NTC Policy News: December 2012

December 2012

NTC Announces New Resources to Improve Teaching and Learning Conditions

Keri Church, Associate Director, Teaching and Learning Conditions Initiative

During the last five years, New Teacher Center (NTC) has conducted its Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) Survey in more than 20 states. Hearing from more than 769,000 educators about their teaching and learning conditions has allowed NTC to provide data and supports to more than 19,000 schools across the country.

Drawing upon this extensive work, we are excited to announce the release of our new TELL Resource Library. Designed to support schools seeking improved teaching and learning conditions and the use of the TELL Survey, this online resource provides links to free articles that support schools in addressing the core areas of the survey - Use of Time, Facilities and Resources, Community Support and Involvement, Managing Student Conduct, Teacher Leadership, School Leadership, Professional Development, Instructional Practices and Support, and New Teacher Support. In addition, the website features a section on Using TELL Data to improve schools.

We hope school leaders and improvement teams will find the TELL Resource Library to be useful in discussions on improving teaching and learning conditions. It provides a description of the TELL Initiative and breaks down resources intended for school leaders and improvement teams by type and by survey area. The site features the ability to login to bookmark and comment on articles, and to participate in discussions around the TELL constructs.

NTC has developed the resource library with funding from the Ohio Department of Education's Race to the Top grant. The TELL Ohio Initiative provides educators in schools across the state with data, tools and direct support to facilitate school improvement planning and address issues around teaching and learning conditions. In addition to conducting the TELL survey in Ohio, NTC provides supporting tools, webinars, and resources to participating schools.

NTC News

NTC Awarded $14.68 Million i3 Validation Grant

The U.S. Department of Education awarded New Teacher Center (NTC) a $14.68 million Investing in Innovation (i3) Validation grant yesterday to expand the organization's work to improve student achievement by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers. The total award of $16.15 million over five years, which includes a private match of ten percent, will allow NTC to expand its teacher induction programs in Broward County Public Schools in Florida, Chicago Public Schools in Illinois and Grant Wood Area Education Agency in Iowa. The project will serve 164,000 K-12 students and 2,475 first- and second-year K-12 teachers, with a primary focus on students in high-poverty schools.

"New Teacher Center's method of identifying and training talented, experienced teachers to mentor their newer colleagues addresses a persistent problem in our nation's education system, and ensures new teachers are great teachers from the get-go," says Ellen Moir, NTC founder and CEO. "We are grateful to the U.S.

Department of Education for believing in our work and helping us to expand our reach and impact, and for the generous support of our funders over the years."

Read NTC's news release

Wall Street Journal Features NTC's Work

The Wall Street Journal focused its December 5th article on teacher training in northern California, noting that the New Teacher Center developed regional teacher mentorship programs that spread across the nation. "New Teacher Center has helped set up mentoring or teacher-training programs in dozens of U.S. school districts, including in New York City and Chicago." With more than 200,000 new teachers entering the profession annually, there is a greater need for new teacher induction and mentoring programs across the United States.

Policy News

Colorado State Board of Education Releases 2013 Legislative Priorities

During its December 5th meeting, the Colorado State Board of Education approved 2013 Legislative Priorities. The nine priority categories are: school finance, great teachers and leaders, statewide system of accountability and support, standards and assessments, increased flexibility, innovation and choice, early childhood education, data collection and access, and state board authority. One of the priorities under Great Teachers and Leaders is to "create an aligned system of educator licensure, induction, professional development and evaluation."

Hawaii Charts 'Race to the Top' Progress

Hawaii's State Board of Education recently released a Year 2 Race to the Top progress report. "In 2011, only one state, Hawaii, demonstrated statistically significant improvement in both reading and mathematics at both the fourth and eighth grades," Jack Buckley, National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner, quoted in the Race to the Top Year 2 Report.

The report also notes that Hawaii trained 500 mentors and that 1,500 first- and second-year teachers received intensive training due to the new Hawaii Teacher Induction Program Standards. The standards require that all first- and second-year teachers receive intensive mentoring and that they also develop individual professional growth plans. Approximately one third of Hawaii's teachers have zero-to-three years in the profession.

Good Reads

AFT Aims to Raise Teaching Entry Standards

The American Federation of Teachers' (AFT) new report, Raising the Bar, outlines recommendations for raising entry standards for teacher preparation programs. AFT's stated goals are to eliminate the number of underprepared teachers left to 'sink or swim' upon entering the classroom and to ultimately improve teaching and learning. The AFT makes three recommendations: (1) The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards should lead the definition of a rigorous entry bar for beginning teachers; (2) An entry bar for teaching must include rigorous clinical preparation and a focus on teaching theory, an examination of subject-specific and pedagogical knowledge, and a performance assessment; and (3) The process for establishing the entry bar should include all key stakeholders, but be driven by teachers and teacher educators.

While NTC views this as a compelling call to action, we also believe that even the best-prepared teachers need intensive induction support in their initial years in the profession in order to accelerate and maximize their effectiveness.

Study: School Climate Affects New Teacher Retention

A recent study published in The Elementary School Journal reports the importance of novice teachers' perceptions of the administrative climate in schools as a strong predictor of their intent to continue teaching. Even after controlling for prior measures of intent, the study found that the probability of beginning elementary- and middle-school teachers' willingness to remain teaching in their present school is reduced when they perceive the quality of relations between school leaders and teachers to be poor.

New Teacher Evaluation in Washington State

In the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation blog, Impatient Optimists, John Prosser of Tacoma Public Schools addresses a Washington State convening to discuss the implementation of the state's new teacher evaluation system. Prosser writes that what they learned is no surprise: "[E]ffective teacher evaluations will do for teachers what effective student assessments do for students." Teachers said that they want an evaluation system with knowledgeable evaluators, clear goals, continuous conversations about improving practice, and collaborative professional learning connected to evaluation results. Participants also believed that teaching can be improved with practice and feedback.

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.