Teachers are often taught as trainers (cramming "knowledge" in), not educators (leading knowledge out). We need a full overhaul of educational research, education reform, and teacher education and credentialing in a way that puts learning and learners at the center. What are the problems they are facing, the skills they need to meet their emerging world, the different ways of knowing they already have developed.
I've been a high school English teacher for 8 years. I have an M.A. in English; I've achieved National Board Certification and regularly avail myself of professional development opportunities beyond my state-mandated requirements. My students' test scores are consistently high. I'm good at my job; I like it, and I think it is important. I didn't go into teaching for the money, and I am quite capable of getting a higher-paying job. I work with some extremely talented and dedicated teachers, and I work with a few teachers who should definitely be fired. I agree with many of Mr. Klein's suggestions. It should be more difficult for teachers to gain tenure. Teachers should be able to prove that they advance student learning. My concern is that for many states, including mine, evaluations of teacher success and student learning are determined almost solely by high-stakes standardized testing. Testing is one measure of student progress; it is not the only measure, and this trend is dangerously simplistic. Also, if states want quality teachers, they are going to have to pay them. I love my job, but I am not sure how much longer I can afford to remain in public education.
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