MPP Educators for Excellence
"“many of the teachers I know are bargain hunters”, yes, we’re back to your usual “a guy I know” premise.
Here is fact for you, instead; empirical evidence.
http://www.epi.org/publication/books_teacher_quality_execsum_intro/
The framework for this study includes five broad categories of measurable and policy-relevant indicators to organize the teacher characteristics assumed to reflect teacher quality.
The highlights of the empirical evidence include:
Teacher experience
• Several studies have found a positive effect of experience on teacher effectiveness; specifically, the “learning by doing” effect is most obvious in the early years of teaching.
Teacher preparation programs and degrees
• Research suggests that the selectivity/prestige of the institution a teacher attended has a positive effect on student achievement, particularly at the secondary level. This may partially be a reflection of the cognitive ability of the teacher.
• Evidence suggests that teachers who have earned advanced degrees have a positive impact on high school mathematics and science achievement when the degrees earned were in these subjects.
• Evidence regarding the impact of advanced degrees at the elementary level is mixed.
Teacher certification
• Research has demonstrated a positive effect of certified teachers on high school mathematics achievement when the certification is in mathematics.
• Studies show little clear impact of emergency or alternative-route certification on student performance in either mathematics or science, as compared to teachers who acquire standard certification.
Teacher coursework
• Teacher coursework in both the subject area taught and pedagogy contributes to positive education outcomes.
• Pedagogical coursework seems to contribute to teacher effectiveness at all grade levels, particularly when coupled with content knowledge.
• The importance of content coursework is most pronounced at the high school level.
• While the studies on the field experience component of teacher education are not designed to reveal causal relationships, they suggest positive effects in terms of opportunity to learn the profession and reduced anxiety among new teachers.
Teachers’ own test scores
• Tests that assess the literacy levels or verbal abilities of teachers have been shown to be associated with higher levels of student achievement.
• Studies show the National Teachers Examination and other state-mandated tests of basic skills and/or teaching abilities are less consistent predictors of teacher performance.
So, teaching experience, like other job experience, matters. THAT is why teachers are rewarded for their seniority — how long they teach makes a difference in how well they know how to teach.
Having a degree IN what they teach, and earning that degree at a good school, equates to better educational outcomes, as does the more they know in their area of expertise.
So while the process for advancement in teaching does not make sense to you G2, it seems to make very reasonable sense to me." Dog Gone
"I personally benefit from the fact that degrees and experience CAN make a professional more valuable. With 3 college degrees, several certifications, and ~22 years of engineering and project management experience I am compensated pretty well because of this. However the reality is that time and degrees will not always lead to wisdom, capability, drive, effectiveness, etc.
Now you are against stereotyping, profiling and all other forms of prejudice. Yet here you want to pre-judge the capability of ALL teachers based on years served, degrees, test scores, etc. Instead of allowing skilled, caring and knowledgeable administrators to evaluate the competency of individual teachers based on their actual personal performance in the classroom.
Worse yet, you want to reward / punish teachers based on this prejudice, instead of on how well each individual teacher actually helps kids to succeed in school. How about putting the needs of the students before your own personal biases and political/union agenda?
The reality is that Superintendents and Principals are just as interested as the Teachers in seeing the students succeed. Their job security and compensation usually relies on this happening. Therefore they want to hire and retain the best teachers. Which means they will reward experience and education when it makes sense.
It is ironic to me that Teachers fear being graded by their Management, when they actively grade the performance of each and every student. And that grade can affect the student's future in many ways. (ie college, income, self esteem, etc) Maybe we should just say that kids that have taken the same classes over the same number of years are equal academically? That seems to be what you are advocating for teachers..." G2A
As always, thoughts welcome.
Also, I am struggling for future posts. Ideas welcome.
25 comments:
I'll leave it to Alec to debate you on this. Your ideas may be good in theory, but not as much in practice. At my current charter school we have a revolving door. I am starting my 4th year there and am already one of the most senior staff (5th out of 30.)
There are some interesting changes going on there this year in terms of micro management and performance evaluations. Don't know if they will last or what they're impact will be. I probably won't comment here about them because of your tendency to use whatever info I supply to bolster your well set views anti union / school reform views.
Probably a good idea, however I have one simple question.
Apparently Dog and Alec believe that all 25 yr veterans should be paid more than all 5 yr newbies. (ie education level being equivalent)
Do you agree this?
In my imaginary charter school the pay scale would be similar to my actual charter school with a compacted system of steps and lanes. There would only be 2 lanes, Bachelors and masters and 10-15 steps. Under this system the 25 year teacher would be paid more than 5 year newbies.
