Tag Archives: teacher unions

AFT Moves Forward with Bar Exam for Teacher Candidates

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AFTAFT President Randi Weingarten recently reaffirmed the AFT’s commitment to increasing the standards for teacher certification.

In a follow up to our previous post, American Federation of Teachers calling for an adoption of a bar exam for aspiring teachers, following are Randi Weingarten’s recent comments on the AFT executive council’s adoption of the report on teacher preparation entitled “Raising the Bar: Aligning and Elevating Teacher Preparation and the Teaching Profession”:

“The world is changing at breakneck speed, and so are the knowledge and skills educators need so they can help students be prepared for life, career and college. That’s where the AFT’s task force report “Raising the Bar” comes in-to accomplish our work, we must raise the professional standards for teachers and align them with what kids need to succeed in the 21st century. It’s well past time to end the sorry tradition of tossing brand-new teachers the keys to their classrooms and leaving them to see if they and their students sink or swim. This is unfair to both students and their teachers.

“Teaching, like the medical, legal and other professions, must have a universal, rigorous, multidimensional entry assessment to ensure that a new teacher possesses the required knowledge and skills to be a caring, competent and confident classroom professional. The report outlines such an assessment’s components, which include completing a yearlong clinical experience, knowing one’s content and basic teaching skills-like classroom management and differentiating instruction-and demonstrating that knowledge in real-life clinical classroom situations. It makes clear this ‘bar-like’ process is for prospective teachers and in lieu of, rather than in addition to, the processes that exist today.

“As in these other professions, those with the primary responsibility for setting and enforcing the standards of our profession should be the professionals themselves-in our case, educators, not those who haven’t taught or prepared teachers and have never walked in our shoes.

“All stakeholders-teachers and teacher educators, state education chiefs and education boards, accrediting agencies, and education associations and unions-must help end the patchwork processes we have now. We must work together to ensure that teacher preparation standards, programs and assessments are aligned with a well-grounded vision of effective teaching.

“After a great discussion, the AFT officers and executive council embraced the report’s recommendations and agenda for action. AFT teachers and teacher educators will now move forward with other invested parties as we work with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to design the standards and assessment prescribed by the report. Development and implementation of this assessment will give educators at all levels real ownership of their profession.”

For access to the full report, see: http://www.aft.org/pdfs/highered/raisingthebar2012.pdf

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AFT calls for Bar Exam for Teacher Candidates

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The American Federation of Teachers, led by President Randi Weingarten, has recently published a report entitled “Raising the Bar: Aligning and Elevating Teacher Preparation and the Teaching Profession.”

This report calls for a more rigorous process by which teacher candidates would be certified. The process would consist of the following steps:

  1. Teachers demonstrating subject area knowledge through evaluation of college level course load and a test to evaluate this knowledge
  2. Teachers demonstrating an understanding of social and emotional aspects of learning through evaluation of education related course work and a test to evaluate this knowledge
  3. One full year of “clinical practice” as a student teacher
  4. A “rigorous professional exam for K-12 teachers”
  5. More selectivity from teacher preparation programs including a minimum GPA of 3.0 for entrance and graduation and other measures

The last of these steps is part of a larger effort to have teacher certification programs, which vary widely in format and requirements across states and even within states, align themselves with the system created by the AFT.

Many states already require similar standards for teacher certification. For example, many states require candidates to pass two Praxis exams—one general teaching test and one in the candidate’s subject area. Most states also require student teaching, although often not one full year.

The AFT is at least in part responding to contentious policy issues and complaints in recent years about poor teachers and low standards for teacher certification. For example, NCLB of 2001 set up a new demand of putting “highly qualified” teachers in classrooms. Another example would be the Education Department’s negotiated rulemaking on Title II of the Higher Education Act. One highly publicized example of the highly debated issue of the role of teachers in failing schools and a lack of improvement in student test scores is that of the Washington DC public schools under former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Rhee attempted to clear out underperforming teachers, and Randi Weingarten of the AFT was one of the chief opponents of these efforts.

