Back to Principal's Office
Promising
Practices: New Ways to Improve Teacher Quality
Improving
Teacher Accountability
and Incentives
Efforts to create a quality teaching
force include new approaches to accountability, designed and implemented through teacher
leadership and the participation of large numbers of teachers. Among teachers, parents,
and business leaders there is a growing recognition that teachers who are not performing
adequately must receive training, mentoring and all other forms of effective assistance as
needed and quickly. Teachers who fail to improve, no matter what the reason--poor
preparation, burn out, or lack of interest in professionalism--and who are judged
incompetent must be counseled out of the profession or dismissed in order to ensure
students' success in school.
The new approaches to accountability
emphasize early intervention, peer review, and recognition of exemplary teachers who serve
as mentors or lead teachers. In districts from Rochester to Seattle, more effective
accountability systems are replacing what one union official referred to as
"drive-by...checklists."
The National Commission on Teaching and
America's Future believes the peer assistance and review systems are successful because
they are jointly supervised by boards of teachers and administrators, gauge teacher
competence with more useful measures, and emphasize assistance and personal growth rather
than punishment. They also reward exemplary teachers by giving them leadership roles that
provide extra compensation and opportunities to improve the teaching profession.
According to the Commission, more
teachers have received help and more teachers have been dismissed under these new peer
review systems than under old systems of accountability. It notes that about one-third of
the teachers assigned to peer review in Cincinnati and Toledo, for example, left teaching
by the end of the year. In Cincinnati, almost twice as many teacher dismissals resulted
from peer reviews as from administrator evaluations.
Accountability for quality, however, is
to be double sided. As important as accountability for teachers is the willingness of
school boards, district offices, parents and communities to recognize outstanding work by
teachers. Until the standards of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
became available, communities had few meaningful standards to guide their recognition of
teachers. One of the great contributions of National Board certification is that it opens
up opportunities to support teachers who continually seek to grow professionally.
Rochester, New York
Career-In-Teaching Program
"It is in the interests of
schools, teaching and, especially, students when practitioners themselves are involved--in
a meaningful way--in all decisions that affect student outcomes."
Career-In-Teaching Guidebook
The Rochester school system achieved
headline fame in the mid-1980s when it announced an agreement that considerably increased
teacher salary levels. Less noticed was the accountability system that accompanied the new
pay scales. That system represented a transformation in teachers' responsibility for
assuring quality in their profession as well as school districts' compensation for
excellence in teaching.
At the core of Rochester's
Career-In-Teaching Program (CIT) are peer review and assistance, similar to other
negotiated accountability systems in Columbus, Cincinnati and Seattle. Peer review,
however, is part of a larger plan that affects all teachers in Rochester. CIT established
four career development stages--intern, resident, professional and lead teacher. Progress
from one to the other depends on peer review.
Interns are beginning teachers who work
with a mentor, who is a lead teacher. The lead teacher provides assistance for the first
year of teaching, recommending the new teachers for resident status, termination or
another year on probationary status. About 8 percent are terminated, but more importantly,
the peer assistance has led to the retention of 90 percent of beginning teachers after
their first year in the classroom. Before CIT, the problems with first-year teaching and
lack of support resulted in a retention rate of only about 60 percent.
After internship, peer review continues
under the Performance Appraisal Review for Teachers (PART), an annual evaluation conducted
by either a panel of colleagues or an administrator selected by the teacher. Every three
years a more intensive summative appraisal is conducted. One of the criteria considered in
the appraisals is evidence of student academic performance, a factor that was never
included in the old formal systems of evaluation.
If any of these steps indicate a
teacher is having a problem, that teacher can voluntarily ask for intervention by a lead
teacher. For two semesters the teacher receives expert help and is connected to needed
resources throughout the district. The lead teacher reports to the board governing the CIT
program on whether the teacher has overcome his/her difficulties and should be retained.
Currently, all tenured teachers have gone through the summative appraisal process, and
about 75 interventions have taken place. Moreover, teachers can volunteer for professional
support from a lead teacher without the appraisal process, a decision made by over 100
teachers a year.
CIT was designed by teachers. About 200
were directly involved in its development. It was their plan that teachers would be
appraised by colleagues and that lead teachers, recommended by colleagues and chosen by a
board of teachers and administrators, would receive substantial stipends--from 5 to 15
percent of their salaries--for their leadership roles. Lead teachers perform other duties
as well, such as curriculum design and project facilitation.
Teachers preferred this rigorous
attention to their performance over the lax system without standards that existed before
in which more than 96 percent of teachers were evaluated by their supervisors as above
average or superior and the rest received satisfactory ratings.
Accountability for All
in Minneapolis, Minnesota
"Without clearly stated
expectations, no individual or institution can succeed.... Performance expectations need
to exist for states, districts, schools, teachers, students, families and communities.
These standards should represent a community consensus about what constitutes
success."
CEO, Minneapolis Public Schools
Accountability in meeting standards is on
almost everyone's mind in the Minneapolis public school community. A unique covenant that
sets out the mutual commitments and expectations of students, families, school staff,
district leadership, and the community was adopted in public ceremonies in 1993, a visible
sign that meeting the standards is the responsibility of all.
A better system of accountability for
teachers had been evolving in the district since 1984 when a joint Labor/Management Task
Force on Teacher Professionalism began conducting research and developing a vision for the
teacher evaluation process. The Task Force created a Career-In-Teaching program similar to
that of other urban districts, and it continued working on ways to make accountability
more meaningful.