The difference may be reduced by pay for added duties such as mentoring, coaching, heading committees etc. For someone highly outstanding, such as the 3rd grade teacher that left over the summer I think I would have offered her a well paid coaching position. In which case her pay may have exceeded the long time veteran's pay.
It will be interesting at my school this year, filling those mentoring, committee chair positions as it seems like half the staff are brand new teachers. I never apply for any of these positions, as keeping up with the duties of my position has me stressed enough. Also, my job is unique, teaching students in very small groups. I can empathize with the difficulties of managing a large class but I don't think I have great advice or credibility.
Laurie, your area is one where I am all in favor of keeping class sizes as low as necessary. My only concerns are that we may put too many kids into some sort of special ed when it wouldn't be necessary with a bit of discipline or added help, and that we may be pushing kids into that category by poor teaching methods in the regular classes-- kids that COULD learn normally if we taught them right.
At my school we put too few kids into special education due to cultural differences (stigma, lack of understanding.) Out of 300 students I have only 12 on my caseload.
I was in to school this afternoon and learned we have already lost our first teacher this year and we haven't even had students yet. Maybe something really unexpected came up or maybe she already disliked being micro managed enough to quit. The director didn't share the reason why and I didn't ask.
Laurie, I don't understand. I would think cultural differences-- what I would call "lack of conformity" or "lack of assimilation" would be high on the list of reasons to give a kid extra help. Not necessarily special ed, but at least an IEP of some kind.
I'm also wondering, how many kids out of the 300 do you think SHOULD be in sp. ed.? 12 is 4%, and out of a group that is somewhat self-selected, that seems about right to me. Also, what are the reasons for the 12?
Most schools have 10-15% special education students. About half of my students are ASD, which means on the Autism Spectrum. The others have learning disabilities or borderline DCD, which is developmental cognitive delay
(formally known as mild mental retardation.) I really hate labeling students and labeling English Language learners with significant cultural differences is extra challenging.
Students need to be in special education to have an IEP. There are other types of small group intervention teachers, such as title one, who teach reading and math, and teachers licensed for English language learners. At my school most students qualify for both types of service so we can't really meet all student needs with the staff we have.
Now why again would you pay a highly capable 5 year Teacher less than an average 25 year Teacher?
Would you do that when hiring someone to do work for you in your personal life? When you are writing the check?
Let's say your son needed a tutor. Would you insist on paying more for an average older tutor??? Rather than paying the excellent younger tutor who could work wonders with your son?
I know personally I pay based on value. I am happy to pay a lot if the value is aligned. I certainly would never think to pay more just because the person had been "doing it longer".... It seems illogical and somewhat un-American...
More detail:
Teacher 1 has been teaching for 5 years. Their average class size is 30 students, they are highly organized, communicates well, changes style depending on the class/student's needs, parents/students are extremely satisfied, kids learn at higher than average rate, etc.
Teacher 2 has been teaching for 25 years. Their average class size is 30 students, they are somewhat disorganized, communicates moderately well, relatively fixed style, parents/students are indifferent, kids learn at slightly less than average rate, etc.
So you really think Teacher 2 should be paid more just because they are older?
I am getting tired of you repeatedly asking the same question. I think you should debate this over at MPP.
Teachers are satisfied with the current step and lane model. I think my compacted version with opportunities for added pay / responsibilities for highly effective / motivated teachers is an improvement. Most teachers are average with strengths and weaknesses. They do the same job as other teachers to the best of their ability. Longevity seems a fair way to me to give raises and maintain morale. Also, principals are not that great at evaluating performance.
Laurie, several things about your comment, though you are, as I see it, pretty much correct all around.
Yes, a rigid steps and lanes system does not reward merit, either at the basic job of teaching, or for the "advanced" skills like mentoring other teachers. To really make big money these days requires going into administration and that is a total waste of a good teacher, just to gain a ho-hum administrator.
To properly administer a merit program requires that an evaluation method be developed, taught and used effectively. Since unions and most school districts have been totally opposed to such things for so long, it won't be easy to put in place, though private industries have been doing it for decades, very successfully. Principals/managers can easily learn this, and teachers can learn to respond to it. That's the whole idea.
Yes, most teachers ARE average, almost by definition, and that's OK. It's only the dregs we want to discourage by not rewarding them with extra pay. That means strict seniority has to go in favor of some sort of merit, but ALL merit pay systems reward longevity, by at least keeping salaries even with inflation, usually a few percent a year. But you will also find a very real "salary compression" over the years, where the 25-year teacher gets a lower raise, percentage-wise, than the 5-year does. It's pretty much simple math. After 25 years the average teacher is as good as she's going to get, but you don't want her to lose ground against inflation. The 5-year teacher still has room to grow in the profession and needs an incentive to stay at it and improve, thus a higher incentive in terms of pay increase. In most cases, according to research, once employees are reasonably well compensated, they look at pay not as pay but as "recognition," and that is even more important to them than the actual dollars.