The irony of the situation is that there are already other efforts in place on the national and state levels as well as from professional organizations such as the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). The NBPTS has had, for 25 years, a strict certification process for teachers who would like to become nationally certified.  These requirements are optional for teachers, however, and usually teachers seek to achieve NBPTS certification in order to receive pay raises or have greater chances to teach in other states.

The NBPTS would actually be the organization in charge of creating the new “bar exam”, which they suggest they could prepare within five years.

Another example of an effort already underway to make teacher certification more rigorous is that of Teacher Performance Assessment, a performance-based licensing test that about 200 teacher preparation programs across 25 states are now piloting. One state which is moving toward using the TPA is Wisconsin, and their hope is that the requirements of submitting lesson plans, reflections of their work, and a video of their classroom interactions with students as part of the Web-based program will greatly improve teaching standards.

At the same time, the fact that a prominent teachers union such as the AFT is making an independent effort to create a more stringent process by which teachers are certified marks a shift in the debate about teacher certification.  There now appears to be a growing consensus among federal and state education officials, those in professional organizations, teachers unions, and others that an increase in the rigor of the teacher certification process which includes more alignment across teacher certification programs would be a desirable change that would help both students and teachers. For example, Weingarten stressed that one of the key reasons for this new process would be to more fully prepare new teachers for their first years in the classroom, rather than trusting that these new teachers would “figure things out, and [be] left to see if they and their students sink or swim.”

Following is the link to the brief on the AFT website and report: http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2012/120212.cfm

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Teacher raises: What works best?

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A crucial question at the nexus of the issues of student achievement and battles between school districts and teachers unions is the issue of teacher pay scale.  A helpful study by Jason A. Grissom of Vanderbilt University and Katharine O. Strunk of the University of Southern California has recently delved deeply into this question and come to the conclusion that creative options may be best for districts seeking to boost student achievement while also facilitating teacher growth.

The two primary types of pay scale options used by school districts and evaluated by Grissom and Strunk are front loaded pay schedules and back loaded pay schedules. In the first model, young teachers, who may be attracted outside of the teaching profession by other, more lucrative job opportunities, are offered rapid increases in pay in their first years of teaching.  The goal of the front loaded model is to bring in high achieving new teachers so that students will make corollary improvements. In this front loaded model, young teachers receive an average of 37% greater raises based on years of experience than do teachers who have been in the profession longer. Critics of this model argue that these teachers are not yet equipped to provide their students with the same level of quality instruction as their veteran counterparts.

The more common model in districts that use collective bargaining, due to the dominance of older, more experienced teachers in teachers unions, is the back loaded pay schedule. The theory here is that veteran teachers are the ones who will help students make the greatest achievement gains, so those teachers should be retained through attractive pay scale options. On average, these veteran teachers receive salary increases of 135% more than non-veteran teachers. This model has sometimes been held up as a paragon of the problem of teachers unions: older, burned-out teachers protect each other but do not help students make gains.

Grissom and Strunk, after serious study of the empirical evidence, suggest that neither plan is the silver bullet for satisfying teachers or increasing student achievement. First, the authors argue that there is correlation between back loaded pay schedules and a lack of student achievement gain; however, the correlation is so small that it cannot be seen as causal.  Further research here would help clarify the efficacy of back loaded pay schedules.  Furthermore, the authors argue that front loaded schedules do help attract quality, young teachers, but that this cannot as of yet be conclusively linked with greater student achievement. In conclusion, Grissom and Strunk offer creative options that may break the mold of these two dominant pay scale models. As succinctly summed up by Amber M. Winkler of the Fordham Institute for Advancing Educational Excellence, “For districts struggling under onerous collective-bargaining agreements, other financial perks such as loan-forgiveness or signing bonuses might make sense instead.”

For a link to a summary by Amber M. Winkler, see http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-weekly/2012/september-13/how-should-school-districts-shape-teacher-salary-schedules.html#body

For the original article, please see http://epx.sagepub.com/content/26/5/663

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How strong are US teachers unions?

