Realigning the Teacher Quality Continuum

1
Realigning the Teacher Quality Continuum

• Strategic Management of Human Capital July 21,
  2008

2
The New Teacher Projects View

• A quality education is a civil right.
• The achievement gap is evidence of our failure to
  deliver on the promise of an equal education for
  all.
• Effective teachers are the remedy.

3
The Problem A Misaligned Teacher Quality System
Market driven by what providers want to offer,
not what schools or teachers need.
Archaic slotting procedures impede creation of
effective teams.
No differentiation or sorting among teachers,
regardless of performance. Dollars concentrated
at senior end of career.
Little/no HC training for principals, lack of
high-level leadership to manage human capital.
Not targeted to high-need schools or subject
areas. HR dysfunction deters applicants.
Hiring
Compensation
Training
Leadership
A quality teacher in every classroom
Recruitment
Selection
Evaluation
Budgeting
Minimum requirements, little consideration for
quality. No post-hire selection rigor, such as
tenure decisions.
Systems fail to identify teachers on a spectrum
of performance, making it difficult to develop
high performers or remediate or remove low
performers.
Little concern for impact of timing on teacher
hiring.
The foundational systems and institutions that
are responsible for generating and maintaining
quality teachers are almost universally unaligned
with the goal of a quality teacher in every
classroom.
4
The Solution Realigning the teacher quality
continuum to the prime objective of a great
teacher in every classroom.
A quality teacher in every classroom
Evaluation
Training
Recruitment
Selection
Hiring
Leadership
Budgeting
Compensation

• Underlying priority must be the closing of the
  achievement gap.
• School districts and policy makers have made
  sporadic efforts to realign specific pieces of
  the continuum but most efforts have been modest
  and limited.
• Success requires a comprehensive approach that
  includes
• Leadership Change requires rallying stakeholders
  around the goal of maximizing teacher quality and
  effectiveness.
• Coordination Most districts lack a chief
  strategist for their most important function
  developing and maintaining quality human capital.
• Political will Realignment requires engagement
  with hot-button issues and entrenched interests.
• Data Necessary in order to identify needs,
  measure progress, and allocate time and resources.

5
Our Response Increasing the concentration of
highly effective teachers in high-need schools.

• Championing a comprehensive approach to human
  capital management in high-need school districts.
  
• Identifying gaps, obstacles and misalignment in
  the pathways into teaching, and advocating for
  corrections.
• Pursuing programmatic innovations that are
  focused on supporting high-need schools.
• Engaging proactively in research that assesses
  teacher effectiveness.
• Exploring dramatically different ways of managing
  and maximizing teacher quality.
• Advancing a positive vision of the teaching
  profession centered on quality and effectiveness.

We envision a future in which the institutions,
policies and systems that are chiefly responsible
for putting a quality teacher into every
classroom are tightly aligned to just that
objective.
6
NYC Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) Dramatically
increasing the supply of qualified teachers for
high-need schools.
100,000 Total number of applicants to NYCTF over last six years
8,300 Approximate number of active Teaching Fellows in NYC as of February 2008
1,100 Approximate number of schools in which Teaching Fellows are teaching
11 Percentage of all NYC teachers who are Teaching Fellows
86 Percentage of all Teaching Fellows working in Title-I schools
66 Percentage of New York Citys annual new hires in math and special education that are hired via NYCTF
25 Percentage of NYC math teachers who are Teaching Fellows
84 Percentage of the 2007 cohorts of Teaching Fellows who teach high-need subjects
25 Percentage of the 2006 class at NYCs Leadership Academy (preparation program for principals) who entered the school system as Teaching Fellows
16 Average acceptance rate of the 2007 cohorts of Teaching Fellows (statistically comparable to many top-tier universities)
3.3 Average undergraduate GPA of Teaching Fellows
7
Baltimore Model Staffing Initiative (BMSI)
Enhancing school staffing to improve school
performance.

• Goals
• Move up the hiring timeline for 40 of Baltimores
  lowest performing schools
• Increase the number of teacher-hiring
  opportunities available to principals
• Implement at least 3 strategies to positively
  impact the hiring timeline/process
• Implement at least 1 additional strategy to
  increase principal accountability for hiring of
  high-quality teachers
• Build principal capacity to hire teachers
  effectively

• Outcomes
• All vacancies identified one week before school
  were filled by the first day of school
• While the District opened with over 58 vacancies,
  the MSI enabled these 40 low-performing schools
  to open with zero vacancies.
• BMSI schools hired 290 teachers, including
• 41.5 special education
• 29 English
• 25 math
• 26 science
• I appreciate the role that BMSI played as an
  advocate for what I needed in my school when
  dealing with HR. This type of advocacy is still a
  very necessary step in the red tape of the
  district systems. --BMSI principal

8
Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program (LPTP) An
effective and affordable approach to teacher
training and certification.

• Overview
• Began operations in 2001 - first non-university
  provider of certification in Louisiana
• Approved to offer 15 different certifications to
  beginning teachers
• Serves 3 alternate route programs and 8
  districts, including the Recovery School District
  and charter schools
• Highly affordable 3,500 per participant
  (teachers pay 2,300 after subsidies)
• Stayed open in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,
  continuing to train and certify teachers
• 600 teachers certified as of January 2008
• 275 additional teachers will be certified by
  September 2008

A 2007 value-add study of Louisianas teacher
preparation programs found that math teachers
certified through LPTP were more effective at
raising student achievement than new math
teachers from other programs AND experienced math
teachers.
9
Policy reform in Milwaukee Improving school
staffing policies for teachers and principals.

• Vacancies will be identified earlier
• High-need schools can hire early, even if they do
  not receive voluntary transfer applications
• Milwaukee can hire teachers in shortage subject
  areas as early as its competitors
• New rules will significantly decrease
  incompatibility transfers
• More placements in Milwaukee will be based on
  mutual consent and fewer will be assigned by HR

In all, the new contract advances the hiring
timeline for new teachers by four months.
10
School districts need

• Data systems to capture and store far more
  information about teacher performance
• Evaluation systems that reliably and precisely
  sort teachers into performance categories and
  that have real, systematic development uses
• New generation of human capital strategists in
  leadership positions
• Human capital departments that transcend HRs
  traditional role of processing transactions
• Effective political voices that can articulate
  the need for change
• Accountable talent pipelines tailored to local
  needs
• School environments that talented people would
  choose to work in
• School leaders who are capable human capital
  managers
• Modernized standards for teacher performance
• Partnerships with labor built on recognition of
  shared interest in teacher quality
• Credible, humane processes for transitioning weak
  teachers out of the profession

11
Questions?

• For more information, please visit TNTPs
  website
• www.tntp.org