John, NOW who is the one prejudging teacher capability? Are you convinced that this young auto mechanic knows more about your car than the guy that's been at it 25 years? You've never met either of them, have you? Once you take your car to the 25-year mechanic and he flubs the repair, and the 5-year guy spots the defect instantly, THEN you have a basis for judging their capabilities.
Of course, in private industry there is a good bet that these two have been evaluated and compensated appropriately all these years, and the guy with 25 years really IS better, at least by some amount, or he wouldn't be there. Our problem with schools is that we aren't even allowed to KNOW which teachers are the worst of the lot, or the best, and yet we entrust our most important job to them. Not only that, the damage they can do can sometimes never be repaired.
The unions, of course, hate merit pay because it makes teaching into a profession rather than a union drone job, and so insist that evaluating teachers is impossible. That's B as in B, S as in S. If you want a simple and instant evaluation system, just ask the kids and their parents. They KNOW who the good teachers and bad teachers are! It's not an objective or scaled assessment, but it's definitely there.
It was just a hypothetical example for consideration... A case where the steps and lanes seems oh so wrong.
Sadly it matches the reality I run into ocassionally in school.
Laurie, thanks for the excellent explanation. I'm still wondering, though: are you saying that more than 12 students in your school are developmentally disabled-- i.e. "true" special ed kids? If you think it is 15%, then I think I'm right that too many kids are being classified as special ed. I like the distinction you make about the extra help of title 1 or ESL NOT being special ed, and I agree those programs are also very necessary (and hopefully effective).
I won't even pretend to be able to evaluate your school or staff from behind this keyboard, but I would hope that somebody does, with an eye towards making you all as effective as possible. THEN, if that takes more tax money, I would be supportive. Be warned, I think MN could "do education" for a LOT less than what they now spend, if they did it right. Part of that would be taking from those doing it wrong and giving it to those doing right, like you are, perhaps?
So if Principals are not good at evaluating performance... Who should? Parents/students?
I think we had better get them some more training or better criteria definition.
One more thought, demotion is also an excellent and under used tool. If the effort and excellence fades, I think it is better in some cases to let a person slip back in title and pay than to fire them.
Of course that is at odds with your "older people deserve more pay regardless of value add" view.
However I know many older people who were happy to be paid a bit less for lower stress and expectations as they reached their 50's.
Been there, did that. At our company, people were allowed to slip back into their old job with no loss in pay if they thought they weren't happy or doing justice to the new one. Pretty simple basic HR stuff, IMHO, but that doesn't apply in union shops.
If I was a principal or in charge of developing performance evaluations for teachers I would offer parents and students an opportunity to complete a brief evaluation. I think there is a place for teachers to evaluate each other as well. Most teachers want to do the job as best they can and I don't think carrots and sticks are really all that necessary.
This year the principal wants detailed lesson plans the week prior. This is not really how I operate and I don't think he is going to get them from me. I am going to use my knowledge and experience to do my job to the best of my ability and put my time into aspects that I think make me the most effective. Hopefully that will be adequate to keep to keep my job. If I get a one or a two for lesson planning I don't really care.
One last comment is I had an interesting conversation with my principal yesterday about keeping good staff. I said if we could keep the best staff we would be a better school. He said if we were a better school we could keep the best staff. Sort of like the chicken and egg thing.
"…I don't think carrots and sticks are really all that necessary."
They are no more necessary in schools than they are in private industry, but our union-run schools are woefully deficient in that regard. Without some kind of performance management you will have critics like me saying "the teachers get paid the same whether the kids learn anything or not."
"This year the principal wants detailed lesson plans the week prior. "
You raise an interesting conundrum: should the lack of or quality of lesson plans be part of a teacher's evaluation? I'm inclined to believe that they should not, and that only results matter. It would be especially foolish, in your kind of teaching, to say that on November 15 you are going to be teaching the addition of two-digit numbers to all of your students. On the other hand I would be absolutely lost if I did not sit down at the beginning of the year and lay out several ways to teach each of the individual educational objectives for the year, knowing that not every student is going to get it the first way. Then the skill becomes recognizing which approach to try next, or that the student has a grasp of the subject so you can move on. [Knowing, of course, that next week they will forget it and need a refresher.]