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The Fordham Institute for advancing educational excellence has teamed up with Education Reform Now to draft a detailed report on the strength of teachers unions throughout the United States.  The authors, Amber M. Winkler, Ph.D. , Janie Scull , Dara Zeehandelaar, Ph.D., claim that this is the “most comprehensive analysis of American teacher unions’ strength ever conducted, ranking all fifty states and the District of Columbia according to the power and influence of their state-level unions.”  The authors evaluated a total of 37 different variables broken down into five main categories:

  1. Resources and Membership
  2. Involvement in Politics
  3. Scope of Bargaining
  4. State Policies
  5. Perceived Influence

The study analyzed factors ranging from union membership and revenue to state bargaining laws to campaign contributions, and included such measures such as the alignment between specific state policies and traditional union interests and a unique stakeholder survey. The report sorts the fifty-one jurisdictions into five tiers, ranking their teacher unions from strongest to weakest and providing in-depth profiles of each.

As might be expected, generally the teachers unions in the Northeast and West Coast are ranked higher in the report, although there certainly are exceptions to the rule.  For example, Alabama’s teachers union ranks the highest on political expenditures, even higher than Wisconsin, whose teachers unions’ political wrangling with a conservative gubernatorial administration have made many headlines in the past few years.

For more information, including an interactive map, a short video introduction, a full draft of the report, various sections of the report, and state-by-state breakdowns, please visit: http://www.edexcellence.net/publications/how-strong-are-us-teacher-unions.html

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Gill and Chaplin Author Op-Ed on Teacher Evaluation

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MathematicaA Pittsburgh Post-Gazette op-ed on teacher evaluations, authored by Mathematica senior fellow Brian Gill and senior researcher Duncan Chaplin, recommends comprehensive teacher evaluation that not only relies on achievement gains but also other valid and reliable measures. Multiple measures are a buzzword, but Gill and Chaplin unpack the options, which include locally developed curriculum-based assessments and teacher performance over the course of several years.

Gill and Chaplin discuss how Pittsburgh Public Schools collaborates with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (along with the help of their organization, Mathematica) to develop, pilot, and implement measures of professional practice that aim to be more comprehensive, rigorous, and useful than reports derived from cursory annual drop-ins by a principal. They write, “Multiple measures are relevant in several domains. Value-added models can be applied to locally developed curriculum-based assessments as well as to state standardized tests. Classroom practice can be observed by teacher peers as well as by principals. And the perspectives of students — who observe their teachers more than anyone else does — can be taken into account.”

Finally, they stress that, although all teacher performance measures should come with a certain level of scrutiny, using them is critical, because they can actually boost student achievement by making teachers better. Beyond that, better evaluations may even “raise the esteem in which the teaching profession is held.”

For more information on this story, please visit this website:  http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/evaluating-teachers-20-658474/

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LAUSD Ineligible for Race to the Top Funds

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Los Angeles Schools LogoRecently, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) submitted its Race to the Top-District proposal without the signature of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA). The move will make them ineligible for $40 million in funding.

The controversy between LAUSD, headed by Superintendent John Deasy, and UTLA, headed by President Warren Fletcher, surrounds exactly how those funds would be used within the school district.  LAUSD wants to apply the funds for various programs and technology such as “Linked Learning pathways, parent engagement programs, individualized support for students, professional development, and digital tablets” that will prepare students for college or for work after high school; however, UTLA argues that “it would not be fiscally responsible” nor would it “put teachers in classrooms.”

This is not the first time in California–a state that has been wracked by budgetary shortfalls in recent years–when school districts have been derailed in their attempts to gain federal education funds by a lack of accord with teachers unions. Glendale, Sacramento, and Bay Area school districts have faced similar problems.

Superintendent Deasy has attempted to circumvent the technicalities of the Race to the Top rule requiring a signature from the teachers union president. Writing to Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a supplement to the grant application, Deasy argued, “Though department rules mandate union support for the application, I appeal to you to consider the LAUSD grant. There is a common saying that extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. With LAUSD continuing to face historic budget challenges while demonstrating historic gains, we believe we are in the midst of such times.”

