The Role of Induction in Building a World-Class      Teaching Profession 

By David Osta, NTC Associate Director of Policy

On October 3rd the New Teacher Center co-hosted a briefing and webinar with the Alliance for Excellent Education, to release an Alliance policy brief on teacher induction-A System Approach to Building a World-Class Teaching Profession: The Role of Induction. The paper and event, sponsored by the MetLife Foundation, is a fresh look at new teacher induction and mentoring which the Alliance previously addressed in 2004's Tapping the Potential: Retaining and Developing High-Quality New Teachers. Whereas Tapping the Potential framed new teacher induction primarily as a strategy to stem beginning teacher attrition, today induction has taken on increased importance as a key lever to accelerate the effectiveness of new teachers.

At the briefing, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, said,"To achieve a fundamental transformation of education and help students meet the higher performance set by the common core state standards, the very culture of how teachers are supported must change." The Alliance paper recognizes that new teacher induction has the greatest impact when it is integrated into the system of how schools, districts, and states define, measure, and improve the performance of all teachers.  Among the key factors that affect the integration of induction and mentoring into systemic teaching improvement efforts, we discuss school leadership, teaching conditions and state policy.

The report has some broad and important recommendations:

• Design comprehensive programs for new teachers that provide coaching and guidance by well-trained mentors.
• Develop systems that encourage high-quality educator development and teaching grounded in practices that have been proven effective.
• Determine the performance indicators that can reliably assess teacher competency and provide feedback to support professional learning.
• Communicate core expectations for teaching practice, invest in professional development, and create organizational conditions conducive to meaningful staff collaboration and development.

Read the Full Paper and Watch the Webinar

Read Education Week's Teaching Now blog about the release.

Read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Get Schooled blog.

The Alliance for Excellent Education's bi-weekly newsletter Straight A's featured the induction paper in its October 4, 2011 edition.

High-Quality Induction Strengthened in ESEA Bill  

• Develop a four-tier teacher compensation system with Apprentice, Career, Mentor and Master levels and substantial pay raises for teachers who move up.
• Establish Mentor teachers in every building in the state to coach student-teachers, new teachers, and veteran teachers toward improvement. Establish Master teachers in every building in the state to help in peer evaluation and to serve as instructional leaders along with principals.
• Create Apprentice principals who receive coaching and other training from more experienced leaders from districts and Area Education Agencies. Create Career principals for school administrators who demonstrate strong leadership and success in running buildings. Establish Mentor principals who would help coach Apprentice principals.
• Improve clinical (field-based) experiences for new teachers, making sure teacher candidates have high-quality mentors.
• Create a coaching system that helps all educators improve based on evaluations.

The Blueprint's release was preceded by months of stakeholder meetings and a July education summit. Following additional feedback, the Governor plans to submit a major proposal to the Legislature in 2012 to enact these ideas.

 Good Reads  

A "Capacity-Building" Approach to Effective Teaching

Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, writing in the publication Voices in Urban Education (from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform), argues for building the instructional capacity of teachers to close the achievement gap. Darling-Hammond describes why "test-based incentives are inadequate to support teaching quality and educational equity, and why ... a capacity-building approach is critically important to promote effective teaching."

Read the Paper 

The "Greening" Of The Teaching Force 

Twenty years ago the most common public-school teacher had 15 years of experience in the classroom. By 2007-08, the most typical American teacher was a beginner with only one or two years of experience. University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education Professor Richard Ingersoll and doctoral student Lisa Merrill recently analyzed federal Schools and Staffing Survey and Teacher Follow-Up Survey data to arrive at their conclusion about "the greening of the teaching force."

Read the Review of Research   

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards released the report Getting it Right: A Comprehensive Guide to Developing and Sustaining Teacher Evaluation and Support Systems. The report provides recommendations on effective ways of assessing teachers and is meant for districts and states to use in developing teacher evaluation and support systems. The guide was developed to ensure teachers have a voice in the type of support they receive to continuously improve their teaching practice.  

Bloomberg EDU  

Radio Interview of  

NTC CEO Ellen Moir

During this segment Jane Williams interviewed New Teacher Center (NTC) CEO, Ellen Moir about the upcoming school year and the fact that there will be 200,000 new teachers entering the profession. Moir talks about the history of the NTC and the importance of shifting our thinking to focus on the needs of new teachers. Moir says, "Teachers have been isolated in their classroom and there needs to be more of a collaborative process with support from the school. New teachers are hungry for feedback to help them accelerate student achievement."

Join us at NTC's 14th National Symposium on Teacher Induction  

The New Teacher Center's 14th National Symposium on Teacher Induction, "Shining a Light on Great Teaching", will be held February 5-7, 2012 in San Jose, CA. Experts in the field will share how high-quality induction, including mentoring and professional development, can accelerate the learning of beginning teachers and school leaders to improve student achievement. Join us as we put great teaching center stage!

Click here for more information

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