Teachers Leading the Way
By Andrew Amore, Associate Director of Campaigns for Education, Center for American Progress
Preparing our students for life in the 21st century requires a rethinking of teacher roles within schools and districts. And as teachers and advocates have said for some time, the Common Core has the best opportunity to successfully prepare our students when teachers have a meaningful voice in its implementation. Understanding this potential, more than two-thirds of districts are now utilizing teachers to solve the critical problem of finding quality curriculum aligned to the Common Core, according to a recent report by the Center on Education Policy.
Read More →Improving Quality Teacher Prep Programs in Mathematics
By Dr. William Schmidt, Michigan State University Distinguished Professor, Director of the Center for the Study of Curriculum, and Co-Director of the Education Policy Center
There are few topics in education policy that attract more attention than teacher preparation. Whatever resources we devote to education, and however many policy changes we enact such as the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics, at the end of the day it is teachers that are expected to play the essential role. It is of the utmost importance that we be able to identify what makes a good teacher, and more importantly, that we figure out how we can make people into better teachers. This brings us to the rub: Despite the sincere efforts of many researchers, we still lack a clear-cut understanding of what makes for a high-quality teacher preparation program. The evidence to date is mixed at best that traditional metrics of teacher quality – such as certification scores, higher degrees, experience, etc. – make a difference.
Read More →Improving the Quality of Teachers and Principals
By The Hunt Team
“This is an excerpt from the overview of a five-part re:VISION special series on improving the effectiveness of the nation’s teachers and leaders. The Hunt Institute’s re:VISION focuses on critical issues in education policy – highlighting key research for policymakers and prompting discussion of solutions within states and across the nation. The ‘teacher effectiveness series’ is intended to provide state-level policymakers with a digest of existing research and current state efforts around teacher preparation, evaluation, compensation, and school leadership. Each of the briefs in this series will provide a deeper exploration of the challenges states are facing in the area of educator effectiveness reform and offer considerations for policymakers.”
A talented, well-trained, and committed workforce is the life-blood of any enterprise. Ask any successful business or military leader. The most successful companies spend considerable time, energy, and resources to identify, recruit, and hire the best and brightest; then they work at keeping them through optimal working conditions, incentives, and pay.
The military invests mightily in developing and honing the skills of its members; it pays for additional education and it invests in talent. The security of our country depends on it.
Read More →Sensible Compensation Policies That Add Up
By Brenda Welburn, Former Executive Director of the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE)
Welburn was a moderator and resource expert on improving educator effectiveness through evaluation and compensation reform at The Hunt Institute’s 2014 Holshouser Legislators Retreat. (To learn more about this issue, see The Institute’s special re:VISION series on educator effectiveness here.) She served as the executive director of NASBE from 1994 until 2012 and is known as an association manager and legislative professional with more than 35 years of experience in policy development and analysis in education and human service issues. Below she shares her insight on teacher compensation.
The movement of tying teacher compensation to student achievement has gained momentum throughout the nation, but not without serious debate on how to achieve the goals of the movement without adversely affecting the teaching profession and the learning environment.
To some it seems like a simple premise; those who perform at the highest level should receive the highest rewards. Yet for years policymakers have wrestled with the dilemma of how to support accountability plans that measure proficiency, while acknowledging the significance of student growth and progress among those students with the greatest deficiencies. To do this in a way that rewards milestones in progress – without impeding the goal of genuine student competency – is no easy task. One teacher’s class may have higher test scores, while another’s shows more measurable growth. The idea that student achievement in isolation can be the sole determinant of a teacher’s effectiveness, and thus their compensation package, does not reflect the reality of practice.
Read More →Redesigning Professional Development
By Patricia A. Wasley, CEO, Teaching Channel
For years we have invested significant resources in professional development for teachers – somewhere in the vicinity of $16 billion per year. And please don’t forget the countless hours of time and energy that teachers spend in trying to move their practice forward. Unfortunately, the disappointing fact is that we have not seen the corresponding jump in student achievement that such an investment merits. It’s no surprise why when the common approach to professional development is revealed. More often than not, new strategies are demonstrated in front of groups of teachers who come from a variety of disciplines, grade levels, and school contexts. In this setting, teachers can observe and can ask questions, but they are sent back to their own classrooms to figure out how to adapt new strategies on their own.
Read More →RECAP: The 2014 Holshouser Legislators Retreat
By The Hunt Team
Sweeping education legislation in 2013 has resulted in monumental changes for teaching and student assessment in North Carolina’s public schools. Local school districts are working hard to implement these new policies and are calling on policymakers to re-examine the pace of change, the efficacy of these reforms, and the expectations being placed on classroom teachers.
Last month, The Hunt Institute convened North Carolina legislators in Greensboro, NC, for the 2014 Holshouser Legislators Retreat amidst this backdrop of trepidation and change. This bi-partisan group of 60 policymakers spent two days with national and state education experts discussing key topics such as teacher effectiveness and compensation, student assessments, school accountability, partnerships that promote college and career readiness, and the role rigorous standards play in securing North Carolina’s economic future.
Read More →Transforming Teaching through Collaborative Practice
By Katherine Bassett, CEO of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY)
Teaching is often referred to as the most isolated of professions. In fact, many teachers remain inside their classrooms with little to no interaction with their colleagues during the day.
Yet collaboration is essential for learning, and the Common Core State Standards demand that teachers teach through collaborative practice models, requiring students to work in groups, building problem-solving and collaboration skills. In addition, we know that new teachers grow best through collaboration and mentoring in order to become effective and to persist in a challenging profession.
As states and school districts across the country focus on effective teaching as a strategy to improve student achievement, we must find new ways to increase opportunities for collaborative practice. In some cases, this may mean changing the very structure of school.
Read More →By Vicki Phillips, Director, College-Ready Education, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
All students deserve an education that prepares them to succeed in college, career and life. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we are focused on finding ways to support both teachers and students in this pursuit, and one of the most important ways is the adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards.
The standards are being implemented in classrooms across the country to ensure students have the skills and knowledge needed for the next grade level, and ultimately college and career success. And we want to hear from teachers on how it is going.
Virtual Worlds Allow Us To Play And Dream — But Do Educators Dare To And Remember How To Do Just That?
By Lisa Dieker, Ph.D. and Michael Hynes, Ph.D., University of Central Florida
As we face class-size increases, new or improved standards, reduction of budgets, higher and higher levels of accountability and whatever else can be thrown at us as educators, we wondered what would happen if we just stopped for a minute, closed our eyes and dreamed about a utopia in education. What would we dream? Would we see classrooms in jet planes traveling the world, unlimited access to the latest developments in technology, teachers supporting each and every student, daily massages for our hard working classroom teachers, or would we simply dream of peace, happiness and harmony for each student who walks into the door of a school?
Read More →