Thus far, the Education Department has held the official line.

The Los Angeles Education Partnership, a non-governmental education organization in Los Angeles that seeks to work with anyone concerned about Los Angeles schools, set up an “Education Salon” intended to make public any concerns about the role of teachers unions in facilitating student success.  After a “lively discussion, panelists agreed that a lack of trust characterizes the district-union relationship, often to the detriment of Los Angeles students.”

Ellen Pais, LAEP’s president and CEO, commented, “At points in Los Angeles’ history, people have been able to come together for the benefit of students,” she said. “How do we make now one of those moments? Who are the leaders in Los Angeles who are going to make this happen?”

The Education Salon panelists and audience members raised topics that included the:

  • need for inclusive conversations about education reform
  • tendency for all parties to focus on areas of disagreement rather than larger areas of agreement
  • exclusion of parents from the larger discussions about education and reform
  • barriers to reform found in the union’s House of Representatives
  • importance of education to solving the problem of poverty
  • length of the teachers’ union contract

“This Education Salon is structured to bring together a variety of viewpoints in a civil discourse,” said Jane Patterson, LAEP senior director, in her introduction. “The students of L.A. deserve nothing less than that from the adults who are the decision-makers for their schools.”

LAEP Board Chair Rod Hamilton moderated the discussion among Warren Fletcher, president of the UTLA teachers union; Jordan Henry, LAUSD teacher and co-founder of progressive teachers group NewTLA; Alicia Lara, vice president of community investment at United Way Los Angeles; and David Abel, president of ABL Inc., a public policy consulting firm, and LAEP co-founder and board member.

The notable omission was, of course, Superintendent John Deasy.

For more information, visit these links: http://www.dailynews.com/ci_21905869/lausd-seeks-40-million-race-top-grant-without.html and http://www.laep.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=36&Itemid=225

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Unclear Mandates & Uncertain Direction for Education Reform

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Yesterday, Andrew Rotherham reflected in TIME magazine on the election results and their meaning for public education reform. From the presidential election to local elections and ballot questions, the picture of public support for education is murky, leaving newly elected politicians with no clear roadmap for reform. Rotherham writes about the meaning of the election results in four key areas:

Standards for teachers and students
The biggest omen for the Obama Administration is, ironically, the defeat of a high-profile Republican, Indiana state schools superintendent Tony Bennett. He has been a quiet Obama ally, most notably in the fight to reform teacher evaluations and develop common academic standards in all 50 states. The latter effort didn’t endear him to conservatives, and Bennett’s Democratic opponent said she’d pull the state out of the standards initiative. Bennett also angered teachers’ unions with his blunt talk and his support for one of the toughest teacher-evaluation laws in the country. This left-right convergence led to Bennett’s losing on the same night that a conservative Republican won the governorship, and that doesn’t bode well for Obama’s centrist approach to education reform. Or for that matter, for GOP leaders on these issues, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who has championed many of the initiatives that got trounced on Tuesday night.

In other Republican-on-Republican violence, Idaho schools chief Tom Luna wasn’t on the ballot, but all three of his big education-reform measures were roundly defeated by voters in this solidly red state. Luna, who is a Republican and also the president of the Council of Chief State School Officers, the national organization representing state education agencies, had pushed hard for initiatives that would have instituted merit pay for teachers, weakened collective bargaining and mandated more online education and use of laptops in public schools. All bombed at the ballot box, despite an influx of donations to support them from out-of-state donors including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Meanwhile, South Dakota voters rejected a new state law that would have incorporated test-score data into teacher evaluations, added merit pay and weakened teacher tenure. The bill had passed the state’s legislature by just one vote, and defeating it was a top priority of teachers’ unions.

