May 2014

Is Policy Focused on Teachers -- or Teaching?

By Liam Goldrick, Director of Policy

Last week I visited San Antonio, Texas for two conferences hosted by the Council of Chief State School Officers. The State Consortium on Educator Effectiveness (SCEE) and the Network for Transforming Teacher Preparation (NTEP) both bring state teams together to work on strategies related to preparing and developing excellent educators. Such unglamorous, but critical, work reminds me that sometimes a quiet, collaborative pursuit is preferable to the often oversimplified, divisive public dialogue that can divide those of us working in education policy and create a gulf between policymakers and educational practitioners.

The NTEP team from the state of Connecticut reminded attendees of the important goal of "first, do no harm." Eventual success might first require a more careful and deliberate approach to policy design and implementation. In other words, "slow and steady wins the race." It also necessitates listening to educators. They must be at the table and engaged, ensuring that those working in schools and classrooms are provided with the information and resources they need to succeed under these new policies and systems.

In states and districts where educators have not felt included and especially where they believe they haven't been provided the support to meet these new demands associated with educator evaluation, equilibrium is still being sought.

But there's an even more inherent problem at play in some current policy trends. It is the focus of reforms about teachers rather than about teaching. We have seen this play out amidst state activity and federal incentives around educator evaluation. Typically, much more effort has been expended on the individual teacher ratings component of evaluation than on the structures within those systems focused on providing individualized feedback on teaching.

The latest policy at risk of falling into this trap is equitable teacher distribution. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education signaled its intention to ratchet up the enforcement of equitable distribution requirements within the No Child Left Behind Act. (This week, Education Week reported that the federal strategy had yet to be released.)

Organizations like The Education Trust have chronicled the tendency for students from low-income and minority backgrounds to have less access to highly qualified and highly effective teachers -- both across as well as within schools. Such inequities are a concern because of the evidence on the impact of teaching on student learning.

But policy has a tendency to oversimplify issues and to offer narrow solutions to complex problems. And some policymakers and educational economists have framed the solution to this issue as a matter of simply moving teachers around, or by offering monetary incentives for them to move. In effect, their solution is to redirect "highly effective" teachers to high-need schools, assuming that such teachers will achieve similar success in schools often quite different from their own. This assumption disregards that reality that these schools may suffer from high staff turnover and leadership churn, lack collaborative cultures, and serve higher percentages of students with disabilities and English language learners. Such a stance builds upon the error in our current education policy trajectory that I mentioned earlier: The individualization of teaching excellence.

A recent Center on American Progress repor t provides a more nuanced take on the many factors that go into creating these inequities in teacher distribution -- and the multi-faceted policies that will be required to overcome it. The report identifies poor working conditions that shape schools where teachers don't want to work as a reason for inequitable access. But sadly, it does not identify the assessment of such conditions as a key state policy lever or recommendation. Many states that have worked with NTC to conduct TELL Surveys of teaching and learning conditions recognize that: (1) such state-, district- and school-level teaching conditions data are critical to understanding issues that shape school context and culture, and (2) such conditions impact overall teacher effectiveness and teachers' ability to learn and gr ow.

With respect to equitable teacher distribution, the solutions must recognize that teaching is a collective -- not simply an individual -- endeavor and responsibility. Success, too, is dependent upon the presence of supportive teaching conditions, such as school leadership, collaboration with peers and on-the-job professional learning opportunities. Let's not keep forgetting that.

NTC News

Minnesota Prioritizes Teacher Development, Growth and Support

Through grant funding from the Joyce Foundation, NTC is partnering with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to maximize opportunities for teachers to learn and grow on the job. One component of the work is to provide expertise to the MDE's Observation and Feedback Toolkit Project Team. The intent of that effort is to create a training model to build capacity among the ranks of educator evaluators across the state in classroom observation and teaching feedback skills. A second element of the work is to conduct an assessment of state teacher induction policies and provide recommendations to strengthen them. This work will continue through the 2014 calendar year.

