Teachers Matter: Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers

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Teachers Matter Attracting, Developing and
Retaining Effective Teachers
Lessons from the OECD Teacher Policy Report
Paulo Santiago Education and Training Policy
Division Directorate for Education, OECD
Improving Learning Through Formative
Assessment International Conference OECD -
CERI Paris, 2 February 2005
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Outline of Presentation
1. The OECD Project Attracting, Developing and
Retaining Effective Teachers
2. The impact of teachers and teaching on student
learning
3. Policy context
4. Teachers roles are changing
5. Policy priorities Developing teachers
knowledge and skills
6. Other relevant policy priorities
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OECDs Activity Attracting, Developing and
Retaining Effective Teachers
Purpose
To provide policy makers with information and
analysis to assist them in formulating and
implementing teacher policies leading to quality
teaching and learning at the school level.
Objectives

• to synthesise research on issues related to
  policies concerned with attracting, recruiting,
  retaining and developing effective teachers

• to identify innovative and successful policy
  initiatives and practices

• to facilitate exchanges of lessons and
  experiences among countries and

• to identify policy options.

? Focus is on teacher policy, not the practice
and performance level of teachers.
? Study did not address teaching/classroom
strategies per se.
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OECDs Activity Attracting, Developing and
Retaining Effective Teachers
Participating countries
25 countries Australia, Austria, Belgium (Flemish
and French Comm.), Canada (Quebec), Chile,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea,
Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovak Republic,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom,
United States.
10 countries visited by review teams Austria,
Belgium (Flemish and French Comm.), Germany,
Hungary, Italy, Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.
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Analytical approach
OECDs Activity Attracting, Developing and
Retaining Effective Teachers

• The Activity has drawn on country experience and
  research to identify a range of policy directions
  in five main areas
• Making teaching an attractive career choice
• Developing teachers knowledge and skills
• Recruiting, selecting and employing teachers
• Retaining effective teachers in schools
• Developing and implementing teacher policy

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Three broad conclusions emerge from research on
student learning
The Impact of Teachers and Teaching on Student
Learning
1. Largest source of variation in student
learning is attributable to differences in what
students bring to school their abilities and
attitudes, and family and community background.
2. Of those variables which are potentially open
to policy influence, factors to do with teachers
and teaching are the most important influences on
student learning.
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Three broad conclusions emerge from research on
student learning (continued)
The Impact of Teachers and Teaching on Student
Learning (continued)
3. It is difficult to predict who is going to be
a good teacher just by considering the more
measurable characteristics of teachers (e.g.
qualifications, teaching experience, and
indicators of academic ability and subject-matter
knowledge) .

• There are many important aspects of teacher
  quality that are not captured by the more
  measurable characteristics, such as
• Ability to convey ideas in clear and convincing
  ways
• To create effective learning environments for
  different types of students
• to foster productive teacher-student
  relationships
• to be enthusiastic and creative
• to work effectively with colleagues and parents.

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Policy Context

• About half the countries report serious concerns
  about maintaining an adequate supply of good
  quality teachers, especially in high-demand
  subject areas

• There are widespread concerns about long-term
  trends in the composition of the teaching
  workforce e.g. fewer high achievers, and fewer
  males

• There are major concerns about the limited
  connections between teacher education,
  professional development, and school needs

• Some countries experience high rates of teacher
  attrition, especially among new teachers

• Some countries have a large over-supply of
  qualified teachers, which raises its own policy
  challenges

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Policy Context (continued)

• In some countries there are serious concerns
  about teacher morale and enthusiasm

• Almost all countries report concerns about
  qualitative shortfalls whether enough teachers
  have the knowledge and skills to meet school needs

• The ageing of the teaching profession is
  compounding policy concerns

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Teachers Roles are changing
Teachers are now expected to have much broader
roles

• At the individual student level
• Initiating and managing learning processes
• Responding effectively to the learning needs of
  individual learners
• Integrating formative and summative assessment.

• At the classroom level
• Teaching in multicultural classrooms
• New cross-curricular emphases
• Integrating students with special needs.

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Teachers Roles are changing
Teachers are now expected to have much broader
roles (continued)

• At the school level
• Working and planning in teams
• Evaluation and systematic improvement planning
• ICT use in teaching and administration
• Projects between schools, and international
  cooperation
• Management and shared leadership.