By 1989 the new Professional
Development Process (PDP) was ready to be piloted, and over a five-year period school
sites adopted it. All 104 sites now participate. The plan became part of the negotiated
teaching contract in 1997, but 3,000 of the 4,000-member teaching staff had already
voluntarily chosen to be part of the process.
Each participant in the PDP writes a
development plan aligned with district and school goals, especially the curriculum content
standards. The plan includes a goal; teacher and student objectives; implementation
strategies; and ideas for pursuing professional growth, assessment, and reflection. The
teacher selects four to six people who serve as "critical friends" throughout
the yearly process. They meet regularly with the teacher to discuss the plan, assess
progress toward the goal and help the teacher find resources and do problem solving around
instructional and learning issues. Principals are automatic members of the peer review
team along with fellow teachers. The team may also include parents, community members or
university professors--anyone the teacher believes can help him or her with the plan.
Teachers in the PDP process are
expected to pursue all sorts of ways to meet their goals--peer coaching, study groups,
action research, videotaping, observations, journals, and the development of professional
portfolios. Elementary and secondary teachers even have appropriately worded surveys to
use with students, seeking their opinions about the curriculum content, teaching methods
and management. (The survey was written by the District-wide Student Government).
Guiding the PDP process are the
Standards of Effective Instruction. Teachers, principals and administrators reviewed and
synthesized standards from a number of sources, such as the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards, the content of the teacher candidate exam developed by
the Educational Testing Service (Praxis), the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and
Support Consortium, and various state standards. From these, the group developed standards
specifically for Minneapolis' teachers.
For example, if a teacher's PDP plan
focuses on improving reading, that teacher could refer to the Standards of Effective
Instruction and ask such questions as: "Am I accommodating student differences?"
(Standard 1); or, "Am I providing feedback to students and families regarding their
learning?" (Standard 3).
If the PDP team agrees that the teacher
needs additional help, or if the teacher recognizes the need, a Performance Support
Process takes over, providing extensive support for three to six months. At that time, the
teacher may return to the PDP plan or move to intensive assistance and the possibility of
a recommendation from the Performance Support Process team, the direct-level governing
body, that the teacher consider other career options.
The PDP, notes a teacher union
document, "moves the teaching profession into the future as it promotes and supports
higher standards and professional performance for all." Significantly, the early
success of the PDP process in Minneapolis and its enthusiastic support from teachers were
deciding factors in the state's decision to mandate a similar peer review process for all
teachers in the state.
Recognition of Teachers
in Coventry, Rhode Island
"Our support for
Board-certified teachers comes from our goal to create a culture of leadership in our
schools dedicated to improving teaching and learning."
Superintendent, Coventry Public Schools
It is important that school administrators and school boards recognize teachers for their
efforts to meet high standards.
The 400 teachers in the Coventry, Rhode
Island school district receive considerable incentives to reach the highest standards of
all--certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The Coventry
public schools and the Coventry Teachers Alliance entered into a contractual agreement
with the following provisions:
- The district will pay the certification
fee each year for up to seven years;
- The district will support the
certification process by providing up to five professional development days to teachers
applying for Board certification and by loaning applicants materials and equipment such as
video cameras, editing equipment and computers;
- Six district-approved credits will be
granted toward the advanced increment schedule for teachers who complete the Board
assessment process but who do not acquire certification; and
- Board-certified teachers will qualify
for the next higher advanced increment level above his/her current level.
The agreement goes further by building
on the leadership potential of teachers who have been formally recognized as highly
accomplished. The Coventry schools plan to use Board-certified teachers in various highly
responsible roles to improve teaching and learning in the district. These teachers will
serve as mentors, lead teachers who will replace department chairs and provide curriculum
development and team leadership within schools, teacher facilitators who serve as
unofficial vice-principals in the elementary schools, and staff for the planned
professional development center.
Such leadership, says the
superintendent, will extend the influence of the Board's standards to all teachers in the
system. Five teachers have completed the Board's certification process, and an additional
six are in the pipeline. Over a 10-year period, the district could build a cadre of 60-70
teachers who have participated in a rigorous assessment based on high standards.
Characteristics of
Promising
Teacher Accountability Programs
- Promising teacher preparation and
certification efforts exist along the continuum of a teaching career to eliminate
incompetent teaching and to assure proper assignment and support of teachers.
- Teachers initiate and play major roles
in the design and implementation of peer review systems.
- Intervention occurs early and quickly to
deal with burned out or incompetent teachers and provides mentoring and resources for
improvement to occur.
- Accountability policies emphasize that
responsibility for a quality teaching force must be shared and must include recognition
for accomplishments.
If you understand how the world is going
to work tomorrow and you have any concern about the integrity and the richness of the
human spirit in every child, then all of us must join hands to help educators succeed in
giving all those children the tomorrows they deserve.
President Clinton
July 29, 1998
The Education International World Congress
For further information please contact
U.S. Department of Education
Heather Moore
Office of the Secretary
Room 6263, FB 10B
Washington, D.C. 20202
Telephone: (202) 401-3000
FIRS 1-800-877-8339, 8 a.m.-8 p.m., ET, M-F
Downloaded at http://www.schoolhousedoor.com
Previous Page Endnotes |