Unions didn’t win everywhere, however. In Michigan, which Obama carried, voters rejected a measure that would have expanded collective-bargaining rights for teachers and other workers. Bottom line: Just as we saw in Wisconsin last year, organized labor is not viewed sympathetically by many voters from either party, but teachers’ unions can still pack a punch when their back is against the wall. No one wants to be perceived as offending teachers. And that message won’t be lost on state and local elected officials — who will all be on the ballot in the next few years — as they debate how much risk they’re willing to take to carry out the President’s agenda.

Charter schools
Publicly funded charter schools were the night’s big education winner, scoring two hard-fought victories on opposite sides of the country. In Georgia, after the state supreme court struck down a charter-school law as unconstitutional, reformers took their case directly to voters, who by a decisive 58% to 41% margin approved a modification to the state’s constitution that will enable a special commission to authorize charter schools. In Washington, voters narrowly approved a referendum allowing the creation of charter schools, after rejecting similar initiatives in 1996, 2000 and 2004. Charter-school supporters like me see these wins as a sign that giving families more choices in education is no longer a question of if but of when and how.

Immigration reform
Maryland voters passed a state version of the controversial DREAM Act, granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants at public colleges and universities, provided they meet certain conditions. Long stalled in Congress, the measure sailed through on the ballot, with 59% of Maryland voters in favor of it and 41% opposed. That lopsided result, along with the growing importance of Latino voters in national politics, should embolden skittish politicians elsewhere in the country to help Obama tackle the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.

Education spending
The other big issue, in addition to immigration reform, that the President will face early in his second term is the deficit. In California, the prospect of additional education budget cuts helped prompt voters to pass a temporary increase in sales and income taxes. Fiscally, California is running on fumes, but the difficulty of doing something about it previews the coming debate in Washington over balancing spending cuts and tax increases to get the federal budget under control.

The fiscal cliff will now dominate politics in Washington. But the real education story of the 2012 election is the fragility of the reform consensus and the high-wire act the President and Republican reformers have ahead of them.

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6th Annual Education Next Survey Results

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Latino American School Children

The results from the 6th annual Education Next survey have recently been released. Education Next is an education policy journal which, according to their website argues that  “bold change is needed in American K–12 education” although they claim to partake “of no program, campaign, or ideology” and only to go “where the evidence points”. The survey was conducted in conjunction with the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. The results of this recent survey coincide with the upcoming United States presidential election and are reflective of a focus on educational policy reform.

In terms of methodology, the surveyors randomly polled 2,993 adult American citizens. Half of those surveyed were asked questions that allowed only answers in the positive or negative, while the other half were surveyed using a range of five responses, including one of neutral.  Furthermore, in order to highlight certain perspectives on education, the surveyors polled the following focus subgroups: public school teachers, parents of school-age children, African-Americans, and Hispanics.

The survey highlighted several key findings:

  • In a year when many speculate that Independent voters will play a large part in determining the results of the election, the survey suggests that Independents lean toward more conservative perspectives on teachers unions, spending on education, and school choice initiatives.
  • The results of the answers from Hispanic respondents also suggest that they care more about education in general than do whites or African-Americans and they also have a higher belief in the success of the American education system.
  • As might be expected, the survey results posit that public support is high for test scores being used to evaluate teachers while teacher support for the same is quite low.
  • Furthermore, in addition to an eroding support for teachers unions, even among teachers, the survey perhaps more surprisingly points out a generally lower confidence in teachers.
  • When confronted with specific details of school funding, most respondents showed modest support for increased school funding, although before respondents were shown the details, support for increased school support was generally quite high.
  • Finally, the majority of those polled showed support for various school choice initiatives, including vouchers, tax credits, charter schools, and online education.

The link to the article describing the survey results by William Howell, Paul E. Peterson and Martin West can be found here. Actual survey results can be found here.