• At the level of parents and the wider community
• Providing professional advice to parents
• Building community partnerships for learning.

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Policy priorities Developing teachers knowledge
and skills

• Developing teacher profiles
• Clear and concise standards of what teachers are
  expected to know and be able to do
• reflect broad range of competencies.
• provide framework to guide and integrate initial
  teacher education, certification, induction and
• on-going professional development.
• should be evidence-based and reflect student
  learning objectives.
• should be built on active involvement by teaching
  profession.

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Policy priorities Developing teachers knowledge
and skills

• Initial teacher education
• Improve selection into teacher education
• Information and counselling
• Assessment
• Early school experience
• Incentives for high potentials
• Provide more flexible forms of initial teacher
  education
• Modular, part-time, distance education
• Alternate routes for mid-career changers
• Strengthen partnerships between teacher education
  institutions and schools
• Overt and deliberate partnerships
• Earlier and broader field experience

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Policy priorities Developing teachers knowledge
and skills

• Strengthening induction programmes
• Formalise induction programmes
• Qualify mentor teachers
• Provide sufficient resources for induction
• reduced teaching obligation for mentors and
  beginning teachers
• Link successful completion of induction to
  certification

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Policy priorities Developing teachers knowledge
and skills

• Integrating professional development throughout
  the teaching career
• Provide incentives for lifelong learning of all
  teachers
• Entitle teachers to release time and/or financial
  support for professional development
• Create incentives e.g., link professional
  development to teacher appraisal and career
  advancement
• Link individual teacher development with school
  improvement needs

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Policy priorities Developing teachers knowledge
and skills

• Broaden the range of different professional
  development opportunities, e.g.
• peer review and action research
• mutual school visits
• teacher and school networks
• Provide more coherent framework for professional
  development, develop teachers learning
  communities
• training, practice and feedback
• follow-up rather than one shot events
• teacher portfolios

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Other relevant policy priorities
Providing schools with more responsibility for
teacher personnel development Schools need to
have more responsibility and accountability
for teacher selection, working conditions, and
development.

• Pre-requisites
• Developing school leaders skills in personnel
  management
• Providing disadvantaged schools with greater
  resources
• Monitoring the outcomes of a more decentralised
  approach
• Creating independent appeals procedures to
  ensure fairness and protect teachers rights.

Broadening the criteria for teacher selection The
selection criteria for new teachers need to be
broadened to ensure that the applicants with the
greatest potential are identified
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Other relevant policy priorities
Evaluating and rewarding effective teaching
There needs to be a stronger emphasis on teacher
evaluation for improvement purposes. Opportunity
for teachers work to be recognised and
celebrated and help both teachers and schools to
identify developmental needs

• Pre-requisites
• Teacher appraisal to occur within a framework
  provided by profession-wide agreed statements of
  standards of professional performance
• Evaluators need to be trained and evaluated
  themselves
• Evaluation frameworks and tools need to be
  provided.

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Other relevant policy priorities
Providing more opportunities for career
diversification
Teaching would benefit from a career ladder based
on skills, responsibilities and performance.
There needs to be more opportunities for career
diversity and mobility (between schools, between
roles, and between teaching and other careers)
Teaching needs to become a knowledge-rich
profession
Teaching needs to become a knowledge-rich
profession in which individuals continually
develop, and have the incentives and
opportunities to do so, research is integrated
into practice, and schools become professional
learning communities that encourage and draw on
teachers development
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Other relevant policy priorities
Improving leadership and school climate
A range of initiatives should be taken to
strengthen leadership in schools

• Improve training, selection and evaluation
  processes for school principals
• Establish leadership teams in schools
• School leaders to be trained and supported in
  conducting evaluations and linking them to school
  planning.

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Other relevant policy priorities
Improving working conditions
There needs to be an explicit recognition of the
wide variety of tasks that teaching actually
entails
Well trained support and administrative staff can
help to reduce the burden on teachers and free
them to concentrate on the tasks of teaching and
learning
Better facilities at school for staff preparation
and planning would help in building collegiality
and in programme provision
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Final Report Teachers Matter Attracting,
Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers To be
published as an OECD Publication in early 2005
For further information www.oecd.org/edu/teache
rpolicy