"He said if we were a better school we could keep the best staff."
Your principle is correct. Most professionals count "recognition" (of the fine job they are doing) as high as or even above the pay they receive in importance. Merit pay is one way of offering that recognition, but it is insufficient by itself. The problem with schools is that such recognition, or lack thereof, depends on the whole staff rather than your individual effort. It is a sort of chicken and egg situation, but it is more like a vicious circle with scrambled eggs and chicken salad. It makes me think that it is not enough to have evaluations and merit pay for individual teachers, but that we need to do the same thing with principles, after giving them the authority to "fix" their schools, as happens when schools are "reconstituted."
Laurie's situation may be a bit unique due to the special ed aspect, however her response seems typical of the Teachers I have discussed this with.
They often imply that they know what to teach based on their experience. This concept of autonomy seems very important to them. It seems they know better than the curriculum experts that are hired by the District. And the State experts who have decided what the children need to know to be successful. (ie the test makers)
I assume this is why following curriculum and "teaching to the test" are such hot spots for them... The Teachers seem to enjoy controlling what is taught when, more than actually ensuring that each child learns what has been proscribed by the State and District experts.
I must agree that it would be fun to be able to teach whatever interested me... Yeah, let's skip those concepts that bore me, and spend extra time on these concepts that I think are important.
How dare they micromanage me with a common curriculum !!! I know better than those managers and bureaucrats!!!
Thoughts?
My complaint was about the requirement for creating detailed lesson plans. Hopefully the district has chosen good curriculum that aligns with the state standards and provides a good framework for the lesson. Maybe teachers feel they have a better use of their time than looking up which standard each lesson pertains to, copying objectives, writing down all the components of a good lesson etc.
Most teachers do have a life outside of teaching and the time spent doing this means time not spent doing something else such providing feedback on student work, collaborating with other teachers etc.
Once again you have disagreed with a view that I don't have about teachers should be able to teach whatever they want. Even for my special education students who are well below grade level I have to write a standards based IEP, which involves looking at standards and finding some they can work on on a modified / lower level.
I don't know who you are talking to, but it has been a very long time since teachers think they should teach whatever they want. In my experience we have always been teaching with district provided curriculum and have been standards based for many years.
I am happy to hear I am mistaken.
Maybe they were just venting. If Teachers are okay with the curriculum and focusing on teaching it. Why all the angst regarding testing and having to "teach to the test"?
Laurie obviously knows what she is doing. She is acting like a professional and, while she accepts the objectives set out for her-- the state standards and the things on the basic skills (or other) test-- she wants to accomplish them her own way on her own schedule. That is somewhat the definition of a professional, and they [should] get paid according to how well they reach the objective.
I don't think it is teachers who complain about "teaching to the test." I think it is people who don't like the results of testing, and want to accuse OTHER schools of somehow "cheating" by teaching their kids the knowledge that the test is intended to measure. I wish MORE schools would do it, frankly, because test scores in many schools are abysmal.
I find it amusing and somewhat supportive of my view. Teachers want students to do well on the tests that they themselves give the students. I mean that is a pretty good measure that the children learned the "important content" that the teacher chose to test on. (ie what the teacher thought was important) And I rarely found a teacher in my many classes who hesitated marking points off when I didn't answer correctly.
Yet here the State gives them very clear expectations of what they deem to be important. And a group of people are very critical of the "important content" and standardized testing. I know my past teachers were not very open to me questioning their test material or "correct answers".
You may find this hard to believe, but I would sometimes question my teachers... Go figure...
How about a post on immigration? I want to know why there seems to be only two choices being discussed-- "send them all back" or a "path to citizenship" when a) it's a far more complicated situation (NOT amenable to a "comprehensive" bill, IMHO) and b) there are LOTS of choices in between those two extremes that make a lot more sense than either.
I think it's perfectly reasonable, perhaps even required, to question the content of the standards or the test that measures them, but that isn't the job of teachers; that's the job of everybody. I see that we have the first casualty from the DFL's lapdog adoption of Obama's Common Core standards= a 15% drop in tested reading proficiency in Minneapolis and St. Paul. They are calling it a "tougher test" but my educated guess is that it is the fact that Common Core wants to teach all that leftist crap that we thought had been driven out of MN schools when the dreaded "profile of learning" was euthanized years ago. THAT particular piece of leftist nonsense was the kind of problem Laurie complains of, because it not only described what was to be learned (much of it not academic) but HOW it was to be taught. The new State standards in Math and English, at least, are much better, and I trust the Pawlenty administration to come up with academic standards a lot more than I do Obama and his [rotten to the] Common Core.
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