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Review of State Policies on Teacher Induction - Update
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 Liam Goldrick, Director of Policy
Earlier this month, in a special edition of NTC Policy News, we released our Review of State Policies on Teacher Induction. The analysis garnered significant attention in the education press as well as through social media.
Education Week's Teacher Beat blog, authored by the intrepid Stephen Sawchuk, featured our work. Sawchuk noted that many of our findings "parallel the teacher-evaluation discussion," such as the lack of specificity around the content or delivery of mentor training in state policy - and the similar lack of requirements around training of observers in evaluation systems. He also suggests that our review "raises a lot of cost-benefit questions for policymakers." Of course, we believe that the research evidence suggests that induction is a critical investment to accelerate beginning educator development, that states have an inherent interest in maximizing the effectiveness of every teacher and principal, and that such a policy and funding focus pays dividends throughout the educational system.
NTC was invited to contribute to a blog item to the State Consortium on Educator Effectiveness - an initiative of the Council of Chief State School Officers for which the NTC is an association partner. We also made headlines in the Rocky Mountains. Our review was featured in Education News Colorado's "Monday Churn."
You also may have seen mention of our review in policy newsletters and Twitter feeds, including the Alliance for Excellent Education, ASCD Accomplished Teacher, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Education Commission of the States, the Illinois Principals Association, the National Association of State Boards of Education, the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future, SeaChange Capital Partners, and Washington Partners LLC.
Thank you, all!
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Oregon School District Benefits from State-funded Mentoring Program
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The Salem-Keizer School District in Oregon has received $2.7 million dollars over the past four years as part of the Oregon Mentoring Program for Beginning Teachers and Administrators. The recipients of the largest share of state grant funding, Salem-Keizer feels that it has paid off as it has seen fewer than 10 percent of teachers leave the field during their first five years. Mentored teachers also have made gains in their teaching that are equivalent to that of teachers who have four-to-six years of experience.
The state program has been allocated $4.5 million in funding over the next two years, which is a decrease from the previous $4.9 million allocation. If state support were to decrease further, Salem-Keizer Assistant Superintendent Mary Cadez said it would be difficult to sustain the program. Instead, Cadez hopes to expand the program so that beginning teachers receive three years of support instead of two, however budget cuts make it unlikely that will happen immediately.
Read the Full Article
Read NTC's Oregon Policy Review
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Showing Teachers RESPECT
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Earlier this month U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced the launch of Project RESPECT (Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching). The purpose of RESPECT is to directly engage with teachers and principals all across America in a national conversation about teaching.
NTC was proud to have been provided the opportunity for several of our induction program leaders from around the nation to inform this initiative through a conversation with Madonna Ramp, a 2011-12 U.S. Department of Education (ED) Teaching Ambassador Fellow and a NTC-trained mentor in the Austin Independent School District, at the 2012 NTC National Symposium on Teacher Induction.
Read about Project RESPECT
Read the ED Press Release
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Focus on Developing Teachers, Not Simply Measuring Them
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On the Silicon Valley Education Foundation's Thoughts on Public Education blog, NTC policy director Liam Goldrick addresses the fact that many statewide policy efforts have centered on identifying and removing low-performing teachers. Goldrick argues that this approach doesn't address the fact that too few new and veteran teachers are supported in strengthening their knowledge and skills. Helping all teachers to succeed requires seeing and treating them as learners. "Policymakers should make teacher development a more central focus of their current efforts," he writes.
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Shame is Not the Solution, Opines Gates
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In Bill Gates's recent New York Times op-ed, he discusses the New York State Court of Appeals ruling that teachers' individual performance assessments can be made public. Gates says that the types of personnel systems that help teachers improve takes real commitment and is downplayed when teachers' performance evaluations are public. His statement that "developing a systematic way to help teachers get better is the most powerful idea in education today" underscores our contention - a point we made in the June 2011 policy newsletter - that evaluation systems must include two distinct components: (1) measuring teacher performance and (2) systems to develop and improve teacher performance. High-quality induction, on-the job professional development and supportive teaching conditions are necessary pieces of a systemic approach as suggested by Gates.
Read the Op-Ed
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NTC Policy News is a monthly publication by the New Teacher Center. It is produced with funding support from the Joyce Foundation. Based in Chicago, Illinois, the Joyce Foundation invests in initiatives to improve public education and works to close the achievement gap by improving the quality of teachers in schools that serve low-income and minority children.
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Position Announcement: Associate Director of Policy
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NTC seeks an Associate Director of Policy to join our team in Washington D.C. If you or someone you know is interested in applying, please look at the job posting.
View Job Description
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Spotlight on State Policy:
Induction Program Accountability
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Correction
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In our review of state induction policies, we inadvertently omitted New York from the group of states that provided dedicated induction program funding during the 2010-11 school year. The New York state policy summary references the $2 million Mentor Teacher Internship Program that supports 70 school districts, but in our paper we did not list New York with the other states that provided funding. With New York, 18 states (not 17) provided some amount of dedicated induction funding in 2010-11. Our apologies to the Empire State!
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About NTC
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New Teacher Center focuses on improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers by providing high-quality mentoring and professional development, strengthening school leadership, and working to enhance teaching conditions.
Learn More
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