NTC Partnership Mentors New Teachers in Hawaii

West Hawaii Today reported on the success of the West Hawaii Teacher Induction & Mentoring Program, part of NTC's partnership with the Hawaii Department of Education. It aims to address the state's new requirements for teacher mentoring and induction in an effort to improve the retention of quality teachers. The article reports that teachers and administrators call the program a success due to weekly meetings between mentors and teachers, the use of technology, and a final project that chronicles the new teacher's first year in the classroom. Program leaders will expand the program to double its size in the upcoming school year.

Policy News

Oklahoma Restores New Teacher Assistance

Governor Mary Fallin has signed HB 2885 into law. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Coody and state Sen. Ford, will establish a paid teacher internship program at teacher preparation institutions. It also restores the state's resident teacher program that provides professional support, mentorship and coaching for beginning teachers. The program has been suspended since 2010. Districts may offer the program in 2014-15, but must implement it by 2015-16. Finally, the bill eliminates the restriction on a teacher mentor supporting more than one beginning teacher.

NTC partners with Tulsa Public Schools to provide induction to beginning teachers. Read more about our work here and here.

Good Reads

State Teachers of the Year Recognize Value of Mentoring

Two recent reports have highlighted the value and need for quality mentoring and induction. Supporting New Teachers: What Do We Know About Effective State Induction Policies?, released by the Center on Great Teachers & Leaders (GTL), aims to provide guidance to state leaders on how to leverage their resources and develop quality mentoring and induction programs. The report summarizes existing research and highlights many of NTC's state policy criteria and findings from our Review of State Policies on Teacher Induction. The report suggests that state leaders should consider setting induction program requirements, allocating time for induction work, allocating and securing resources to support and sustain the implementation of induction programs and the ongoing professional development for mentors, and providing the flexibility to address varying needs.

Another report by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year and GTL, based on a survey of 311 National and State Teachers of the Year, found that most reported access to a mentor as one of several critical supports at the teacher novice stage. More than 60 percent of participants who had a mentor ranked modeling effective teacher practices and providing helpful support and advice among the most important forms of support provided by a mentor. Furthermore, at the teacher leadership stage, participants reported serving as mentors as one of the most important experiences to further teacher leaders' effectiveness in the classroom.

Also see, From Good to Great: Discussion Starter Tool. A recording of the release event for the report From Good to Great is available online.

Is Teacher Evaluation Broken?

In an article published on Alexander Russo's blog, educator Paul Bruno raises the question: What if teacher evaluation isn't actually broken after all? In it, he questions whether evaluations are truly broken or whether "generous evaluations" ultimately help the system as a whole. He cautions against the push for administrators to evaluate teachers using standards that may be considered "atypically-harsh" in other fields. Education Week reporter Stephen Sawchuk makes an important related point about teacher evaluation in a recent blog post as well. "If, as is hoped, the feedback generated from these reviews is more helpful to teaching and learning, then perhaps the year-end score isn't the most important thing to consider."

Enhancing Post-Observation Feedback

State and district efforts to incorporate classroom observations as part of teacher evaluation systems provide opportunities to improve teaching practice, but necessitate clear and helpful communication before and after the observation. To address the challenge of post-observation feedback, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released a set of recommended strategies to enhance these conversations. Recommendations include:

Scaffold listening strategies;
Develop a format for the conversation so that there are no surprises;
Begin with a positive statement about the teacher's practice;
Encourage teacher self-reflection;
Foster a sense of control and empowerment;
Help teachers develop a sense of ownership over the process; and
Reserve time to identify next steps.

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.

In This Issue

Is Policy Focused on Teachers -- or Teaching?

Minnesota Prioritizes Teacher Development, Growth and Support

NTC Partnership Mentors New Teachers in Hawaii

Oklahoma Restores New Teacher Assistance

Good Reads

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