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Teachers “Trending Toward Reform”

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Over the past decade, teachers have seen changes in both their conditions of employment-from pay to retirement benefits-and their practice. Far too often, these policies have been made by people who talk about teachers, rather than talking to them.
Last fall, Education Sector surveyed a nationally representative random sample of more than 1,100 K-12 public school teachers. The results of that survey are published in the newly released Trending Toward Reform: Teachers Speak on Unions and the Future of the Profession. The authors look at teacher attitudes on a variety of teacher-centered reforms, including new approaches to evaluation, pay, and tenure, and the role of unions in pushing for or against these reforms.
The report shows how teachers’ thinking has evolved on some reform issues. It repeats questions from Education Sectors’ 2007 survey Waiting to Be Won Over and a 2003 Public Agenda survey on these same issues. The findings show continued strong support for teachers unions–81 percent of teachers say that without a union, they’d be vulnerable to school politics or administrators who abuse their power. But teachers also want unions to be involved in more than just “bread and butter issues.” They want unions to put more focus on reform.

Other key findings include:

  • Teachers think evaluations are improving. In 2011, 78 percent said their most recent evaluation was done carefully and taken seriously by their school administration.
  • Three out of four teachers–76 percent–say that the criteria used in their evaluation were fair.
  • Teachers are warming to the idea that assessing student knowledge growth may be a good way to measure teacher effectiveness, with 54 percent of 2011 teachers agreeing. This compares with 49 percent in 2007.
  • Teachers are still opposed to including student test scores as one component of differentiated pay, with just 35 percent supporting that idea.
  • Teachers do support differentiated pay for teachers who work in tough neighborhoods with low-performing schools (83 percent support). Teachers also support differentiated pay for teachers who have earned National Board of Professional Teaching Standards certification or for those who teach hard-to-fill subjects.

To read the full report, please visit http://www.educationsector.org/publications/trending-toward-reform-teachers-speak-unions-and-future-profession

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Green Dot Announces Pay-for-Performance Agreement

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Green Dot Public Schools (GDPS), a charter school network operating in inner urban Los Angeles, announced earlier this month the approval of a contract with its teachers that includes a pay-for-performance evaluation tool.  Though the agreement does not “make the critical link between teacher compensation and student performance,” it does position the charter group to do so in two years.

Right now, teachers are getting their regular step and column advancement, but both labor and management is working to perfect the evaluation process with the expectation of formally incorporating it as a component for setting teacher compensation.  This agreement is unique among public (both charter and traditional) schools, because not only has a pay-for-performance plan been agreed to, but it has been agreed to with the support of the teachers’ union.

“We’re working very collaboratively with the teachers,” Marco Petruzzi, CEO of GDPS said. “They’ve really put a lot into this – in fact, nearly 30 percent of our teachers participated in focus groups and other activities. I think that’s really important – that it has been a group effort and not top-down, and we really worked through the details with the union.”

Though GDPS has always had a contract that includes performance evaluations, the new system makes the process more formalized.  For starters, administrators will be required to get specific training before they are allowed to conduct classroom evaluations.  They will also have to follow a specific process for conducting the evaluation, including transcribing a minimum sequence of at least 45 minutes of instruction.

In the meantime, GDPS has implemented an element of pay for performance in their compensation structure.  For the next two years, high performing teachers will be eligible for bonuses from $500-2,000.  “What we are doing is piloting teacher bonus on top of the step and column increases,” said Arielle Zurzolo, a teacher in GDPS and president of the union. “So teachers are guaranteed their money until we can feel confident to say that we trust this system – that is, when the system can say that you are an effective teacher, you are an effective teacher.”

Petruzzi said the administration is very sensitive to concerns about moving ahead too quickly.  “We know that there are a lot of kinks that need to be worked out,” he said. “We want, number one, for the credibility of the system to be very high.”

The progress made by GDPS vis-à-vis teacher evaluation has largely come from grant money from the Gates Foundation and the US Department of education over the past three years.  The uncertainty of how the system might continue to be funded once the grants have ended has led GDPS to consider how they may continue to make significant steps forward.  California’s struggling economy has decreased state education funding, and it is hard to predict when it might recover.  “In our mind, if we can get funding back to where it was [in 2008]—we have a path to make all of this work,” said Petruzzi.  “And it’s something that is highly repeatable by all districts.

To read the full story, please visit http://www.siacabinetreport.com/articles/viewarticle.aspx?article=2408

 

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